Laboring to Love an Abusive Mate

Although I didn't have any new visible scars after I left my abusive relationship back in 1996, I did have plenty of wounds on my heart and my mind that didn't start to heal until I recognized the truth about myself and the man I thought would one day be my husband. I realized that I had a history of connecting with wounded souls on an intimate level even when I really didn't like my dates that much from the start.  How and why did that happen?  It may have started back during my teens when I thought that appeasing a hurting man or woman by giving into their requests was the way to go based on the dysfunctional programming that I watched on and off the television screen.  I saw my relatives do just that when I was a child--give in.  Time and time again they would act like they didn't want to help a manipulator, player, pimp, or hustler, but their mouths would say, "Yes, but only this time."  Codependency was something I was all too familiar with since as a c...

The sexual encounters filled with psychological manipulation, pain, and control might look glamorous in movies, fun for some, and overall just cool to fantasize about.  However, for abusive men and women, they often take things too far!  I revisited that time in my life where I was in college and enjoyed meeting new people.  I recalled meeting the older gentleman with an articulate speaking voice and appeared to be quite kind.  He was handsome but deadly.  The "nice" man had a dark side.  The more time I spent with him, the more he lured my mind then my body and months later my spirit.  He had broken me.  His sexual fantasies intensified and in some twisted way, I remember caught up in a roller coaster ride of break up to make up until he proposed on Valentine's Day. His web of destruction was alluring, not demented or crazy.  Things didn't get strange until his requests for me to do more and more for him began to take their toll.  On...

Holiday seasons are being utilized for all the wrong reasons when it comes to volatile relationships .  Buy one's abuser as much as he or she can and hopefully no abuse will occur, the girlfriend thinks.  Gather favorite relatives and friends around and maybe a spouse will be on his or her best behavior.  Reach out to travel planners to make an abusive husband's dreams come true.  Oh the victims, what great lengths they will go to appease an abusive partner. I recall the money, time and energy I spent in relationships with verbally and physically abusive loved ones.  I also remember wishing the pain would stop at least for awhile if only I could make them smile.  Instead of buying love, what I needed to do was address my pain.  The nagging feeling on the inside that a cheater was at it again.  The stomach pains from once again having an emotional outburst with a relative because I exposed one's lies.   The soreness in my bones from fightin...

The tears came often for a long time with every offense, secret found out, lie told, and more.  The emotional abusive, physically violent, and miserable type of men that came and went out of my life (as well as those who I had pushed out), I had grown weary of the tears I cried for them.  Swollen eyes, darken circles, and that feeling of weakness that comes over you from crying so much had worn me down emotionally, physically and spiritually time and time again.  I even stopped going to church for a long time because I just didn't need to feel emotionally charged, crying yet again over all that went wrong was the last thing I wanted to do.  Yet, I eventually did go and kept going, and to my surprise, the guilt, grief, and other emotional burdens left. As I grew older, more secure in myself, and taking charge of my life, I realized that the tears weren't falling as much as they once did.  I could care less about "the acts" that my abusers had put on to appe...