Staying Strong After You've Left - Part 1

Survivors often ask me, “How do I stay strong and deal with my ex after I leave? He (or she) is still trying to control me and is pushing my buttons.” This is a good question to address with your therapist or in therapy group. They’ll have many helpful suggestions. I have a few thought on the issue, things that worked for me. I’ll deal with one of them here and others over the next few posts.

One of the reasons abusers can so callously attack their partners is that they have de-humanized them. Controlling partners believe that their victims are property. When a victim decides to walk away, the controller is stunned and cannot believe it is happening. As he sees it, the victim has no rights. The abuser cannot accept that the partner is actually going to leave. So, he will open the bag of tricks that have always drawn the victim back into compliance. If we can identify those "tricks" they lose their power over us. 

When these "tricks" don't work, controlling partners often ratchet up their bad behavior. Be cautious and use all available safety measures to protect yourself and children. We know that leaving is the most dangerous time. Even abusers who have not been physically abusive, may become physically violent during this time.

It’s important that survivors be positive in their hearts and minds that the relationship is over. This is not always an easy place to get to. Therapy is the best tool to help. Often we still feel love or compassion for our partner. The hope that he “may” change has been with us so long it’s hard to let it go. As we struggle with this, can we come to an agreement within ourselves that our partner’s behavior must end? Can we:

• Accept that we cannot change our partner,
• Accept that if we stay nothing will change,
• Let go of the vision of our partner changing in the near or distant future so the relationship can be rekindled, and
• Focus on this moment, right now, and what needs to be done to end the abuse?

One of the things that I found most helpful was to:

Make a List of What You Do and Don’t Love About Him 

Know that your partner will, most likely, put on the “Mr. Wonderful” facade he wore to reel you into, and hold you in, the relationship. Recognize that this is not who your partner is. To help you clarify this in your mind, divide a sheet of paper down the center. At the top of one column write “What I Love About Him” and on the other, “What I Don’t Love About Him.” Spend time listing what has been good and what has been painful about your life together. Chances are, when you’re finished, you will see how the bad far outweighs the good. You may even see that the traits listed on the love side are not really who your partner is at all, but who he’d pretended to be when you first met. (Who he’s pretending to be again to win you back.) Carry the list with you. When the ol’ heart strings start tugging on you, take out this list and remember why it’s not a good idea to stay involved with him. (I wouldn't whip out this sheet in front of your ex. We don’t want to aggravate the situation.) When he’s present, rest your hand on the folded sheet in your purse or pocket, as a reminder that you know he’s trying to con you and you’re not buying into his lies.

Having a list of what he did to you, in graphic detail, can keep you from minimizing or denying how bad the situation was. These can be painful to write. Take care of yourself. If you choose to compile this list. Don’t push yourself to do it all in one sitting. Consider having a supportive friend with you as you write.

In the next post we’ll look at some of the games abusers play to thwart your attempt to leave and stay gone.

Comments are always welcome. Click on the comment icon below and let us know how you keep your sanity as you deal with your ex.

Set Your Wings

My husband and I took Watson, our dog, for a walk in a local park. As we rounded a corner leading to a duck filled pond, my husband said, “Look.” He pointed to a flock of birds flying overhead. “Watch as they set their wings to come in to land on the pond.” As he predicted, they all held their wings steady and gently glided down to the occupied pond. Each one landing among the floating ducks without disrupting any. 

This was an aha moments for me. I’ve been reading a lot about the power of intention lately. Gary Zukav talks about it in his book “The Seat of the Soul.” Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and others. They have a lot to say about it, starting with knowing we can live with the intention to be kind and loving or angry and frustrated. On to asking for the right partner, job or situation to come into our lives. This is not a new concept. The Bible tells us to ask, seek, knock, and trust that it will be so. The more difficult of those for me is trust.

As I’ve struggled with this belief over the years, I’ve learned that we can also put our intention into hopeless places, hanging on to wishes and dreams that are not in our best interest or are thwarted by other’s intentions. 

Years ago, I thought my intention  to create a happy, loving, mutually fulfilling marriage was reasonable.  It was. However, I included a caveat that it would be with someone who was not a willing participant. I was intent on beating the odds that our marriage would work out. I tried to manifest my vision from a anxious, grasping, hang-on-at-all-costs mind-set. I was so determined to save that marriage that I couldn’t see the damage it was doing to me as well as my children. When I had exhausted all my energy, I faced the truth that I would never have the kind of marriage I’d hoped for with this person. His vision was vastly different from mine. When I surrendered my will to God’s, the marriage ended.

I didn’t lose the intention to live in a happy marriage, I just quit holding on to who I expected would be my partner. My mind-set was now from a place of peace and trust. I set my wings, and rode the breath of God to my current husband. Every day I am grateful for him and cherish every moment we share.

Along the same line, we can set our intention to work in a job that matches and fuels our passion in life, or one that just keeps bread on the table but sucks all the joy out of us. The choice is ours alone. I believe that we come to this earth with a God-given passion inside us. Sometimes we get side-tracked and we feel frustrated and unhappy. We can aim to find a job that fulfills us by keeping our options open to what that job might be. Then pay attention to open doors and whispered directions from our spirit, guiding us to opportunities, paid and unpaid. It takes trust. 

• Trust that each job or activity provides us with a skill we’ll need for that perfect job.

• Trust in our intuition (our gut) as we pick between opportunities.

• Trust that we will arrive at exactly the right place at the right time with the right skills.

The duck landing was a beautiful example for relaxing into a new year. We can set our intention, then quit flapping around. We’ll weather the difficulties and neither let self-doubts take us off course nor do we try to fly faster. We let things unfold in their own time as we slide into our God-given purpose on this earth. All we have to do is stay open and aware. All will be well.

 I’ve set my wings for the New Year. How about you?

Embracing Peace and Wallowing in Joy

I had an aha moment reading Martha Beck’s article “Wild Life” in the December issue of O magazine. I’ve been thinking about writing a blog on watching for the pockets of joy this holiday season. It’s so easy for us to focus on what we don’t have. What we think keeps the holiday, or our lives for that matter, from being “perfect.” 

I do want to encourage you to embrace the holy-moments. The times when you see how truly blesses you are. How far you’ve come, the good decisions you are now making, the times when you were in the right moment at the right time. Let gratitude wash over you. Savor it.

The article in O gave me some additional insights. According to Martha we’ve lived with so much drama in our lives, that when times are peaceful, we create drama. We start to dwell on what’s not right, what could happen, what happened years ago. Man, that hit me right between the eyes. Yes, we are drawn to conflict. TV, books, games all depend on conflict to keep our attention.  We’re hounded by it every day.

As Martha suggests, Suppose, we make the decision today to embrace peaceful moments? We stop our brains in their tracks when we find our thoughts jumping onto the drama carousel. How would your life be different if you embraced a tranquil moment and savored it? I mean really got down and wallowed in the deliciousness of its joy? I think I’d find myself less likely to seek out drama and more anxious to live with peace.

That’s my goal is for this holiday season and beyond. What is yours?

Birthing a New Future

In The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo talks about the birth of a chick. After eating all the food provided in the shell, it’s grown to fill the space and begins to feel cramped. It cannot stay contained in that tiny shell or it will die. It stretches and pecks, breaking the eggshell - birth.  

As we grow we change physically. Wayne Dyer talks about how our spirit inhabits and outgrows an infant body, adolescent body and finally into an adult body. Though, Even our adult body changes as the cells die off and new ones replace the old.  Growth, a necessary part of life. 

When it comes to our spirits, stretching and growing can be painful. It seems our most significant spiritual births are often accompanied by great discomfort and anxiety about the coming change. We may even fight it, making it more difficult. But, our spirits will continue to grow beyond our current existence. At some point, we have to make a conscious decision to move on or stay trapped in the shell of our circumstance and run the risk of suffocating. 

I experienced this most acutely before leaving my abusive partner. Like many victims of domestic violence, I lived in a stifling relationship. Yet, my spirit began preparing me for a new birth, showing me that I could no longer live that way. It bubbled up as uncontrollable grief, health problems, anxiety, fear and more. I didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to know it. Was terrified of the unknown- how would I exist outside in a world I was unprepared for and taught to not trust. But, the day came when the pain of staying was more brutal than the fear of leaving. Like the chick, fighting for its life, I faced the truth and broke out of the shell. 

Once a victim leaves, the relationship can nether stay nor go back to the way it was. The old life is irreparably broken. If we try to work things out with our partner, the truth smolders within us, an ember of resentment that will devour us. Some victims reach for alcohol, drugs or other addictions to silence it, compounding the pain. Others move on to a new life.

For those of us who move on, there are many new births as we quickly learn to reclaim our life and catch up to where we would have been had we not been stifled. Every new day is a celebration of freedom, learning and growing as we break through the shells that isolated us from our gifts and abilities, our support base and ourselves. We come to  trust ourself and listen to our inner-voice. Then we can anticipate, welcome and celebrate each unfolding birth.

Letting Joy Rule

I have a dog, Watson, who believes his soul purpose in life is to keep our yard clear of chipmunks. When I take him out on his leash, he leads me on a specific route, around the foundation at the back of the house, over to the woodpile behind the garage, up the property line along the lilac bushes to the back woodpile. Chipmunks squeak their warnings from the safety of the stacked logs, egging Watson on. Only after every nook and cranny has been sufficiently sniffed will Watson take care of our purpose for going out. 

Sometimes on these walks, I look ahead and see chippers frolicking about the yard.  Watson doesn’t see them, he’s focused on the woodpile, shoving his face in every hole, barking at the perceived chipmunk’s hunkered down inside. 

Today, while sitting on the deck, I watched Watson, on point, head through the guardrail, scrutinizing a chipper pathway below. He quivered with excitement, sure a chipmunk would show up any moment. Gated on the deck, there was no way he’d be able to chase one if it did show up. Out in the yard two chipmunks scurried from trees to flowerbeds and back. Watson didn’t see them. (I have to admit, I didn’t point them out to him. His bark is deafening.) 

Watching him, I realized that I had also been focusing on a problem that I could do nothing about. How blind have I been to all the wonderful blessings around me? It’s so easy to focus on what isn’t right and forget about all that is right in our lives. Gratitude. I’d like to pay more attention to all the things that I am grateful for. Why give my focus to something I can’t do anything about? Why allow sadness to have more weight in my life than joy? If I can let sadness rule, why can’t I let joy rule? 

John Locke, an English philosopher said “What worries you, masters you.” I prefer to let joy master me.

Our Words Create

The great minds agree that the words we speak, create. We can send out unkind or healing words -- our call. The words we use to describe ourselves affects our self-esteem. We can also change our journey using words.

It’s interesting how lessons we have to learn start to appear in various areas of our lives. It’s good that they don’t avalanche over us all at once, but come gracefully, one by one. Okay, maybe gracefully is not the best word, sometimes lessons pummel us over the head. My point is, the creating power of our words seems to be my current issue, again. It has been showing up in my reading materials. It’s made me think back about my words. 

My first memory on this issue was an incident from  twenty-some years ago, when I stopped my car on the side of a country road - my then-husband was coming home after working out of state for 2 peace-filled months. During his absence breathing was easier. The kids migrated from their rooms, blooming like roses. We talked, laughed, enjoyed one another.  I was less distracted and able to focus on them. I could take care of tasks and make plans without fear that they would interfere with his wants and needs. The kids and I ate dinner without the glaring unused dishes at the head of the table, a harbinger that he would come home drunk and most likely angry. During the time he was gone, I didn’t need to be “on” all the time, hyper-vigilant to his every wish to ensure peace in our home. 

Now he was coming home. A suffocating black cloud of fear and dread cloaked me. Stopped aside the road that day, I opened my door, stepped out and shouted to God and all of creation, “I refuse to live like this anymore.” 

My husband came home. Numb, I walked through the motions. There was a sense that dominoes were falling around me. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Hoped that through some miracle he would be healed of his alcoholism, his anger issues and maybe even come to love me (I though these were the problems, didn’t know it was domestic abuse).  

I left for work one morning and tears began to roll down my face. Why was I crying? Willing them to stop, did no good, they continued. Again I stopped on the side of the road. Tried to pull myself together, sop up the tears. Couldn’t go to work like that. There was no stopping them. All I could do was return home. 

Once there, my husband interrogated me. “What’s wrong with you?” was the gentlest of his comments. I didn’t know how to answer. I spent the day sitting in a chair in the bedroom, fighting the feelings I’d kept so diligently pushed down under the surface of justifications I’d created to survive. Finally, I had to face the facts - there was no way I could save this marriage. I’d done everything I knew how to do. It was time to give it up and admit that if the marriage would survive, it would be by God’s hand, not mine. I released my grip. Let go. Could what will happen next be any worse then what the kids and I were already going through?

Those dominos began to fall into place. My children went to visit my parents in another state. While at a gathering with friends in our old neighborhood, my partner blew up at me. This was the first time any of our friends had see the violent side of him. He told me to go pack our things, we were leaving. I did. Others tried to reason with him, he’d been drinking all day. I was petrified to get in the car and travel the two hours home.  Didn’t know if we’d make it and terrified of what he’d do to me if we did. When I came into the kitchen, he said, “Let’s go.”

Suddenly, I was standing in a dark room. The door was open, there was light out there that didn’t shine into the darkness. A voice said, “If you don’t leave now, that door will close and you will live in this darkness forever.”

It was the first time I ever told my partner, “No.”

He erupted. The men at the party protected me and sent him away. I believed that he’d come back later that night and kill me. He didn’t. 

Words, spoken on the side of a road started a new future for me. Even though I meant those words, God had to wrestle control from me in the quiet of my bedroom, and again in my friend’s kitchen. “What’s it going to be?” We alway have a choice. 

My lesson: After we speak our truth to creation we need to get out of its way. 

How to Help a Victim of Domestic Abuse

The Center for Disease Control reports approximately 4.8 million women and 2.9 million men experience violence at the hand of their partner. We can make a difference by paying attention to the people around us and reaching out. The question most asked is, “How do I know if someone is being abused? If I suspect they are, what do I say to them?” 

The most obvious signs of abuse are broken bones, black eyes, bruises, stitches, etc. Physical abuse. The signs of emotional and sexual abuse are less obvious. Berating, humiliating, threats, mind games, hurting children or pets, rape and other humiliating sexual acts, are all used to  assure the victim complies with the abuser’s demands. There are no visible signs (except in rape situations),  but emotional and sexual abuse, as well as physical violence, leaves bruises on the victim’s spirit. Bruises that can last a lifetime and affect the victim’s future.

Most important, if you witness physical violence call 911.

Here are some other indications of abuse --

Your friend or coworker:

• Is often late or cancels an engagement with you last minute.
• Wears long sleeves and turtlenecks in warm seasons.
• Wears sunglasses indoors.
• Is often sick for several days or weeks in a row and can’t come to work or see you.
• Receives frequent calls from her partner every day.
• Has a partner that shows up unexpectedly at her job or when she is out with you.
• Is often heard trying to calm or assure her partner over the phone.
• Never socializes with other co-workers or attends work parties or functions.
• Is seeing you less and less often. 

Victims are afraid someone will ask what is happening to them. They are also afraid that no one will. 

You can help by being prepared and reaching out to the victim. Find out about the shelter in your area and have the phone number at hand. Take your friend or co-worker aside and tell her you’re concerned for her. You have seen  or heard things that lead you to believe that she is living in a stressful (don’t use the word - abuse) situation. Tell her you care about her and that you feel she deserves to be treated better. Offer her the phone number to the shelter (write it on some innocuous business card or random pamphlet.) Tell her that she can call and talk to someone who is compassionate and will help her think through her options. It doesn’t mean she has to leave her partner or go to the shelter. Shelter personnel will not force her to do anything she’s not ready to do. And neither should you. It takes on average 7 attempts to leave an abusive relationship. Patience and acceptance is paramount. 

Your friend or co-worker may deny everything and make excuses for what you’ve witnessed. In violent relationships secrecy is an rule and breaking that edict means severe consequences for the victim. If she denies anything is happening, don’t argue. Tell her you care about her and if something comes up and she’d like to talk, you’re available. Just plant the seed.

Even if your friend or co-worker denies what is happening, there are still things that you can do. Keep a record on a calendar of any missed days, odd behavior, bruises or injuries you notice. Note where the bruising is on her body and its approximate size. Should she eventually press charges against her abuser, your documentation can help prove this is domestic violence, a pattern of on-going abuse, resulting in a longer sentence for the offender. Otherwise, the court may feel this was a one-time incident and only give the abuser a slap on the hand. 

If she discloses to you that she’s in an stressful or abusive relationship, consider doing some safety planning with her. You can set up a code word that she can use to tell you she needs help, call the police. She can gather important papers and records (i.e. birth certificates, social security card, bank accounts) and keep them in a safe place, such as a safety deposit box, with a friend or trusted relative.  She can keep an extra set of car keys hidden outside the house and a suitcase of clothing and some cash with a friend or relative.  She can let you know where she is going and when she is expected to return so if she doesn’t return, you can contact the police. The shelter in her area can give her more helpful suggestions.

It’s stressful to help a victim of domestic abuse. If you feel overwhelmed, you can contact the shelter in your area  or the National Domestic Violence Hotline (800.799.7233.) They will support and guide you as you support the victim. 

Your friend has to do the work to take back her power, you cannot do that for her. All you need to be is someone who loves her and speaks the truth to her -- She deserves to be loved and cherished by the people in her life.