Heartache

Doesn't everyone experience heartache at one time or another? Abuse survivors are NOT exempt from heartache; matter of fact, from my experience and the experience of many other abuse survivors, it seems that abuse survivors have lived WITH heartache possibly even more than we have lived without it. It is unfortunate, that such loving hearts are so hurt continually, but that is the nature of abuse...it brings heartache to the hearts that love. 



The song (you can listen here; will open in a new window): Total Eclipse of the Heart: Bonnie Tyler (You tube) reminds me of loving a person who is experiencing abuse. Why do I say that? Because I truly believe that without abuse, heartache like this could not fully exist. I would only hope that no one else would ever experience the mind-bending, soul-crushing and heart-wrenching effects of abuse. 

I have been in an abusive marriage. To this day, he denies that he ever verbally abused me and that was only the tip of the iceberg but I never pushed the issue to "make him see the error of his ways". Matter of fact, he accused me of abusing his daughter whom I loved dearly and was "close to" for the first eight years of our marriage from the time she turned 8 years old. He even tried to charge me with abuse during our divorce proceedings which had NOTHING to do with our divorce so I "let him say what he wanted" without any defense or reply.

Losing my ex step daughter was a "total eclipse of the heart" for me. Learning that her father had done so much to sabotage our relationship; things that I could hardly believe that anyone could ever consider doing to another human being, that I fell into depression. My heart ached so badly that I could hardly bear to feel anything from it. When we have heartache, it means that we "love". I am not sorry for loving nor will I ever be. I will acknowledge that the pain of heartache was an abusive act by an unloving person toward one who had loved them...me. 

Finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again, in my experience, does not immunize us from heartache. Matter of fact, it may be that heartache, maybe due to LOVE, is the motivator for healing. I believe this to be true anyways and I am hopeful that someday, my heartache will lessen but I will never forget how I LOVED and I will never regret it.

The angst of enlightenment

All the while I was married to “the abusive christian husband” I felt strangely aware that the saying, “I HAVE been loved” was so true for me. This was a line from the book "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte. I knew that I had “been loved”. Why, oh why, had I settled to live with an abusive man who called himself a Christian but did not have the love, gentleness or respect that my “first love” had for me? My heart struggled with that question for years. I guess that I was supposed to stay married and "be happy" being abused by a christian man, being a Christian myself, and to forsake and forget thoughts of another man or the possibility of a happy life without abuse and with real love.

The dreams within my heart that I struggled with FOR YEARS were of the first man; my "first love" to whom I had loved and given my heart and body. I tried for years to get him out of my mind but I honestly didn't want to. I thought that perhaps I was still being tempted by thoughts of him because I felt so unloved in this marriage. I felt that I "should not" be thinking of him but as another song says "if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right." I loved him and I knew that I  did. I "had been loved" by him and I still loved him with all my heart.

After nearly a year of being separated from my second and "abusive" husband, just before “the end” of the marriage, I was sitting at my computer in my office with him sitting in a chair next to me. While checking my email, I saw that a Robert “friended” me on Facebook. I looked over to him and asked, “are you friending me on Facebook?” and of course, not being computer saavy or Facebook-friendly, he replied “No, who IS friending you?”. It turned out to be my “first grade boyfriend”. “Oh my gosh, it's Bobby!” I howled. He was a really super cute young man with dark hair and eyes and a brilliant mischievous smile and wit. We would sharpen our pencils at the trash can together. I obviously must have had a soft spot for men named “Robert”. I have always loved that name. Well, I looked back to "my husband" and said “Oh, you don't have to worry about Bobby” (meaning having me being “taken away from him by Bobby” that is) and I added very honestly and boldly “NOW, if GCD "friends" me on Facebook THEN you can worry”...I even laughed about it but little did I know the fullness of the TRUTH that I blurted out.

The "Dark Ages" would soon be replaced by the Age of Enlightenment as my heart shone with the truth of the love that it had hid for G for all these years. Within five months from that moment, what had been “just a dream” of G finding me on Facebook and ever seeing each other again felt like a possibility. It seemed to visually break through the ethereal longing, desire and hope that I had hid in my heart. It's substance was infused with life that kindled the fire within my soul for his touch. I believed that he "must also love me" in the same way after all these years. I listened to my heart's cry, finally. I allowed myself to hear it's truth and hope for the love that I had known had been in my heart all those years.