Wednesday Word Hug: Trust Your Wings

An apology is an action, not a word

"There is no apology without an acknowledgement of the pain you've caused and making amends for it." ~Brené Brown

I bet many of you have heard, "I'm sorry". The words might have been spit at you. They might have come with tears. They might have come with the additional plea that "you have to believe me."
But I'm here to tell you something about those words. They are meaningless if they are not accompanied by a genuine acknowledgement of the pain he caused you (and the whole family, whether or not they're aware of what he did). They are meaningless if they are not accompanied by a plan to make amends.
That's where a lot of these "I'm sorry"s fall apart.
When you ask him to accompany you to therapy.
When you ask for access to his phone, his computer, his e-mail history.
When you ask him to stop going out with the boys, to stop drinking, to stop flirting.
When you ask him to unfriend ex-girlfriends on Facebook.
In other words, if he isn't backing up his "I'm sorry" with full-throated support of your needs and absolute respect for your boundaries, then his "I'm sorry" isn't worth a damn.
Which means neither is he.

INTRODUCING: THE BWC RETREAT

This is a quick FYI so my beloved soul-warriors can begin to plan. Details will follow when I have them: 

September 28 - 30
Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina
•Room for roughly 20 on site; hotels within a couple of miles can accommodate more, if necessary. I'll be getting a reservation/pay system in place by mid-April or so. In the meantime, I'm working out prices and further details. 
I CANNOT CONSIDER ANY RESPONSES TO THIS AS RESERVATIONS. 

If this works out well, there will be other retreats planned for different locations. 

Wednesday Word Hug: Armor

When We Gaslight Ourselves

I was hiking through the snowy woods on Saturday when my friend told me that her husband had called her a "fucking idiot" the day before. Stunned, I listened as she told the story, which was basically about him asking her to do something, criticizing how she was doing it and then, when she asked why he asked for her help if he was only going to criticize her, he exploded.
I asked how she responded. "I don't any more. I'm used to it."
Did you catch that? This lovely kind capable woman was called a "fucking idiot" by her husband she's "used to it."
I asked her when that sort of behaviour was ever acceptable. Talking to a child? No, of course not. Talking to an employee? Nope. Talking to a neighbour? A friend? It's absolutely not okay (not even on Twitter!!) to call anyone a "fucking idiot" to their face. It's cruel. It's demeaning. It's dehumanizing.
But...she's used to it.
As anyone on this site (and off it) knows, I'm absolutely a cheerleader for women who want to rebuild their marriages after infidelity. I don't subscribe to "once a cheater, always a cheater". I don't believe that the only response to infidelity is to "lose a cheater, gain a life". In fact, I think our  culture's knee-jerk response to infidelity keeps a lot of women unnecessarily silent and feeling trapped. I think we would all benefit from a far more open discussion of infidelity, its ubiquity and the myriad responses to it – all worthy of respect.
However, I never advocate anyone staying in a relationship when there's any kind of abuse. (And yes, I know, some people insist that infidelity is abuse. I'm not one of them.) And though my friend's marriage isn't marked by infidelity, it is rife with verbal abuse.
And yet, she's "used to it."
Part of the problem with abuse, of course, is that is often happens slowly. By the time someone is screaming "fucking idiot" at us, we're silently agreeing. We've likely listened for months if not years as our faults were routinely catalogued: we screw up, we forget things, we get in the way. No matter that every single person on the planet is guilty of the same – we're human, after all – we're treated as annoyances. We're people to be endured, not enjoyed. To be barely tolerated, not valued.
And we begin to gaslight ourselves.
Gaslighting, of course, is when we begin to doubt our own perception. We see it play out almost daily with "Fake News" (things that are true being called untrue) has become the rallying cry of a the extreme members of an entire American political party. When we're told up is down and black is white, we begin to wonder if we're crazy. Many of us experience a level of gaslighting while our partners cheat. If we ask our partners, we're often told that we're imagining things, that we're acting jealous, that we're being insulting by even implying that they might cheat. (And, okay, here's where I would agree that infidelity can be abusive. Gaslighting is abuse.) We begin to wonder if WE are the crazy ones because what we think we see and what we're told we see are two very different things.
But when we begin to gaslight ourselves, to insist that what's happening isn't – can't be! –  happening, we're onto a level of self-harm.
And that scares me more.
Because it means we've normalized the lies. We've internalized them. We agree with them.
Which breaks my heart.
My friend is the farthest thing from a "fucking idiot." But she resists the idea that someone screaming that in her face is abuse. Her father had a "temper", which you can bet looked and sounded something like this. Her son's father threw her around. Her husband criticizes her so frequently that she's "used to it."
So I'm asking you: What behaviour are you tolerating that, if you were hiking through the snowy woods with a trusted friend, you'd be afraid to disclose? Maybe it's casual insults. It might be the occasional push. Do you get told you "can't take a joke", that you "don't have a sense of humour" when your husband "teases"? Does he threaten to leave or "give up" when you try to set boundaries? Does he accuse you of what you think he's doing? Does he use divorce as a trump card any time you demand accountability from him?
We can push back against gaslighting. We can take our perceptions and ask trusted friends, "what do you make of this?" We can talk to a therapist who can tell us, clearly, if what we're experiencing is abuse. We can try to imagine the advice we'd give a friend if she confided the same behaviour from her husband.
And we can begin to find the small still voice deep inside that has almost gone silent. We can begin to listen to it. The one that tells us we don't deserve any of this. The one that holds our own divine spark. That knows we're worthy of being loved. That one that would never ever call us a "fucking idiot". Because it's not true.

Wednesday Word Hug: Pick Yourself

I Want to Hear You Erupting

We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. That’s what I want – to hear you erupting. … If we don’t tell our truth, who will? ~Ursula K Le Guin 

It almost seems as though Mother Earth is emitting a primal scream right now, doesn't it? As if so many oppressed peoples, not to mention a planet that's been stripped for parts, are well and truly done with stifling themselves. It's as though the pain we warrior-wives have tended in the shadows is being expressed by all. #MeToo indeed.
Of course, a large part of the current eruption is because too many have been silenced for too long. Too few have made the table large enough to welcome all, choosing instead to protect their own privileged place.
And so we have volcanoes. Voices who are saying "enough". Who are screaming #MeToo. And, wonder of wonders, we're all (well, most of us) are listening. Or beginning to listen. 
What about you? 
Are you erupting? And if you are (and I hope you are!), who's listening? Because though it's crucial to finally tell your truth – your rage and your pain, which are often twisted up together – there can be no reconciliation without someone to bear witness to it. We need acknowledgement of the pain that's been caused. We require genuine remorse and a willingness to do better. If your partner is unwilling to give you that, why then, may I ask, are you giving him access to your precious heart?
I spent part of a sleepless night recently thinking about forgiveness. I wondered, if my husband were to ask me flat out if I've forgiven him, how I would answer.
And I realized that I would answer "no". 
I haven't forgiven him.
I have accepted what he did and I have given up any (futile) hope of undoing the past. I have appreciated all the work he has done to deserve the second chance he was given. I have respected the man he's become and the hard road he walked to get there. And I am able even to love the broken man he was.
But forgiven him for what he did? What does that even mean?
I am a volcano. 
Betrayal was my eruption and I continue to erupt. Betrayal taught me that the only way to live an honest life with a big secret was to offer my experience as truth, to embrace my changed maps, to climb new mountains. 
"If we don't tell our truth, who will?" asks the incredible Ursula Le Guin.
I tell my truth in many different ways. I tell my truth when I no longer accept anything but honesty and respect from those in my life. I tell my truth when I choose curiosity over fear. I tell my truth when I take a deep breath and open my heart instead of my mouth. 
I don't always succeed. In fact, I often fail. But admitting my failures is also telling my truth. 
Who will tell your truth, if not you? Whose map can you change by offering up your experience as truth? Whose eruption can you precipitate by affirming their story, by encouraging them to own their truth?
We are volcanoes. 
We must erupt.