I know I’ve been kind of slack lately and I’ve not posted much, but after what I saw today, I knew I had to do something that would possibly help just one more person in this world… I’ve just returned from an amazing trip to Los Angeles (more on that in a later post), and decided to take a day off to recoup and finish some Christmas shopping.
As I walked through the shopping centre, I overheard a man yelling at his wife. I couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying, although the regular “F” words were strong and clear. His poor wife looked miserable and like she wanted to sink into the floor.
My heart went out to her. This was an older couple and I guessed that they had been together for many years. So this poor woman had probably put up with her husband’s verbal abuse all of this time. I received an email from a woman in a similar situation last week and I told her this: You have three choices about what to do here:
- If you want to stay with your husband, then get help. Go to marriage counseling (you can go alone if he won’t go with you) to help you to cope with and deal with the way in which he treats you. You’ve probably done nothing about it for years, so have actually given him the message that his treatment of you is ok. A counselor will hopefully help you to realise that you do NOT deserve to be treated like this, and what you should do if he does it again. You will also be given tools to help you to help your partner to treat you better.
- Another option is to leave him. If you’re thinking of doing this, you must make sure it is safe to do so. If he has the tendency to become violent then you need to be extra careful and may need to get the police involved. If violence isn’t an issue, start preparations beforehand. Where will you stay? What will you do for money? Call on friends and family to support you – chances are, many of them don’t have a clue about the living hell you’re in right now and they’ll be more than willing to lend a hand.
- Finally, you have the option to do nothing. I want you to imagine yourself 20 years from now, and living in exactly the same situation you’re in now. How does that feel? If you do nothing, then nothing will change. He will continue to treat you badly, and by doing nothing, you are telling him it’s ok to keep doing what he’s doing. Do you really want that for yourself?? Do you really want to spend the next 20, 30 or even 40 years like this?? I know I’d rather be dead than have to live like that…
The first thing you need to do right now is learn to love yourself. You are a beautiful, desirable person, regardless of what anybody says. You do not deserve to be yelled and screamed at, you don’t deserve to have somebody swear at you and in fact, nobody deserves that.
Especially not you.
Once you learn to love yourself, you will fully understand the value in doing so. A person with high self esteem will not allow somebody to treat them badly and get away with it. They will stand up for themselves, they will get themselves out of a situation where they feel they’re not being treated right, and they will do what’s best for them.
The first step towards loving yourself is seeing all of the good qualities you have and appreciating them.
Write them down so you have a written reminder about how wonderful you really are…
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