Month: January 2021

Accepting the Unacceptable

Accepting the Unacceptable

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I went over to my mom’s house the other day. She has a new computer and didn’t care for the default settings in her Word documents. I took about five minutes and set everything in a manner that worked better for her…and then realized I have never done this basic and simple thing for myself. For years and years, when I opened a Word document (which happens numerous times a day), I have automatically gone through the motions to change the font and spacing.

Why? Why did I do something so easily for my mom that I have failed to do for myself.

Because for such a long time I lived in a marriage which gave me nothing. And I taught myself that it is okay to accept the unacceptable. It is okay to give, and give, and give and show up with my A-game year after year to only receive leftover scraps of nothing in return. To endlessly cater to another’s demanded needs when that person had no care for mine whatsoever. Without knowing it, I deeply embraced the message that I wasn’t worth being happy. That if a situation wasn’t okay, I had to simply endure it. That I had no choice but to hang on in a relationship that was sucking my soul dry. That message has been so ingrained in my mind through years of emotional abuse, that I have been incapable of feeling worthy of something as basic as changing my Word settings such that they work better for me. I could do this action so happily for someone else, but not for myself.

When I moved into my new place, I felt frozen every time I thought about hanging artwork and making my house into a home. As I examined why this was going on, I realized a part of it was overwhelm, but a great majority of my hesitation was because I had a deep-seated belief that I don’t have the power to change things I don’t like. I believed somehow that if there is anything in my life I am unhappy with, I am stuck with it…kind of like I was in my marriage for so long.

No more! So I picked up a hammer and some nails and I started pounding holes into my walls. If the pictures don’t work and the wall is dinged up, that can be fixed. Because I have the power to rectify that which does not work for me. I have the power to do whatever I need to do to make my life comfortable and happy. I’m worth it…every human is worth it.

I don’t always love the journey of recovery I am on, but sometimes it yields these incredible gems of truth. It helps me to embrace mental blocks which have held me back for far too long. I never will allow myself to wallow in that mental headspace again where I believe I am incapable of changing the things that are not acceptable in my life. Hello, sweet freedom!

Oh, and yeah, my Word setting are all fixed now too…

The Power of Transformation

The Power of Transformation

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After it became clear I would need to end my decades-long marriage, the question of what to with the relics of that union plagued my already shattered heart. At that point, I also began to sense that I would eventually need to move. My wedding dress had been wrapped and living in the corner of an unused closet for many years. The idea of moving it to a new home, where I hoped for a fresh start, disturbed me on many levels. Because every time I saw it, I thought about that innocent, young bride…me. She was so happy and in love. She felt honored that she had found a man who would cherish her, despite her flaws. She felt thrilled that she was going to enter into the covenant of marriage which would endure for the rest of her life and into the eternities. She searched long and hard for the perfect gown—a physical representation of all of those dreams.

You’ll note that I shifted into third person when writing the last few sentences. That is because that hopeful young woman I once was feels so different from the battle-weary woman I am today. Those dreams I cherished at that time were systematically destroyed over years of deceit, betrayal, and cruelty. It is hard for me to connect in with my twenty-two-year-old self, and I often think of me at that time as another person.

I was led to an organization who took wedding gowns and turned them into burial clothing for stillborn babies through a casual conversation with a business connection. And, no, I don’t believe in randomness or coincidence. I believe in guidance and connection into a power much greater than ourselves. This felt so right, that my dress would have a purpose. But, I hesitated, because I didn’t want to get rid of my dress if my daughters wanted it for any reason. Eventually, we were able to have a conversation and there was zero sentimentality around anything to do with my wedding. My daughters agreed with my decision that it would be best to donate it to help others. My dress was lovingly made into several items of burial clothing to be donated to suffering and unprepared families. Knowing that something which once meant so much to me could be repurposed into items that perhaps might offer a bit of peace in another’s time of deep grief was healing. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the seamstress made one of the gowns pink, my favorite color.

This small event has become a very symbolic one for me. It shows me the power and capacity of human transformation. That we can put away the past and use whatever we gained from that time to assist ourselves and others to forge ahead in unexpected way. I never would have imagined I would end up in the place I find myself today. Yet, here I am. I’m trying my best to repurpose. It is my deep desire to help women have been injured through betrayal trauma understand how valuable they are and that through much pain and work, they are going to get better. How can I help you in your transformation?

The One Who Stays

The One Who Stays

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I have a wonderful friend and fellow traveler on the path of betrayal trauma recovery who said something the other day that rocked my world. It went something like this: Don’t be sad for me because I am alone; be sad for the one who stays.

A little over two months ago, I moved into a new house. As a single mom, there was a lot of physicality that went into downsizing and preparing the house to sell. I spent the entire summer in the yard essentially replacing all the sprinklers. I super-deep-cleaned a 3,500-square-foot home and performed a lot of minor repairs. And that was before I began packing and moving. The people at the donation center became fast friends. By the day of the move, it was obvious that things were not well with my knees. Fast forward to two weeks after when I went to Urgent Care (something I have never done for myself) and was diagnosed with an “extreme overuse injury” and was sent home to heal and rehabilitate.

Time went by. I rested. I stopped all physical activity. But I wasn’t getting better. And then the battle morphed from a purely physical one to a mental one. I anguished for the next two months of what I would do if I needed knee surgery. Suddenly, all the crowing I had done about rocking my single life went out the window. I felt truly terrified of what the future looked like as a woman with a severe injury who perhaps wasn’t going to fully heal…ever. The strong health I’ve enjoyed my entire life suddenly appeared to evaporate. How I would live and take care of myself? It was a truly dark time and I kept dwelling on real truth of my situation with a hollow echo back: “I am alone”.

But then my friend said her inspired statement: don’t be sad for me because I am alone; be sad for the one who stays. I remembered that being alone is not a new phenomenon for me. I have been alone for decades. True, I had a husband physically present, yet, he wasn’t really there. For many years, I didn’t understand why a malaise of isolation seemed to follow me around, never imagining the reality lurking around the corner. You are alone when you live with a person who operates a double-life, because you are not able to make informed decisions about your safety, health, and sanity. There is no real connection and bonding. Choice is removed for you personally, without your knowledge, when your partner does not honor marital covenants. Indeed, I feel far less lonely now than I did when I was in my marriage.

I’m not an advocate of leaving a relationship—I stayed in mine for twenty-nine years and I nearly wore myself out trying to save my marriage and my family. This is not a lighthearted subject for me. However, I realize that though I am now single and “alone”, I have far deeper relationships because the nature of living with an addict or a narcissist is they intentionally isolate. Your support network shrinks down to nothing. Now, I have incredible relationships with new friends who mean so much to me. I have an amazing family. I have a wonderful religious community. I am a much deeper person, because for most of my life I bottled myself up, believing the covert message that my needs didn’t matter. I feel like me again for the first time in decades. I am richly blessed.

In my journey of healing and trying to help others, it breaks my heart to see how many women feel like they have to stay. That they don’t have any options other than to live with someone who doesn’t care about them and won’t change. They don’t even have basic respect in their lives, not to mention honor and love. Being a divorced mom was always my worst nightmare and the life I live now is one I would have never even imagined five years ago. But God doesn’t expect his fair daughters to live with abuse. God doesn’t expect us to live a life where we are constantly checking our husband’s phone, monitoring his every move, and inspecting search histories to the point where we can’t eat and we can’t sleep. This is not agency, this is not living. That was never the plan—and it will never be the plan.

Don’t worry about me. I am going to figure out my health concerns, and I am going to rely on my network of genuine relationships to help me if I need it. I am going to express daily gratitude for the gift that I can live a life where the behavior of another, who is supposed to be my closest friend, impedes the Spirit in my home. Yes, life is hard, but don’t feel sorry for me. Worry and pray for the one who is so beaten down by the actions of another that she doesn’t know that she deserves more. 

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