“He had it all.  He was the ultimate desirable bachelor, yet he was single.  All the “suitable” young women from wealthy families evidently hadn’t impressed him.  He noticed Ruth though…”

Your home may have been beautiful with a large backyard, beautiful Landscaping, two stories…but that two-story home held two stories inside its walls:  One story was the fiction novel you allowed the outside world to see…the one you so desperately wanted to be true…the one where you were a happy, intact, two-parent, Christian family who looked good, dressed good, smelled good, arrived at church every Sunday in the ‘right’ car,  and were thought highly of.  The second story is the biography – the true and painful story of spousal and child abuse (including some or not all of the following components:  emotional, verbal, mental, financial, physical and sexual abuse). 

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and I haven’t written anything on my blog for months. I have been struggling with whether to remain vague or share my truth.  I know that I have come to a dangerous place…a dangerous place of telling the whole truth.  I KNOW THAT WHOLE HEALING REQUIRES SPEAKING THE WHOLE TRUTH.

Home (where love is) should be a refuge, an anchor, a safe place when the storm is too much to bear. There is a distinct difference between enabling an adult child and showing them unconditional love and support to leave an abuser.

I was really young but I remember thinking, "That's it? A piece of gum?!" I guess I'll never know if he didn't want to see me or he wasn't allowed to. My mom divorced him before I was a year old. I know that experience was a major part of the decision I made as a woman to stay in an abusive relationship. I just never wanted my children to experience how it would feel to watch their dad turn on his heel and walk away. 

“I wanted to find real love. But it was a far-fetched dream because of all the dream-smashing going on around me. I couldn’t even love myself.” – Mary J. Blige

Mary J. Blige spoke for a few minutes and I suddenly understood in a way I never had the secondhand effects of Domestic Abuse.

It's still a weird day for so many reasons...it's the third anniversary of my divorce and it brings up questions but it also brings up resolve and even joy...The questions are all retrospective and deep.  Why did I stay so long?!  What were the things in my childhood that lead to me being a "fixer," an empath, the one whose responsibility it was to make everything seem fine when it was really all very wrong?  How does being unloved and not knowing what true, unconditional, healthy love looks and feels like, set you up to choose a mate who also won't be capable of loving you and, more importantly, not harming you?

Oh yeah...NOTHING! #DV destroys the lives of children who witness it.  They are highly likely to have psychological problems--including #PTSD, lower IQ scores, difficulty learning, and premature aging.  Statistics show they are physically abused or seriously neglected at a rate 1500% higher than the national average...

If you are currently in an abusive marriage and wondering what is worse; what you face if you stay or the aftermath you face if you leave, let me assure you staying is worse. Aftermath is not further pain or a sign that you will never be totally free of your abuser because he is gone but still adversely affecting your life. To the contrary, aftermath is a process...a healing process that you must face and go through to get to the other side of it. What is on the other side of the aftermath? Healing, peace, strength, increased faith, and a new life.

If you have experienced abuse from a parent AND abuse from your husband or significant other, you have experienced trauma in the two of the most important bonding relationships a human being is meant to experience.