Last Friday on Facebook I posted a few thoughts about love- how it heals what is broken and takes us home. I also wrote,"That it broke me when someone I loved threw me across the room and I heard from the inside, the bones of my face cracking on the kitchen floor."
A got a little flurry of emails, messages and a couple of comments from folks who wondered if I was saying that love threw me across the room. I wasn't. My then-husband did the throwing and no, he was not being loving in any sense of the word when he did so.
But love did play a role in the impact that the violence had on me. Violence at the hands of a stranger must be terrifying. But finding yourself being battered and bruised by someone you love, someone with whom you have made love and life-plans, stayed up with all night talking, gone with to family dinners, shared canoe trips and silly laughter and secret dreams, turns you inside out.
From my own history and from working with others I know that the most common reason people give for not leaving someone who continues to abuse them is, "But I love him/her," or "S/he says s/he loves me, and I really think s/he means it."
Friends and relatives often respond by saying, "That's not love!" referring to either the violence- which most certainly is not love- or the desire to stay where there has been violence (which is a little more complicated in the face of tearful apologies, pledges to get help, and promises that it will never happen again.)
Here's what I finally figured out: Love is neither earned or unearned. It's a lot like grace- it comes and blesses and changes us. If the person we love abuses us, we don't have to figure out if they still love us despite their actions, and we don't have to stop loving them to remove ourselves from the place of being abused.
One of life's hard truths is that human beings sometimes treat people they love badly. How many of us can say we have never spoken harshly, aimed a barbed comment we know will hurt in the midst of an intimate relationship run amok? I am not equating unkind words with physical violence- there are important differences, including the level of cooperation required. When my six foot seven husband threw me across a room I had no choice about feeling pain when I hit the floor. But the truth is, although in theory words hurt only if we buy into them, in relationships words based on intimate knowledge of the other can do great harm because we know where the soft spots are, And in that moment the one on the receiving end doesn't have much choice about the anguish that arises- it just arises.
When I let myself acknowledge that I loved my husband but now had good reason to fear for my safety around him, I could leave.When I stopped obsessing about whether or not he loved me and how it was that someone could abuse someone they said they loved- could accept that this does indeed sometimes happen- I could remove myself from the place where violence was happening.
I am not saying that it is never possible to repair a relationship that has been marred by violence, although it's a long shot and not likely to happen without a great deal of skilled assistance. I am saying that love or no love, removing yourself from an abusive situation is vital to the mental, physical, and spiritual health of everyone involved, is an act of love.
I was a very young woman when I was beaten in my first marriage. It's been decades since I have had contact with the man who threw me across the room, but I wish him well. I remember the violence, but I also remember the canoe trips and the love-making, and the hopefulness of new love. I don't really know if he loved me or not. Honestly- and somewhat oddly- it doesn't feel like it's any of my business. Occasionally, when he comes to mind, I do a prayer for him, hold him in a moment when I remember the love I felt for the young man he was.
What freed me was realizing that I did not have to deny the love I had for him in order to leave. I just had to allow self-love to shape my choice. And I'm glad I did.
Oriah (c) 2014
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Great article, Oriah. And a beautiful way to consider an abusive relationship. I won't go into great detail, but I lived in an abusive relationship for 5 years, one that related to alcoholism. I stayed because I had nowhere else to go and i had become the epitome of an abused woman. Fortunately he put himself into situations that forced him to get the help he needed and forced me to regain my sense of self respect and independence. It was a rough road, but we were able to work it out and move forward. By the time he passed away in 2009 we had managed to have 30 years together, most of which were good. If we allow them to, circumstances usually seem to allow us to figure out who we are and who we aren't. Then it's up to each one of us to choose what's best for ourselves, not out of anger or resentment, but out of self respect and self love. Just my thoughts this morning.
ReplyDeleteWillow- thank you so much for sharing a bit of your story here. I know I said in the piece that we can sometimes work it out- but examples (when there has been abuse) are few and far between- so thanks for providing one. And yes, no one else can tell us what the right choice is for us.
DeleteOriah, you & I had the same experience, it seems, and went through a similar process to get to the leaving. It took me the national average of 3 incidents to finally go for good. I never doubted his love for me and I saw the roots of his violence, the reason. But none of that really mattered. He could have killed me. I saw myself as a strong, modern woman, but was I really? I should have gone the first time. So many others face domestic violence; we can never share our experiences enough as it might be the time our stories save someone's life. My ex husband is still on the periphery of my life and his fB postings show that he has not grown in the 30 years since our marriage. I bless him every day and remember that he also gave me the great gift of love at a time I most needed it. But, there was this other thing....and love isn't enough. Self-love is so important and must be stronger. Thank you for sharing such personal memories.
ReplyDeleteCarol, well I have taken more than a little grief about my suggestion that physical abuse does not necessarily mean the abuser or the abused no longer love each other. I was trying to take love out of the question re: staying or not because I think it adds so much to the confusion- and to the staying when it is dangerous to do so. So glad you left. Self love really does need to be strong. I wrote this because I know there are many women (and some men) out there in this situation. Thanks for sharing some of your story here also.
DeleteThank you Oriah for writing and sharing this very healing piece. Looking at the abusive relationship this way has really shifted something huge for me. I find it ok now to admit to myself that I love the man who gave me two beautiful children and a love and hope enough to want to marry him - AND the self-love to leave what had subsequently become a very abusive relationship. It took me three hard years to find myself again after leaving, and 14 years to accept what had happened in a more loving and healing way... thank you x
ReplyDeleteI am so glad this piece helped deepen the freedom to acknowledge your feelings for this man without confusing that with needing to give up your life for him. It seems so often that life requires us to hold paradoxes and contradictory things simultaneously- things like, I love this person but I need to remove myself from this place. Congratulations on the healing.
DeleteI have been awaiting this weeks' blog with eagerness and was so surprised by what you have written. I finally saw the light this January about my husband...how for years it has been an abusive relationship but I chose to not see it as such. Always blaming myself for him getting angry and physical....I'm the one labelled as tempermental and short fused...so if he got angry and violent then there must be a good reason for it. How sick is that kind of thinking? This last incident finally triggered something in my brain - that this just isn't right. No amount of violence is justifiable. If you don't like what someone is saying then walk away - what kind of world would it be if we all went around hitting everyone each time they would say something we didn't like? While the actual physical harm was minor - it doesn't matter - the emotional toll is severe. It's so hard to look at it all and try to understand how someone who says they love you can physically hurt you or also emotionally abuse you.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the places we often get "caught" is in trying to understand something that makes no sense - I know I get caught in this, thinking that if I can understand it, I will find a solution. The hard truth is that sometimes people do hurt another that they love. Of course, it is also possible that they do not love where they say they do. That's the kind of tangle that keeps many in a dangerous situation trying to figure it out. So glad your self-love has spoken loudly and clearly.
DeleteI have been verbally abused by my ex-husband. I would have never thought that this can shatter one's heart and soul just as badly as physical violence. Sometimes I would have preferred the physical violence, maybe that would have shook me hard enough to leave earlier. I guess it doesn't really matter anymore, I'm glad it's over.
ReplyDeleteI have read the other day somewhere that we choose husbands the way our father's were and in my case that's true. My father was just as verbally abusive as my now ex-husband. Even if it sucks, we seem to choose the "familiar" resp. what we are "used to".
Here's to all of us: Let's from now on choose kind loving men who cherish and treasure us. Who take care of us in a loving way. AND let ourselves be kind and loving towards ourselves, too. So that we can be a mirror and attract only love.
xox Sabine
Sabine, we often do chose partners who mirror some aspect of a parent. I don't think this is just because it is familiar (and so our alarm systems don't sound because it feels like old times- although that is probably part of it) but also because psyche is going for healing of wounds that were left untended in the past. When a current situation resonates with an old wound we have a chance to tend and heal it right back to the original. May this be so for you.
DeleteThat's a lesson I had to learn, too: the fact that I love somebody is not sufficient to share my life with him/her, when there are factors that undermine my trust in and safety with that person. And I *have* to feel safe in any relationship I continue, and to choose trustworthy people around me. That's become a non-negotiable point in my life.
ReplyDeleteAnd for me also Nora. Aside from the lack of any physical threat (a bare minimum requirement in relationship) the other thing that truly makes me feel unsafe, is lying. Not a lie- it happens- but a pattern of lying about pretty much anything. Hard to have trust when the truth is rarely told.
DeleteI ended my first marriage because of psychological abuse. I am blessed to have a husband who truly loves and supports me today. What I discovered is that I chose not only a husband, but also friends, who were psychologically abusive like my mother was to me and that these people were healing agents sent to teach me to love myself.
ReplyDelete