The One Who Will Be Abused After You

Violet is ready to leave her abusive husband - almost. She struggles with what-ifs, but I sense she has one foot out the door already. She asked in her comment,

"I think about him meeting someone else; what if he is good to her? Does that make her better than me? I know someone else addressed this, but it is a real fear of mine. Am I making him act this way?"

Am I Making Him Act This Way?

Fifteen days after leaving my husband, Will, I came to a powerful realization. I wrote on my blog and this is what I said:

You see, once upon a time, I believed Will when he said that I made him angry. I made him yell. I made him go into a$$hole mode. I made him want to hit me. I made him cut me down. I made him use physical force to subdue me. I must have thought I thought I was pretty damn powerful, being able to spin that man around in such a tizzy that he would justify his own behavior by blaming me for it.

There is a flip side of being so omnipotent and powerful. I could make him mean, hateful, vengeful even…but I couldn’t make him love me, I couldn’t make him respect me or be nice to me. What’s the point of being “omnipotent” when your “powers” only work against you?

Fact is, I tried to make him love me for me, and when that didn’t work, I thought he’d love me as his baby’s mother. When that didn’t work, I morphed into the house frau he said he wanted me to be. Along the way, I’ve tried to be his mother, his MawMaw, his aunt; I even tried to be “more like” other people he’d point out to me. I tried to make him love me, and I couldn’t do it.

So why did I buy into the idea that I could make him angry?

I think that believing I could make him feel something was better than acknowledging he would never feel love for me. I thought there was something broken inside me, something that I could fix. I forced myself into fits of depression thinking that there, at the bottom of the pit, I would find the thing that made me so unlovable. Once I found it, I thought I could pluck it out and dispose of it, then rise to the surface of myself to find that he was able to love me.

I do not wonder why I spent so long looking for something that was broken [inside of me]…I know that I wanted a happy marriage, a loving husband, a close family. I wanted what I wanted when I married Will – to be a part of his life, to share myself and my gifts with him believing that we complemented one another and together, we were unstoppable. I wanted this so badly that I stuck around for almost 18 years trying to create it.

Underneath it all, we want to know we're lovable. Abuse convinces us that we are not lovable, not even likable. Abuse convinces us we're sub-human and everyone else in the world can see it. Abuse shames us, it shames and dims the light God meant for us to shine bright for all the world to see.

Our abusers circled our light in the beginning like a moth to the flame. Our abuser wanted us, just as we were, because they thought we could share our light with them, and "make" them better for it. The abuse begins when the abuser realizes that no one, specifically not their victim, can cast a light so bright that it illuminates their own darkness. And trust me on this one, abusive people live in a very dark place.

What If He Is Good To Her? Does That Make Her Better Than Me?

Your abusive mate will find another light shining brightly from another person that beckons them like a moth to a flame. After you are gone, your abuser can no longer believe that verbally, emotionally, or physically beating your light out of you will work. Your abuser may wonder what they ever saw in you, seeing that your light faded so drastically. Your abuser will not comprehend that the effects of the abuse caused your light to fade, and they certainly will not wait around in their darkness to see if your light reignites.

Your abuser will find another person who shines brightly. Your abuser will wow his New Light with loving actions, sweet words; your abuser will seem to the New Light like a gift from heaven. The New Light will probably be a lot like you.

The New Light is no better than you. Sure, you may feel defeated right now, but your light is on the mend. You are coming back into who you are and always were. But your abuser's New Light is on the way to darkness. You probably won't see it happen because, if you remember, the Abuse is kept a secret. You are no longer allowed to see your ex-abuser's inner world because you've been cast out.

But you KNOW.

Please remember that despite your ex-abuser's opinion of you, Abuse is always wrong in its judgments. Abuse seeks to kill what lives when Love seeks to nurture what lives. Loving yourself in the absence of abuse nurtures you. It guides you to new insights. You realize that no one is better than or less than, we're all simply trying to shine our lights. You heal. You believe your Self again, and any pain caused by seeing your abuser with a new victim subsides into the light of truth.