But there are times she's been so kind . . .
But he's my husband, the father of my children . . .
But she's my wife . . . I made a vow . . .
When you're in an untenable situation with a partner, a situation where you're suffering the hurt of physical or emotional abuse, you must recognize it for what it is now. The past - those bright moments or safe stretches - has no relevance, and the legal, structural framework of marriage (if you are married) has no hold. You did not promise to stay with someone who threatens and beats you. You did not sign up to stay with someone who denies the validity of all your ideas and crushes your dreams. You did not agree to stay with someone who berates, belittles, beguiles, bedevils, and behaves with complete disregard for your emotional security and physical well-being. You did not covenant to remain bound to someone who binds you with a twisted cord that chafes and burns your skin, cuts off your circulation, and as it tightens, forces the air from your gasping lungs. Whatever vows were made, your partner has broken. Your sanctuary has been desecrated, pillaged, and set ablaze. Your only option is to flee to safety and rebuild.
So often we close our eyes to what's happening and cling to past glimmers, turn a deaf ear to insults and contempt, savor a single, singular sweet moment to try to erase the bitterness choking up into our mouths, cloak the rotten odor of decaying dreams with the cloying scent of false hope, finger the one soft still shrinking spot in our partner's soul that hasn't hardened over. When we're not being kicked, we throw our selves down in a gesture of self-sacrifice. Maybe if I lay prostrate and he walks all over me, he'll love me more?
No, my friend. He - or she - will not love you because he does not love you. Because she is using you to soothe and satisfy her own unhealthy emotional needs. That is not love. That is not cherishing. That is not having and holding. When you have someone you love, you hold that person as a treasure and handle with care. People are fragile; we just don't have a stamp. Relationships - more fragile still. Relationships can be broken with the sting of a cruel word, the blow of an angry fist, the eroding force of a disrespectful attitude, the sharp knife of disengagement.
The only staying that is important is to stay in the now. Focus on what is happening now. Focus on how you feel, on how what is happening makes you feel. Realize that while someone is doing something to you, something that makes you feel unwholesome and unwell, you are also allowing those things to be done to you. You are a participant in the process. And you have the choice to call it quits, to stop playing the game. There is no winning outcome in this contest. You're never going to be vindicated. Your partner wants you to feel beaten, trounced, defeated, so you will not want to get up again, so you will not have the strength to leave.
Stay in the now, and then decide, is this a now I want to stay in? Is this the way I want to live?
What's come before cannot be altered. Change comes when you seize the present moment, make a choice, take a different turn, and start determining your future.
