How Your Relationship Affects Everyone Around You!
Psalm 3:2-6
Many are saying of me, "God will not deliver him."
"Selah" But you are a shield around me, O
LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the
LORD, I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy
hill. "Selah," I lie down and sleep; I wake again
because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear the tens of
thousands drawn up against me on every side.
"Many of us who have been in abusive
relationships had no idea how our relationship
deeply affected everyone around us. We had all
kinds of excuses for our abuser, and we had all
kinds of reasons why we stayed, but we did not
realize the damage or have an excuse for what it
was doing to our loved ones and our children."
During the 15 years, I spent in an abusive marriage
I had no idea that what I was going through my
struggle in my marriage that my mother was staying
up nights praying for my safety or that she was
having nightmares of someone finding me dead. I
lived across the country, and she had no way
of checking up on me, so all she could do was pray
and trust that God was taking care of me. I was so
surprised after I was up on my feet and living life
again how much people saw from the outside.
I thought I was so clever at hiding the pain and
angry words. I thought I was hiding the abusiveness
with my very well thought out excuses, but you can't
hide the obvious. It can be easy to hide
because no patterns have been set, but slowly it
gets harder to cover it up. My
relationship even reached out to my brothers in a
way that I had never thought. I am the youngest
girl and child number 7 out of eight children.
So I had no idea that they wanted to
protect me as the baby girl and couldn't.
They felt powerless as men
to help their baby sister. They also knew the
struggle that our mother was going through at the
time, and it bothered them that they could not help
her by helping me. A few of them had even
considered coming to rescue me by force but thank
God, my mother's prayers kept that from happening.
I was so caught up in my own little world that I didn't
realize I was causing them to struggle. It was as if
they were caught up in the abuse themselves. I also
realized that it was affecting the few friends I had
left. They were so uncomfortable with how I was being
treated and spoken to that they finally stopped
coming around. The most important people that my
relationship affected were my children. I worked
hard making the home an environment where they
felt safe and loved, but by not seeking help, I was
fostering a secretive hostile environment.
They knew they were loved most of the time, but they still
heard the arguments and witnessed their father call
me stupid and other derogatory names. They never
saw much in the way of affection between us, just
hostility. Because of prayer, my children are not
dysfunctional, but I believe their ideas on love and
marriage have been skewed by what they saw.
If you are in an abusive relationship, please
understand that it can change: there is hope.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 says, "A new heart also will I
give you, and a new spirit will I put within you:
and I will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I
will put my spirit within you, and cause you to
walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my
judgments, and do them." (KJV)
In my last article, I believe I said you couldn't
get help for a problem unless you admit that there is
one. Don't sit back and say, "Well, this is just how it
is. I have to accept it and make the best of it."
That is the very thing Satan wants you to do. If he
can keep you from doing something about it, he can
ruin the lives of you and your spouse, and he can
affect the lives of those connected to you. Seek help
immediately from your Pastor or Pastor's wife. It's
time to fight back and let Satan know he can't have
your family. Pray over your children. As you walk
through the journey of finding refuge from this
relationship, God will preserve your children as he
did mine.
Isaiah 49:25 "But thus says the Lord: Even the
captives of the mighty shall be taken away, And
the prey of the terrible be delivered; For I will
contend with him who contends with you, And I
will save your children.
Don't give up. God is well able to do the impossible,
but if for some reason your situation can't be
mended, know that God has a future for you!! He
has great things in store. You can make it!!
More Signs
1. Control and Domination.
• They may control your money and your spending.
• They may treat you as an inferior person.
• They may make you feel small by reminding you of your faults and shortcomings.
• They may make you feel as though they're always right, and you're always wrong.
• You may feel the need to "get permission" for everything you do or decision you have to make.
• They may give you disapproving or condescending looks and comments.
• They may "chastise" you and treat you like a child.
• They may control where you go, who you interact with, and
what you do.
• They're excessively possessive and jealous.
2. Isolation and Neglect.
• They may have difficulty taking responsibility for their actions.
Instead, they deflect the blame onto you.
• They may have no regard for, and no interest in, the way you
feel.
• They may use "the silent treatment" to punish you.
• They may withdraw affection from you to punish you.
• They may become deliberately emotionally distant from you for
long periods.
• They purposely neglect to share important pieces of information
with you.
• They may fail to give you privacy or deliberately disrespect
your boundaries.
3. Bullying and Humiliation.
• They may call you names or label you.
• They may belittle your success and triumphs.
• They may mock, impersonate or otherwise talk to you in sarcastic ways.
• They may accuse you of things that you never did.
• They may degrade or subtly humiliate you in front of other people.
• They may frequently make jokes at your own expense.
• You may feel intimidated or scared when voicing an
opinion.
Your Abusive Relationship Does Not Just Affect You.
Some effects that can be a result of our abusive relationship for our
children are
• Behavioral Problems
• Experienced or Perpetrated Teen dating violence
• Emotional Problems
• Depression
• Anger
• Bitterness
• Become Abusers
• Marry Abusers