If One Person Benefits, I Will Feel Accomplished.

If your partner hits you, what would you do? Would you leave them? Would you go to counseling with them? Would you pray to God it never happened again? Would you stay and work through it with the help of a licensed professional, or would you just put faith in a human being who has fallen short? What would you do?
Let's look at it from a difficult angle. Your partner has a disrespectful way of talking to you. Is it condescending? Would you rather them hit you because it would be over more quickly? Do you let them walk all over you with freshly sharpened spurs? Would you leave? Would you go to counseling with them? Would you pray to God it never happened again? What would you do?
Here's another angle. Has your partner ever made you do something you didn't want to do, to which you objected? Told you, "if you love me, you'll _______". Have you given in, because you believed that this person loves you, and wouldn't do anything to hurt you? What would you do?
Now let's get hypothetical. Let's say this has been happening for awhile. Let's say you watched them do this to someone else before they were your partner. Let's say you let them walk all over you because you're so blinded in "love" that you are obedient to their every whim. You'd "catch a grenade" for them. Would they do the same? They take advantage of this "love" and tell you after they have hurt you that they, too, love you and that they "don't know what came over" them. Have you heard it? Have you said it? Do you even know it's happening?

STOP! THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOVE, AND RESPECT.

I have seen it happen, people do in fact change. Do not mistake me, I do believe in love. I believe in the transforming effect that love can have. I also believe that with love, comes respect. One must respect their partner. Playing into one's Oedipus complex is not being respected. Just as love, abuse knows no gender. THIS IS ABUSE.
Don't believe me? Ask someone. Take a poll on the street. I've been there done that. Yes, couples argue. Yes, they disagree. An argument or disagreement should NEVER lead to violence, or disrespect. If your partner needs their Oedipus complex fed, tell them to go back home to Momma and Daddy. We are put on this earth to love, and parent our young(however they may come to us). We are not put here to raise an adult. If you are entering into an adult relationship, then you should both act like adults. If you are not a whole, complete person entering into it, you will be the same broken person when you aren't in it.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Unfortunately. But YOU CAN GET OUT. If you've left once, you can leave again. Because just like them, you too can become a repeat offender. LEAVE. Just because they sucked you in, doesn't mean you can't let go. Trust me. There is someone even better than the best times you've had with that person. Guilt, is mental abuse. Shame, is emotional abuse. Touching, hitting, punching, is physical abuse. "If you love me then you'll ______", is (usually) sexual abuse. Respect yourself and leave. If they want you badly enough, they will learn to respect you, in tandem with loving you. They have to earn you. You are a prize. You won the race in the very beginning. You are a winner. You are chosen. Wanna know what love really is? Forget what ya' heard. Here's what I know:

1 Corinthians 13

 ¹ If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.


Take it to heart. If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship and can't get out, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233). It does get better.

Until next time, peace and love

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.