For the Kids' Sake

Divorce rates are high in this country, but I don't think that's the problem so much as that many of those people should never have gotten married in the first place, and the divorce is a blessing rather than dragging it out and making the other's life that much worse for that much longer. But that's not what this post is about. Rather, it's about the perils of NOT getting divorced when one should, specifically when one is experiencing abuse, and my most hated, despised excuse for it:

"I'm staying for the kids' sake."

No you aren't, you coward. You're staying because you're too chicken to leave, and you're pinning the blame - for it is blame - on the kids. As in, if the kids weren't in the picture, you would stay. Don't give me that. Take responsibility for your own actions and choices, probably for the first time in a long time, if not in your entire life. YOU are staying in an unhappy situation. YOU are "taking it" because you think the kids want the illusion of an intact family home more than they want at least one mentally healthy parent that they can look up to and genuinely respect. YOU are condemning them to a life of walking on eggshells due to the tension and unhappiness in the house, if not outright experiencing the demons in their parents.

I read a Dear Abby today that sparked my furor. I give you the opening paragraph:

"I was married for 22 years. My husband was verbally, mentally and emotionally abusive to me. I took it for my kids' sake."

You dolt. You imbecile. You empty-headed ninny. Get over your martyr complex. In what universe do you think that abuse was limited only to you? If he was "verbally, mentally, and emotionally abusive" to you, do you think he turned around and bestowed nothing but smiles, support, and encouragement to your children? Congratulations, ma. Instead of walking out and showing them that you have a backbone, are entitled to respect, and will not tolerate being called those names and told those debilitating lies, you showed your children that it was okay for a man to treat his wife like that. You set your son up to either be a coward like you, or an abuser like him. You set your daughter up to expect men who "love" her to say those ugly things to her, to act like they are entitled to dominion, and to assume that it was her place as the woman to accept those words.

For what it's worth, the letter goes on to outline that the daughter recently gave birth to a child (a boy; can you see the cycle continuing?), and the child's father had ducked out on her, and the girl's father was refusing to be part of the child's life unless she named her baby after him. Stupid Mom was trying to figure out how to get him to want to be part of their grandchild's life. Why on earth would you want that? So he can have a male figure in his life? And what a prize the kid would have gotten. Even if, in some hypothetical extistence, Gramps didn't target the baby for abuse, he would grow up seeing that as his male role model. Clearly, even after the divorce, Grandma has learned nothing, and grown not at all. I weep for that child.

While a shrink might tell me that, by my disdain, I am no better than the abuser, I can't help being angry at her self-induced helplessness. I remember that, in college, I once took a self-defense course (no, we didn't get to beat up men in protective suits), and toward the end of the semester, we were supposed to show what we'd learned by pretending to attack one of our classmates. I was assigned to a watery-eyed, willowy blonde with a full face of makeup and hair that had been too much done up for a self-defense course. All that was missing was her sorority sweater. I went for her throat. She froze. Apparently an ex-boyfriend had choked her in the past. While I sympathize with the terror she experienced during the attack by the ex-boyfriend, she should have been lashing out and beating me into the ground (I'm solid; I can take it). I was hoping she would. Instead, she just stood there, looking like she was about to cry, and our instructor stopped me and explained the situation and that I should start over by going for anything other than her throat. I did of course - went for the arm, I think; but inside I was furious with her. Whither the anger, dearie? Do you think that some other guy in the throes of rage to the point that he tries to strangle you is going to stop and say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd been traumatized by strangulation before," and take a different approach? Of course not. So learn how to defend against it. Never let another person victimize you in that way. Isn't that what the course was for?

I have no time or patience (okay, I have precious little patience to begin with) for people who sit around and pretend they're helpless. Even if you have nobody else, you can start with yourself.