When I hear women say: “I stayed on
taking this and that from so and so only for him to do this…”, ‘ this’
being another act of betrayal, it makes me wonder why we take it in the
first place and assume the person mistreating us will be grateful we
suffered in silence and so reward us with better behaviour.
After one break up several years ago, I
remember commenting to a friend that if I had known it would hurt as
much as it did I wouldn’t have been “a good girl”, but would have done
major damage.
As I thought about it, smashing the
window of his car appeared to be more of a good idea than taking the bad
behavior displayed by both the ex and his family in the period the
relationship disintegrated.
But the truth was I hadn’t been a good
girl because I accepted things as they were, I had been condoning them
because I hoped my “keeping quiet”, my “suffering in silence”, my
“patience”, my “maturity”, my “being a good Christian”, would make the
other person change their mind or make God reward my “piety” and give me
the outcome I wanted.
So when I read stories of betrayal in
the media these days, while I can relate, I let it serve this reminder –
” you shouldn’t be taking anything now that you will regret taking
later. And if you are, ask yourself why”. And if it is because like my
example you are aspiring to the good girl image of religion or culture
or because you expect your “long suffering” to be rewarded with
guilt-driven affections or because you can leverage on a moral failure
for some future benefit then at least know what is driving your decision
to continue to take poor treatment or stay in a bad situation and deal
with it like I eventually had to.
If it is because you are afraid of the
alternative for you if you left, or of the consequences if you stayed
but confronted the bad behaviour and insisted on better, then it is time
to face the deeper problem. You might just not believe you deserve
better enough to fight for it. The perpetrator knows this too and is
counting on your fear of his anger, of what people will say, of how you
will look, of being single, of not having his financial support or
social status- those things that ensure that where you are concerned,
his life remains as he wants- unchallenged and unchanged.
Sometime later when I had dealt with my
hidden motives, I didn’t feel the need to”do damage” because I could now
see that it was coming from a place of frustration at not getting my
way and had nothing to do with love. And rather than “take” bad behavior
or in this case, not take any action for fear that I would not get that
person back if I stood up for myself, I used that experience in a
positive way that I found rewarding.
As women, we can only take those who are
not treating us fairly or respectfully, to task when we refuse to be
held back by the fear of losing them or losing out in some way. If they
are the real deal they will make changes rather than lose us or watch us
lose ourselves and if they aren’t we will turn out okay, but first we
must be brave and insist on better not only because we are deserving,
but because they are capable of treating us well and we will be doing
them a disservice by expecting less.
Photo Credit: Dreamstime
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