- Take care of yourself first. I know it sounds selfish, but if you're constantly giving and never replenishing your emotional and spiritual stores, you're gonna burn out someday. In reality, you are the only one who can give you what you need. You have to find that completeness in yourself before you can be in a truly equal relationship. And the only way to do that is to be able to enjoy life alone. Once you can do that, you can share in your completeness with others. Once you are complete in yourself, you'll realize that no one else can really "take care of you" anyway. That if you need someone else in your life, there's some soul work to do. There's a difference between NEEDING someone in your life and WANTING them in your life. Needs change...wanting can last forever.
- Set boundaries. You don't need to put up with behavior that is hurtful or harmful to you. Harmful can be something as simple as worrying all night because you know your partner is at a bar alone. Set consequences for overstepping the boundaries and follow through with those consequences. Boundaries aren't there for restricting someone's actions or for controlling your partner: they're a sign of love for yourself and for your partner and a way of protecting yourself. It only hurts to see them drink too much because you love them: if you didn't love them, you wouldn't care how much they drank or if they killed themselves in an accident or lost their job because they got a DUI. You're not trying to control them, just to show them how much you love them and to protect yourself. It's the same reasoning that's used for setting boundaries for children: knowing where the boundaries are gives them a sense of safety. They know where they can and cannot go and they know if they stay where they're allowed to be, they won't get hurt.
- Abuse is a learned behavior and it can be unlearned. If someone is abusing you, it may be that they don't know any other way to react when under stress. It is up to you to educate them. You have to spell it out clearly and say "This is abuse because you're taking away my free will." Once they know that you see it as abuse, if it continues, your choice then becomes leave (to stop it) or stay (and let it continue). You owe it to yourself and to the one you love to stop it because it's not doing them any good going through life getting what they want by manipulation or abuse. They're going to be held responsible for it in this life or the next and the longer it continues, the more they're going to have to answer for. (I'm not talking about perceptions here. If I hit you, for whatever reason (other than perhaps self-defense) then I am abusing you. If I call you names like "whore" or "bitch", then I am abusing you. If I attempt to control who you can or cannot talk to, where you can or cannot go, that is abuse. If I'm polyamorous, and you know this from the start but you're hurt when I fall in love with someone else, that's not abuse. If you have been talking about how bad your financial situation is and you go out and buy a microwave, and I question whether or not you really needed the microwave, that's not abuse.)
- No one deserves to be abused and those who were abused should understand that better than anyone...but sometimes they can't see the forest for the trees. They honestly don't realize that what they're doing is abusive because it is so very normal to them. They see their behavior as completely normal and proper because that's what they grew up with. It's how they were taught to behave. It's up to you to tell them, "Hey, this is wrong". They don't have to agree with you, in which case you're back to the choice of taking it or leaving. But they may just say "You know, I never looked at it that way before."
- If someone honestly loves you, they won't ask you to change for them. They might ask you to change for your own sake (like to stop drinking because it's unhealthy), but they won't ask you to give up your beliefs or to compromise your standards just so they can be happier.
- You can't beat yourself up over a relationship that ends if you've done your best and tried your hardest. A relationship is a two way street. On some things there is no compromise and only you can determine if giving up what you want for your partner is worth it. On the things you can compromise on, remember that a compromise is when everyone gives up a little of what they want to get a little of what they want. If you have to give up everything and get nothing, it's not a compromise.
- You can't control how someone perceives what you do. You can explain why you did what you did, but no matter how often you do, they'll believe what they want. Even written proof or witness won't change their perception until they're ready to change it.
- It's not your job to rescue or save your partner. They have free will and you must respect that. It's one thing to point out that they're getting ready to walk off a cliff. It's another to prevent them from doing it if they're fully aware of what they're doing and what the possible/probable consequences are. When one attempts to take control of their partners life, one is putting themselves in a position of power over their partner. Any relationship where one partner has power over another is not a relationship that will survive for long. You may not like the choices your partner makes, but you have no right to impose the choices you DO like on them no matter how well-intentioned they might be. If you try to get them to do it your way, you're saying, in effect, "I'll only love you if you do it my way". You're trying to change who they are...and who they are is who you fell in love with. So if you change that, they're not going to be the person you fell in love with and the relationship will end. Conversely, if you're trying to change them into what you wanted them to be, you didn't fall in love with who they really are, but with who you wanted them to be. A relationship is between equals...where the free will of both parties is respected and honored. If you can't handle the choices your partner is making, change YOUR actions, not your partners.
- Loving someone with all your heart doesn't mean that you're gonna be with that person forever and always, always and forever. It takes two people to make any relationship work and one cannot do all the work alone. One cannot always be the giver. One cannot always be the one whose needs are unmet. One cannot always be the one blamed for the problems.
- The effects of abuse last long after the actual abuse has stopped and affect virtually every aspect of a survivors life, from how they perceive your words/actions, to their ability to trust, to their need (in some cases almost an obsession) for control, to their ideas regarding intimacy, to their ability to open up with their emotions, to the physical ailments that accost them, to their own self-image. A survivor's self-esteem is often very low and they may see themselves as failures: failures as a child, as a spouse, as a friend, as a parent. They can very easily see what is wrong with them but can very rarely acknowledge what is right with them. They often have self-destructive behaviors: anything from overeating to drug/alcohol abuse to over-exercising to bulimia. Some of them even go on to become abusers themselves, thus continuing the cycle of abuse.
- Those who love someone who is a survivor of abuse are secondary survivors. The one they love often does not trust them, will not confide in them, will constantly test their love, will expect the worst of them, will always be waiting for "the other shoe to fall". The survivor, not believing they deserve to be happy, often subconsciously/unconsciously sabotages the relationship: telling lies when none are needed, doing things that are "off limits", having affairs, keeping secrets, etc. While you can get frustrated as hell, there's nothing you can do. The healing won't begin until your loved one wants it for THEM. If they start to heal for you, it won't work. If they start to heal to save the relationship, it won't work. If they start to heal to make YOU happy, it won't work. They have to want to heal: to realize that, yes, the abuse has affected them in ways they never realized and that they don't want to live with that kind of pain in their life anymore. When they reach that point, then they will start to truly heal.
WARNING: POSSIBLE TRIGGERS.The following article deals with lessons I have learned from loving a survivor of childhood abuse. It may be triggering to any who are survivors of abuse and I urge any survivor who may read this to stay safe when doing so.
I honestly believe that part of my...task...this lifetime is to be a teacher. I have to share what I have learned with those who might read this. Whether or not they choose to learn from it is not my responsibility. My sole responsibility comes in making the information available to those who are seeking knowledge. I have been in three relationships with survivors of abuse. The past almost twenty years of my life have been spent in these relationships. My therapist asked me what it was about them that drew me to them, but in truth, I can't answer that because in each case, it was love at first sight. An instant recognition on a soul level that this person was going to be a big part of my life. Sometimes it took a while to admit it was love because of my own fears, but nonetheless, the recognition was there before I knew much about any of them. So what words of wisdom can I pass on to others who may find themselves in a similar situation? (In the following paragraphs, "you, your, yourself, etc." refers to the reader.) I may seem to repeat myself, but these all tie in so closely together, and yet they're separate points in and of themselves.
To any survivor who may be reading this, I'd like to say this.
Sometimes, loving you feels like we're going insane. But you have to remember that we who love you are going through this out of our own free will. There's a song by the Indigo Girls called "Ghost". Part of the lyrics go like this:
"I feel it like a sickness
How this love is killing me
But I'd walk into the fingers
Of your fire willingly
And dance the edge of sanity
I've never been this close
I'm in love with your ghost."
©Indigo Girls (Emily Saliers/Amy Ray)We who love you see the "real" you: the you that is buried underneath all the garbage that was piled on you by the abuse. You look in a mirror and you see the garbage...we look at you and we see what's under all that garbage. But as long as all you see is the garbage, you will only be a "ghost" of your true self. We're here to help you take off that garbage if you'd like us to, even though we know you can do it yourself. You're stronger than you give yourself credit for. You're smarter than you give yourself credit for. You're more capable than you give yourself credit for. We just hope that someday you can see you as we see you.
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