Love Is Not Abuse

[caressa]

Love is Not Abuse
By Miss Rachel- Canada age 19

MISSracquel

According to the United Nations, at least one in three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or abused in some way, most often by someone she knows.

This is a scene that happens all too often. Women who are being abused by their "loved-ones" .

We are not punching bags.

We are the lovers who are devoted to the men who are supposed to love us and care for us.

In a relationship, having arguments are inevitable, as a matter of fact, it's a release factor to an extent. It should stop at that. However, when a man uses his fist, or a weapon to make a point, then he should know that no woman he supposedly loves is to be treated in such a manner.

Although, I have not personally been affected by abuse, I've seen it happen, and often times the woman goes back to her man. It's as though she is nothing without him and he has inflicted such on mindset on her she starts to believe it.

What we women have to realize is that we are our OWN woman. No man can validate us. And most importantly you can't expect him to respect you if you cannot respect yourself.

Love is not abuse, it's a message that has yet to be sunk in by women across the globe. There is help, it is up to you to seek it.

For it isn't him who is ending up in the hospital bed, or the grave.

Everyone needs someone to love. To confide in, to feel safe with as well as to feel as one with. It's a right. If a man hurts you in anyway shape or form, get help. The light is always at the end of a dark tunnel.

I dedicate this article to those who have been affected by abuse.

Originally posted by Samuel on Antestian Road to Enlightenment
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/antesianroadtoenlightenment/>

Wasn't sure where to post this. I was on the receiving end of the abuse. I didn't know it wasn't mine to take. I thought it was my role as a woman to take it.

I don't know which is the sicker person, the one who issues it or the one who sits back and accepts it.

So much was done in the name of 'Love' and the fear of losing it and being alone. Some people just can't be alone or feel like they can't be and accept unacceptable behavior in order to have that 'someone' in their life.

It has been my experience that this isn't a man/woman thing but works both ways.

loveaddicts.org/40questions.html

[Lin]

Yesterdau I watched an ABC soap called general HOspital. A een age girl has a boyfriend who is quite verbal and physical with her. HE totally beat her up to the point she had to be hospitalized. When the police and her parents asked who did it, she gave a name of a different character.

WOW>>>so sad for the innocent person....so sad for the girl who is in such fear she can't be honest about who beat he up. I do hoe they find out she was lying, but I am sure it wilol drag out a while and the innocent one get in deep trouble first.

I was on the end of much physical and emotional abuse from my spouse. About 35 years ago when he was drunk he een pointed a loaded 38 pistol at my head because is aid he was too drunk to drive. I told him the next day...he would NEVER do that again. IF he decided to do it, he better pull the trigger because if he EVER laid a hand or threatened me with any kind of weapon again, he better be afraid to go to sleep because I'd definitely kill him in his sleep.

He took me at my word and for the past 35 year...not a single incident of physical abuse. Verbal? yes...but not physical. I can handle the words.

LIN

LIN

[caressa]

Thanks for sharing Lin. I too suffered from both. In today, I have managed to set boundaries with those who do not respect me and my space. It is important to me as a person and either I leave or I ask them to leave. Have a lot of invisible scars that went much deeper than the physical ones.

[majestyjo]

So much is done in the name of love. It is NOT Love. Those old tapes that say, "If you loved me..."

If you loved me you would use me as a punching bag. Yet having said that, "No one did a bigger number on me, than me."