HealingWillCome

This has been bothering me. I haven't read the book, so I can't speak of her, only myself.

I didn't think I was a broken soul. I thought I had it all together. I had beautiful, loving parents (mom and stepfather) and siblings, a college degree, new career, lots of friends, and a bright future ahead of me. I met a guy who swept me off my feet, treated my like a queen, was charming, fun, always the life of the party, and who I never imagined could hurt me. So I married him. Within a couple of years, I found myself married to an alcoholic, emotional abuser.

It was funny...the first person who ever pointed out to me that I was being abused was his mother. He and I were at odds one afternoon about something--I can't even remember the details now--but his mom was there and witnessed the discussion. Then we watched him get into a self-centered, pouty huff, and get in his truck and tear out of the driveway. She said to me, "That's abusive." That memory has never left me. It was startling to me that HE was mistreating ME. I had been gradually conditioned to believe that those kinds of arguments were my fault. I took that kind of emotional abuse for years after that because I felt committed to my marriage vows and because I loved him.

I was broken going into that relationship and didn't know it. Broken because I had an alcoholic, emotionally abusive, abandoning, womanizing biological father. But because I had been raised in a good home after bio dad left us when we were very young, I thought I was healed. I thought I was wiser and smarter than all of that. As a young 20-something woman, I probably would have read a book like '50 Shades' and not made the connection with abuse and control. I don't know. But I hope the attention this movie has given to abuse will cause good to come from it.