I Have A Dream...and I Have A Voice...

Discussion in 'Not Sure Where it Goes' started by Babs Hunt, Apr 10, 2016.

  1. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    That there really is a place where it is "safe" to be yourself...even on a Forum. Where you can "discuss" things that matter to you without "anyone" getting upset just because you say something different from the way they would say it...or think it. A place where you can be you...not someone who you think you have to be...but the "you" that you were created to be. For most of us this is our "last" chance to be ourselves...the last chance to be what the world or society didn't say we have to be or think. Or in some cases...even what "other" people or "religions" said we had to be.

    I am a battered wife of almost 23 years...and the only reason I can say that with all assurity is because one day I was watching Oprah and she had a show about emotional and verbal abuse...and all of a sudden I had a word for what had been happening to me almost all those 23 years of my married life. I didn't take her word for it....I never do that for anything...I had to research this subject until I could make up my own mind in this. But the "proof" was there and it even gave me the antidote. In my research I learned to "give as good as I got"...whatever abusive game my husband played with me...research taught me how to play that game too. The only problem with this...is that if I learned to play this game (and I did) I would become the same emotional and verbal abuser my husband was. And I learned that game well... But I left that marriage and abuse because I didn't want to win....I just wanted the abuse to stop! I just wanted to be the wife God had called me to be. But I learned this too...even if you are the wife God called you to be....that doesn't mean your husband will be the husband God called him to be. And that doesn't mean that as much as you pray or believe...God will "make" your husband be the man God callled him to be. We all were given the gift of free will and God will not tell us what to do with that gift. Even though my husband was baptized into the Christian life...he chose to use his gift for abuse instead of love. And I chose to walk out of that abuse when my children were grown and even they told me I should get a divorce. I am a Christian and although Biblically I might be able to quote you Scripture that I was justified in getting that divorce....I will never say that...because God hates divorce even worse than I do. I can't justify why I followed my heart here...but I trust my faith in God to know my heart here and that's all I can really do as a Christian.

    Now for those almost 23 years of my life I didn't feel I had a voice or was allowed an opinion...that is why I will not forfeit my voice or my opinion now days. If someone doesn't like the way I voice it, etc. then just remember I might feel the same way about how you voice, etc. your opinion. I don't want you to be me...and I don't want to be you either....my dream is that we all are free to be ourselves...and to voice that person just as God intended us too. We don't have to agree...we just have to respect each others opinions...and if someone feels offended personally but by something that has been said...just be honest enough to say this..so we have a chance to say: "sorry I never met to hurt you."
     
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  2. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Your heartfelt post brought tears to me eyes, @Babs Hunt . I may not know all the feelings you went through for those many year, but I can come close enough because I lived a life almost the same as yours.
    Married at 18 to a man that I thought was the most awesome man on the earth, but alcohol and drug abuse turned him into an abusive stranger that was not even close to the man I had loved and married.

    Even so , when the children were grown and gone, and we were divorced, it was still the hardest time of my life together, and I spent the next years of my life wishing that I would just not wake up the next day.
    Co-dependance at its best.
    Love for my children, knowing that God had kept me alive (for some unknown reason) through a car accident that should have killed me, gave me the strength to carry on and do the best that I could do with my battered life and broken heart.

    Here I am, many years later; I am married to a man who is to me an angel sent from heaven. He loves and protects me, and even puts up with my eccentricities.
    Now, I want to wake up every morning, and look forward to spending the day with him.
    God is good.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 11, 2016
  3. Mari North

    Mari North Veteran Member
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    I think often our sensitivities perceive an offense when there was none... or a disagreement when there was none. Sometimes the other person is just trying to HEAR our feelings on a matter, but we have to answer their questions so they know whether or not they agree, yes?

    We also have to make sure that the voice or opinion we're giving is actually connected to what was being discussed... you'd be surprised how often trains jump tracks! :eek: If I'm in a thread talking about cats and someone starts in about the cost of tea in China, I'm going to ask about the connection to the topic so I don't get lost.

    Good post... can't see that anyone would disagree with it. I've spent 35 years making sure everyone's opinion counts and is respected... but sometimes people make it really difficult when something is misunderstood and they get all hurt and offended and go on the attack when that definitely shouldn't have happened. Oh well, such is life, eh, @Babs Hunt :) Have a good Monday.
     
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  4. Ina I. Wonder

    Ina I. Wonder Supreme Member
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    @Babs Hunt , and @Yvonne Smith , both of you have more courage than I. I would not have had what it takes to live with an abusive spouse for so long. Your love must have been very strong to accept such abuse for so many years. But I'm happy that both of you put a stop to the abuse before it destroyed you.

    I think Yvonne's courage to endure her years of abuse, made her a woman of great compassion, and that led her to her @Bobby Cole. A man fit to be her husband, and he has the intellect to know what a beautiful soul the Creator led him to.

    My first 15 years were full of verbal, mental, and physical abuse, and I had a half-brother that was determined that I wouldn't live to be an adult. So at an early age I learned to fight back.

    When I finally chose a spouse for myself, the first times he even look liked he was going to hurt me, I told him he would have to turn his back to me sometime. That's all I ever had to say to him, he got my message, and we had over 47 good years together.
     
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  5. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    Well, I can be very, very loving..........ask my wife, but I can also have a hard side to me. That hard side comes from both being in the military/Navy and "ups and downs" in my life, including being homeless for a number of weeks. No drug or drinking problem that got me homeless, just financial (and my own fault with that). Very positive people sometimes say I'm too negative, but I see it as I'm more in the middle of the gauge......both negative and positive. Any of you ever hear the term "closet case/naïve"? Well, my SIL is pretty much just that. She truly acts, at times, that her entire life has been inside a closet, away from the realities of life. Sometimes, her Christian faith can be to much for me to handle. I'm Christian, but she is "above and beyond" me.

    We know a couple, my wife has known his wife since high school, and we were out with them yesterday afternoon. Past a biker bar (Harley's/choppers) and I said "We'd (wife and I) would never go into a place like that" and the husband said "why not, we have before". I said, "just don't like places where bikers hang out". He just couldn't understand our feelings, but the conversation ended there.

    Seems like people we know like talking to my wife more than me, sometimes anyway. Reason for that..........she always agrees with what they say and I don't. I have my opinion and that's not always agreeable with those people. My wife will let people talk and talk and talk on the phone to her, without her saying a thing for awhile. I don't do that! I will sometimes interrupt them and I tell her later "I don't want to forget what I was going to say" and "I want to make sure my opinion is stated as well." I had a supervisor that didn't want to hear my opinion and threatened to fire me a couple of times for interrupting him while he was talking to me. To me, it was like he was saying "I own this company and you will do exactly what I say!" Well, he didn't "own" the company, but I did apologize for interrupting because I knew he was my supervisor...........but still!

    That's my story.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 11, 2016
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  6. Mari North

    Mari North Veteran Member
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    :D This made me smile, @Cody Fousnaugh . Sounds like... uh... "someone else I know." :rolleyes: I've never been one to agree with something I don't agree with just to avoid controversy or placate.

    Problem is that often the other person gets all arrogant and turns into a bully when someone DARES question what they're saying. Well I can argue my point pretty well and hold my own until that stuff starts. Then no matter what I say, they'll close up and not hear. Not sure what happens there, but they usually have a script they go into about being persecuted and they see no wrong in their own doing or that maybe, just maybe, they started the whole problem.

    I probably shouldn't have studied psychology as much... sometimes trips into people's minds is frightening. :) But knowing what they're going to say before they say it is kind of fun. Like right now, you're thinking of a bacon cheeseburger and chocolate chip cookie. Was I right?! :D
     
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