When It's Your Family
What do you do?
I have a sister who is involved with an abusive man. I am so hurt over this. It's one thing to talk about what happened to me, I'm re-hashing it over the distance of 15 years. It's all fine and dandy to post advice on the blog and via email to strangers that ask me questions. It's another thing when it's your family.
I love my sister but I am unable to watch her self-destruction. She is so talented and smart and beautiful...whatever good you think about me, know that my sister is ten times that. She is a gem of a person and this man uses her and treats her like some plastic bauble you get out of a gum machine and throw away. Why doesn't she feel that she is worth so much more than that? Why doesn't she understand that there are men in the world who will treat her with respect, speak to her with kindness, and never threaten her or mistreat her? Why doesn't she see this?
Why didn't I?
When is this ever going to stop for my family? It wasn't just me who experienced this and it's not just her. We have an older sister who was married to a physically abusive man for nearly 20 years, an aunt who divorced her husband because he was an alcoholic who beat her frequently, and several cousins on both sides of our family who have experienced verbal and physical relationship abuse in varying degrees. What happened with the women in my family? Why does this keep happening? My sister can be and do anything she wants, but she is choosing to go through the same pain and drama she saw her older sisters and other women in her family go through. I feel grief and guilt for my part in modeling this kind of relationship to her. I know that I did not cause her to choose this but I do know that as her older sister she looked up to me and learned from me.
Know that when you choose to be abused, younger people close to you are watching you and seeing how you live your life. You never know how what you decide to put up with in a relationship affects the people who love you. Please choose to model healthy, vibrant, and loving relationships without fear and abuse to your daughters, sisters, and other young girls coming up in your family.
Subscribe to Beyond Battered by Email
I have a sister who is involved with an abusive man. I am so hurt over this. It's one thing to talk about what happened to me, I'm re-hashing it over the distance of 15 years. It's all fine and dandy to post advice on the blog and via email to strangers that ask me questions. It's another thing when it's your family.
I love my sister but I am unable to watch her self-destruction. She is so talented and smart and beautiful...whatever good you think about me, know that my sister is ten times that. She is a gem of a person and this man uses her and treats her like some plastic bauble you get out of a gum machine and throw away. Why doesn't she feel that she is worth so much more than that? Why doesn't she understand that there are men in the world who will treat her with respect, speak to her with kindness, and never threaten her or mistreat her? Why doesn't she see this?
Why didn't I?
When is this ever going to stop for my family? It wasn't just me who experienced this and it's not just her. We have an older sister who was married to a physically abusive man for nearly 20 years, an aunt who divorced her husband because he was an alcoholic who beat her frequently, and several cousins on both sides of our family who have experienced verbal and physical relationship abuse in varying degrees. What happened with the women in my family? Why does this keep happening? My sister can be and do anything she wants, but she is choosing to go through the same pain and drama she saw her older sisters and other women in her family go through. I feel grief and guilt for my part in modeling this kind of relationship to her. I know that I did not cause her to choose this but I do know that as her older sister she looked up to me and learned from me.
Know that when you choose to be abused, younger people close to you are watching you and seeing how you live your life. You never know how what you decide to put up with in a relationship affects the people who love you. Please choose to model healthy, vibrant, and loving relationships without fear and abuse to your daughters, sisters, and other young girls coming up in your family.
Subscribe to Beyond Battered by Email
Labels: family, other people being abused, stuck in crisis mode
posted by Trula at
1:23 AM
4 Comments:
Hi Trula,
I found an article recently that really helped me understand how these kinds of abusive relationships tend to get played out over and over and why they do.
The title is:
The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
I used it on my own blog, but here's a link to the original:
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
Check it out. I found it very helpful.
This post has been removed by the author.
Thank you so much! I am going to check this book out ASAP
ooops I meant article. I read it...this is really an eye-opener. I'm going to have to read it several times to digest this.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home