Get back to the basics

Singing a New Song

began as a vehicle used to speak out against spiritual abuse/domestic abuse in the christian marriage. 

Religion has been and remains the most commonly used vehicle for abuse. 

Abuse is insidious. As a christian, I strongly believed that "a christian man would NEVER abuse his wife". While I still believe this to be partly true, I also have experienced how the concepts we believe and the religious dogma we embrace can set us up as victims of religious abuse. 

I was a very active christian many years before I met my son's father. I had been very involved in serving in the church in worship leading, teaching, prayer, conference planning and program developing and coordinating. I love people and had found a wonderful niche for my creative and musical outlets. I had a wonderful life serving the Lord and enjoying my "family". 

When we are "in church" (christian church that is) we tend to assume that most everyone there is a christian. They have come to worship God with us and we have much more in common than we may have dividing or distinguishing us from each other. Looking back on it, I see this assumption as part of our need to BELONG. We all feel a deep need to "belong somewhere" or "to someone". Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs shows a pyramid of needs that places BELONGING just about physiological and safety needs: including within it: friendship, family and sexual intimacy. These are very BASIC needs.

I didn't understand my needs at the time and how religion has fulfilled the bottom three level on this Needs scale but I realized that it has played a significant supporting role in the next level of needs: ESTEEM.

As much as I had trusted God, I now realize that I had trusted man too much and my ability to discern intent of others and interpret behavior within marriage too little. I was in the worship team the day my ex husband and his daughter walked into the church that I had so joyfully served. Only a few brief months of courtship and 19 months later, confusion nd frustration began filling our home when my then christian husband seemed to be "unhappy" with me while I was pregnant with our now 13 year old son. He became critical, unloving, biting, harsh in his speech and manner and even so demanding that I "behave as a christian woman should" that I was reluctant to share my feelings and thoughts of my difficulty in the pregnancy. He said "you have changed, I am still the same". He later called me "contentious" and "disobedient" and even said in later years..."when you disobey ME, you disobey God". 

Now, as I look upon this, I can see that this is just abusive, manipulative behavior. NOT christian at all. But I had believed and continued to want to believe that he was truly a very good christian but yet experienced deeply disturbing cognitive dissonance over this. HOW can a christian man be so callous, unloving, demanding and even abusive??? I studied the Bible more, scouring it for wisdom and understanding on how I should view my new christian husband's behavior in light of feeling abused. I then found a few books on abuse by christian authors: (Jan Silvious's book: Fool Proofing your life and Leslie Vernick's book "The Emotionally Destructive Relationship") and I realized that "not all that glitters, is not gold" or "just because he says he is a christian, appears to act like a christian, seems to believe as a christian believes, doesn't mean that he is not or cannot be an abuser". 

This was a VERY harsh reality for me to accept. I didn't want to believe that what I had held as principles and concepts of virtue that I had held dearly would be so twisted in attempts to control, manipulate, discredit, demean, discount and disrespect me...after all, he was a christian. A christian man would not abuse. THIS WAS A FALSE PREMISE, a VERY untrue assumption that kept me in an abusive marriage for may years 8 years beyond my initial revelation that I was being abused by my christian husband.

Patricia Evan's books; mainly "Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak out" and "Contolling People" where too books; disdainfully shun and severely criticized by my then "christian husband" as being "not of God" and I was not only "admonished" to not read them but to "only read the Bible" and "listen and obey" him. He was "my head". I was just a woman. At one time, I "misplaced" the book, "Controlling People" twice...I had to buy new copies. I believe that he had thrown them away in attempts to dissuade me from reading them and awakening to HIS ABUSE OF ME in this "christian marriage". 

I found the book, "The Gaslight Effect" by Dr. Robin Stern. It was another "forbidden" book but by that time, I had separated from him, taking our then 8 year old son to live apart from him and his daughter. 

I share all of this to caution all those who hold onto a belief system and seek to find others who believe as you do to form the security of friendship, family and sexual intimacy that there are "wolves wearing sheep's clothing" among those who call themselves christians...and they CAN and DO use religion to ABUSE and control their victims.

Trust in your OWN heart

Abuse can take many forms; one that I have found to be prevalent in religious communities as well as abusive relationships is the "tyranny of the shoulds" as other's expectations set limits upon OUR lives.

To "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again" we NEED to find OUR VALUE and uplift ourselves and then the decisions that we make will be based upon OUR value and values rather than IN another person.

It is OUR life...

We have the right, power and CHOICE 

to make decisions that effect our lives positively. 

Let's not allow the "shoulds" and "should nots" of others limit our decision making and restrict our personal growth. Let's GET RID of the "shoulds", expectations and limits that others place upon our lives and learn how to HEAR OUR OWN HEARTS.



YOU ARE WORTH IT!!! 

Emotional abuse leaves no visible scars

It may sound like a teenager's whine when actually it can be a cry of a controlled and abused heart of a woman in a domestic abusive marriage.

I was told "who" and "what" I was, defined by another person's words, as well as "what I thought" and "what I was going to do". When looking from the outside into a marriage like this, it would probably be viewed by one counselor when he asked me, "YOU are telling me that THIS is your marriage?".  What an eye opener.  


If you feel that you are currently IN an abusive relationship; I have to tell you that THERE IS HOPE of being free from it. I am PROOF. I was demeaned, discounted, controlled and brain washed into thinking that I "couldn't make it" without him. I felt so hopeless that my life could ever change that I thought I might never "make it on my own".  But somehow, that is EXACTLY what I did. It didn't happen in one day; actually it took YEARS of soul searching, introspection and personal scrutiny and analysis before I began to recognize the abuse for what it was. I had to overcome my denial that "my marriage" could be healed before I could even consider being free from abuse..

Letting it go...

I am sure that title says alot to a lot of people. Mainly it says that "we have no control over it; let it go" and that is a clear message that I hope to convey in this post. We have areas of our lives that "we cannot control"; the most devastating, I will propose, is having to accept the fact that you have married an abusive person. I did that. I know that I did not think that he was abusive or even capable of the abuse that I now KNOW that he has intentionally done to not as much hurt me, but to control me and to "puff himself up" with a sense of false pride and power. He is really a VERY SAD LITTLE man who HAD a wonderful woman that he "did not deserve". Well, that is how I see it and since it is my blog "It is so"...

It is "not so funny" to realize that you have been "right all along" when you really did not want to be right while suspecting that the person that you loved the most in the world; to the exclusion of family and friends, would even consider betraying your confidence and stabbing you in the back emotionally. I feel stupid. I trusted him. I shouldn't have. I am so sorry that I did. BUT I am free from him and with my first love who is most loving, respectful and so fun to be with; we can be "free to be" ourselves with each other; a very unique love for sure.

But back to the abusive husband. There is probably LESS few crazymaking things in the whole world than trying to love and live with a mentally ill person. Personality disorders are not "assigned" or "labeled" at birth and those who have them may never become aware that "they are the ones who are crazy". Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder is one that is MOST INSIDIOUS; so much so that the person with OCPD does not think that "there is anything wrong with them"...Just imagine that for a moment; that "you are perfect"...let that sink in. Crazy, isn't it? I mean, who is perfect in the world??? No one of course but don't try to tell that to an OCPD; they ARE perfect and they are NEVER wrong; about anything. They have NO recollection of ever telling a lie or bearing false witness or will EVER admit to verbal abuse or controlling behavior; they "just can't think of themselves as the monsters that we see them as"...lol...that's funny. I have had to find my sense of humor in all of this to the point of saying, with a THICK Italian accent "I SHAKA MY HEAD IN UNABELIEF" at my PD husband; soon to be EX by the way.

Now 19 months after separating from him; the last 4 months having moved out of the same city and now have my son with me, I can REALLY see my stbxNPD/OCPDbigamist (that is soon to be ex Narcissist PD/Obsessive Compulsive PD bigamist) for what he REALLY is...just that. He is "not the man I married" and the "man I divorce" is pretty much a perfect stranger/terrorist and will remain so in my mind. I have had to find my sense of humor in all of this to the point of saying, with a THICK Italian accent "I SHAKA MY HEAD IN UNABELIEF" at my PD husband; soon to be EX by the way. He went and married another woman. He was so "distraught" that I was leaving town and "he was losing me" (really? yawn, like DUH!!! that he sat at his kitchen table CRYING CROCODILE tears telling me "he needed someone") and for the first time in my life I can say that I was VERY glad that I did not feel compelled to 'get in line'. lol.

I may not have been so smart in marrying him but I did not have a reasonable person trying to save me from a personality disordered bigamist contact me and then call her (me that is) "mentally ill" for telling the truth. Oh well, I guess that is just another thing that I "need to let go of". I have worked A LOT on identifying and addressing DENIAL; the biggest killer of our dreams and joy in life; I am convinced of it. I spent years on online forums for abuse survivors and verbally abused partners and even a depression forum to help me work through DENIAL...the moral of this story is "LET THE CRAZY STUFF GO", you don't need it and God doesn't want it in your life. I am sure of it.

Looking back to look forward

Isn't it paradoxical that sometimes we "have to look back" to get on with life?

As a christian who has faced and lived with domestic abuse from my husband of 11 years, I have forgiven, forgotten, "let go" and "lived with" the many responses IN ME to the abuse that I have endured and may continue to be affected by from my husband. I have prayed, journaled, cried, counseled, made collages and wrote songs to work through the varied "hoops" of domestic abuse and control. I have begged, pleaded, bargained and compromised my SELF in order to live WITH him and for this;I am paying myself back with interest... more on this later.

Though we are separated and I am raising our son with his some assistance for our son's needs, I find that looking back is not as hard for me as it was before. I have detached emotionally after seeing the abuse for what it really was.

Wifely submission?

This seems to be my husband's "land rights" to me as a person; his reason that I "must do as he says" and that I must not "disagree" with him in any way and that to suggest or question is to "act disrespectfully toward him"...above and beyond this disrespectful and judgemental behavior toward and expectations of me; I was not able "to be me"...the biggest sin...I just KNOW that it is addressed somewhere in God's word; under many different descriptions for in my opinion; it must be one of the most grievious sins that one can commit against another in the "Name of Christ"...it ought NOT to be and I believe it greives our Heavenly Father's heart to hear HIS Word used for selfish gain and control over another of his creatures.

This kind of "submission" has been adamantly DEMANDED by my husband. My true feelings of this action is this: a REAL (christian) man never needs to demand to "get respect"...he is respected. Period. This started in year 3 of our marriage after I conceived our son.

Looking back with NEW understanding is needed to begin a healing journey from abuse. To KNOW who we are in Christ Jesus; is the starting point to healing and a NEW life...it is my joy and ability to "sing a new song" through all the hateful abuse and control, I still have me and the Lord.

Two things that NO abuser will ever take from me again....