To the Abused Woman - I am speaking to you

I interned for a year at a Women's Crises Centre, where women were abused emotionally, physically, financially and sexually. This message is to you, the abused woman. Men, I know that you are abused in the same way and that you have the additional burden of being a man and people still have a problem acknowledging you as a victim or survivor. However, today I am speaking to the abused woman....... I know that your husband gets upset when you speak to the neighbours or anyone else even casually and that is why, you only do so when he is not around. When he is not around you feel safe. Think about that. You feel safe to be yourself when he is absent. I know that you feel free to open the blinds of your home when he is not there. You feel free to go out when he is not there. How did this happen to you? You ask yourself this when he is not around. How did you, coming from a good family with a close relationship with your sibling let this happen to you? I have written about the honeymoon effect. Find it in an earlier blog. Now ask yourself something? Why are so afraid of being yourself? When did it happen, that you realized he had so much control over you? What is worse, the abuse or the shame of thinking you have failed at marriage? I shall let you know something. No one has the right to treat you badly. Love between a man and woman can be very beautiful and you are beautiful, though he may have convinced you now, that you are not. You are young and beautiful with a whole life in front of you. Your husband is a bully, because he can be. He gets away with it, and he convinces you that it is you and not him. It is you that makes him angry. Right! That is the pattern. Don't believe it. He is surrounded by people who support him, he says. Women are not taken seriously in society. Don't believe it. He is projecting his views on you. It is he, who thinks it is oky to trample on women or anyone else that he can. Where is your support? Slowly, he removed all your support. Your sibling is stupid and rediculous and you have your own family now.........Your friend is an idiot and you should not see her anymore. All these people turn you against me. When did you let him take full control over you? What can you do? You live in a country where this is not tolerated. There have been changes in the law so that you can get the protection you need. You do have a voice, an equal voice to the man you married, but somehow you have forgotten that. I am writing to you today to tell you that you have a choice. You can leave the abuse. Let others who he wants you to stay away from, help you. Tell someone. It is not your shame, it is his. His threats have control over you but not the legal system, or support systems in place. You are young and life is so short. Find the joy in being yourself. Find the joy of being loved in a healthy supportive way. Feel alive when you wake up with the joy of life. It is your choice - remember that. What do you think?