To Love a Wayward Parent

The unconditional love children can have for their parents is amazing.  Of all the stories I've heard from children, young and old about their parents, it seems their is only one unforgivable crime.

No matter all the terrible things a parent can do, even if they are in prison, it seems that only one thing can ultimatly cut them off from the child.

As long as the child, (adult child or young) feels and sees that their parent loves them, respects them, and cares about them and their well being, that seems to be the most vital thing they need.

Beyond that, a parent can commit so many terrible things, but once that parent turns to their child and says, "I love  you, I respect you, and I'm sorry." and demonstrates that they really mean it, that's all they need.

When you sort past all the nitty, gritty messes of family relationships, it comes down to that one simple principle, the need to be loved, respected and accepted, trumps just about everything.

A New Birth

The last time I gave birth, I was so terrified.

My nephew had just taken his life the week before.  My husband promised to leave me after her birth.

The World Trade Center had come down.

Other things happened that really scared me.   I was afraid for my children's future.  I felt so alone.

I have wonderful healthy pregnancies, and make up for all the missed pregnancy suffering all in child labor.

The doctor who administered the epidural did it wrong and I felt complete pain.

In that hospital room I felt that my emotional suffering was complete.

I felt that my spiritual fears and suffering was complete.

I felt that my husband's betrayal and cruelty was complete.

I felt my physical suffering was complete.

My husband was their with me physically, and put on a video of that ape planet movie to comfort me?  He was cold and distant.

I can't look back at that day, without falling apart.  So I will skip much of the story details, to make the major point.

After hours of pain and complete suffering, my mind turned to the others.

I saw a young girl in another hospital far away, she was giving birth too.  She was in a hospital without family, a young teenage girl, becoming a mother.  I felt her pain and fear, and her wondering how she was going to meet her new responsibilities.

I saw another mother, so far away, in a hut, I felt her as she laid dying on a dirt floor, surrounded by her helpless small children.   I felt her heart tear as she ached to live for the sake of her children.   And I felt her spirit cry out as she died, and left her children helpless.  I felt as her spirit left her body.

In that moment, I felt every woman.

I felt the joined souls of every woman suffering at that moment.

All of them across the earth in one singular cry, their souls united in a song of suffering to the Lord.

I felt and saw them all as their heart broken souls stood before the Lord.

The uniting power of the suffering women was overwhelming.

I felt selfish and ashamed to ask the Lord to attend to my hardship, while their was so much suffering.  At the same time, I asked to, and prayed to the Lord for his aid.

I was answered, and the Lord promised to watch over me.

There was more.

But, I will tell you this.

God loves his daughters.  They are precious to him.   He hears every cry and counts every tear.  He is aware, he is very aware. 

To offend his daughters is to offend him.  He is wise and all powerful.

I have wondered how any being can withstand, and bear to exist the weight of the suffering.

I have come to believe, that the only means of peace for our Lord, is to exercise that power he has, sometimes swiftly, and sometimes in his own due time, at the oportune moment, to bring protection and justice.

I want every woman to know this.  That God is real.  That God loves them.   That he knows their unjust suffering.  That tears are counted.  He knows.

And when God chooses to act....

Who am I

My name is Natalie Pye, formerly Natalie Fleming.  I live in Idaho with my husband Phil.

None of these abuse stories are of Phil. The personal ones of me, are in reference to Mathew Fleming, now of Fusion.

My stories are all random with little continuity.

Here is some help on the story line.

Early on
http://understandingdomesticviolence.blogspot.com/2009/06/meek-answer-turneth-away-wrath.html

The story of how he raped me.  Spousal rape is difficult for most people to understand, because of the intimate nature of Marriage relationships.  Physical intimacy should be a blessing for the relationship, but it can be used to assert dominance and degredation.  By the time my Daughter was born, I had no rights.  I wasn't aloud to say I was in pain, or felt degraded. Both parties should be respectful of each other.  Continued, repeated, physical intimate cruelty by a partner can destroy someone to the very core.

I do have a tilted uterus.  That can make intimacy incredibly painful if careless.

Last month I said to Phil, a little shocked.  "Wow, you've never hurt me?" He told me he took the time to read about tilted uterus before married.  All of the articles said the same thing.  Be gentle and show respect and you'll be okay.

Mathew was present twice at the doctors office, when the doctor explained that I had a tilted uterus.

The final time we were intimate, shortly after the birth of my last child, Mathew said, after a painful late night, "I shouldn't have to worry if my wife feels pain or degraded."  I realized then that all the times he hurt me, I believe he knew, and he didn't care.   By the time he left, I felt intimacy was used to punish me.  It was over 8 years before I let a man touch me again.  And allowing that was hard.

http://understandingdomesticviolence.blogspot.com/2009/06/first-obstacle-woman-faces-with-spousal.html

The two part story of how he responded to my pregnancy after the rape.
http://understandingdomesticviolence.blogspot.com/2009/06/end-of-era-beginning-of-new-era_27.html
http://understandingdomesticviolence.blogspot.com/2009/06/september-11-2001_27.html

The story of how he justified it to me.
http://understandingdomesticviolence.blogspot.com/2009/11/universal-rhetoric-of-hate-applied-to.html
http://understandingdomesticviolence.blogspot.com/2009/06/excuse-for-abusing-your-wife_27.html 

The ways in which families respond to abuse
http://understandingdomesticviolence.blogspot.com/2009/06/families-of-abusers.html

http://understandingdomesticviolence.blogspot.com/2011/10/for-record.html

There is help for women who suffer from domestic violence.

Most women are afraid to report it.  We are so intent on protecting the man who hurts us freely at whim.

Here in Idaho when a man abuses his partner, they do not send him off to jail.  They send him to Anger Counseling.  There are also countless clinics, low cost, rape and abuse counselors throughout most communities.  There is help after.  There is hope.  There is a future.  Just not a future that you expected or planned on.

Changing expectations for you and your life can be hard, confusing, and confront every part of your relationship with God and family.  But there is a purpose.

Silence on abuse, perpetuates abuse.  So many may try to silence you, but silence is not the answer.

While not everyone should "come out" to this extent.  My silence was literally killing me. I got to the point, that if I didn't write, I knew I would die.  We all deal with it differently.

Step Parent Parental Alienation

Imagine the cruel step mothers from all those terrible children's stories, but the father isn't even dead.

Do some step mothers see the adolescent daughter as competition?  Then persuade the father the child is corrupt in order to alienate the child from the father?

If a man has any character, neither Step Mother or Child should fear alienation.  A father's love for his child should be constant and unwavering.  The child should know the father will BE THERE for her.  The Step mother should know the same of his love for her too.  A father's family members deserve to have absolute confidence in his love and steadfastness.

And ^acharity suffereth long, and is ^bkind, and ^cenvieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily ^dprovoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

If a man's heart is filled with the love of Christ, neither Step Mother nor child would fear loss of love.

When a man has an affair, the adulterous women he is with, will try to alienate the man from his wife.  She will encourage him to believe every negative thought about his wife, and try to point more out to him.  She will help him to see the evil in his wife.  The man, looking to justify himself, loves it, and feeds on it.

A "wicked" step mother/parent can do the same with the father and the child.  Just like the woman luring a man from a sacred relationship, a cruel step mother can use all the same tactics to drive a wedge between the "competing" daughter and her father.  These step mothers are of the same character as a woman luring a man from his wife.

This of course, is most likely to happen when the father once showered love on his daughter, and the step mother resents it.

If a young girl, who once felt showered with love by her father, is painfully alienated from her father, the consequence can be devastating and even fatal.  As the child is alienated, of course she will act out and give the step mother more rotten material to work with.

It's pathetic that some men are so completely well, without any sense of reality that they fall for this.  There is a special place prepared for such men.

A good man who really loves and cherished his sweet beautiful daughter, who understands his God given commandment to protect his precious daughter, who remembers those tender childhood little girl moments, could never do such a sick thing. It's hard to believe that such a father's love was ever real.

A woman who has inner strength and confidence would never do this to a step daughter.  A strong faithful women has nothing to fear from a cherished step daughter.  A strong confident women who has confidence in her relationship with her husband, would never do this.  She would welcome her step daughter with open arms.

These women who alienate children from their fathers,  are easy for most moms to spot.

I have so much more to say on this, but I can't.  When you see one you love suffer, and are powerless to change the heartache...  It's profoundly amazing how dark and twisted a mind can become that a father cannot even begin to recognize real love.

We are each responsible for our relationships with our children. 

I asked God a question 10 years ago when I was in the hospital with a ill newborn.   If a man has no natural affection for his children, and no desire to fulfill his fatherly duties to the child, is the father's heart then,  so corrupt that it's better that the father leave anyway?

Is it better to let such a "parent" walk away?

Who do we Protect?

I put every part of my living breathing into trying to save my first marriage.  I believed in the institution of marriage to protect me and my children.

I believed the timing of  a young boys death served as a personal warning for us to make our marriage work.  I worked hard believing our children's very lives depended on it.   Years later, after a callous comment he made, and countless incidents, I realized, instead the death was a warning of the kind of man and family he represented. But then I realized, my children's lives depended on me standing up to him.   I wanted him back, pathetic yes, but I loved him.  But I realized that if I couldn't stand up to him, when he was unkind or cruel to our children, or to anyone, that we should not be together for their sake.

After not personally speaking to him for two years, I was shocked by his way of thinking when we spoke again.   I found him so far off key. Even more disturbing, I found myself agreeing with him in conversations, then after the conversations,  I felt like I "woke up"  and shook it off and was angry with myself for being so blurry minded in the moment.  I didn't like the way I couldn't retain myself with him.  It tore me up terribly. It was the hardest thing I never wanted to accept.  When I looked at him I felt eternity.  But I had to accept the reality of his cruelty.

I always though he would get better.

Now, I don't like the way he treats my children.   Sometimes I feel like there is so little I can do to protect them.  I try to teach them to put their faith and strength in God.   He is the one who will never fail us.  It's hard when you see your child hurting so much.

When our children are hurting, we as parents should be willing to put our own needs aside to help them.  

The other week, a new show, "Touch" about a father with an autistic son was on television.  In it the son, climbed a cell tower and sat at the top.  When the father came to help him, the father was afraid of heights, but it didn't matter, he still climbed to the top to save and protect his son.  As a true father he put his fears for his own protection aside to save his child.

A parent doesn't say, "I have to protect myself" when their child is in danger.   Personal self sacrifice is a part of what makes parenting real.  Being a real parent can really hurt at times, more than we can imagine. My children need me and will for  a long time.   So I live my life in such a way so I can be there for them. 

In terrible dark moments, there were times I felt like giving up.  But I didn't.  I've always believed that our family members that are "gone" now are still with us and watch us.  As powerless I've felt at times to help my children, the though of watching my children from the other side, unable to do anything to help my children as they passed through the adversities of life, was more horrible to me.  

It is for them I've chosen to live.   I love them with all my soul.  I see amazing things in there eyes, even in their greatest adversities.  Even in their greatest weaknesses I remember what they are to be when the reach their full potential, so I don't give up.  I want to see them accomplish everything honorable thing God intended for them.

I have a new life now, and a new loving husband.  He care about me so much.  He is kind and faithful.  He treats me with respect.   He loves my children and hurts for them when they do.    I don't have to go to the hospital alone for a child anymore.  I love him.  He is a good man who respects how I feel.  He takes the time to listen so there are no misunderstandings.  He is very patient, and I am very grateful for him.

Learning to love a man again has been terrifying.   I didn't think I would ever be able to even fall asleep with man in my house ever again.  But I do and I feel safe with him.  For a long time I knew there were guardian angels working hard to protect me  and my children.  One day I grew tired and complained to God that the angels protecting me were nice, but it sure would be nice to have a guardian angel I could touch and see.

And that is who God sent, Phil.

Good vs Power

Ever heard of Myanmar? You may know it as Burma.

Well in 2008 a huge Cyclone hit it.  The cyclone killed an estimated 138,000 people.

But it wasn't just the cyclone that killed ALL those people.

The country of Myanmar was ruled by a power hungry military.  People who obsess over power measure everything, every word, every action, and every event in terms of power.

Every situation either gives them more power, or takes it away.

After the cyclone hit, the rest of the world saw endless videos of dead bodies in trees, families destroyed, and villages swept to the sea in Myanmar.

As it is a poor country, the rest of the world swept into action.   The love and mercy of the world tried to step in and save what was left.

But the Myanmar government saw the even as a potential to lose power, not an event to serve.

Because they viewed the world in the eyes of power, the rulers of Myanmar kept out international aid. They would rather watch their citizens continue to suffer and die than lose power and allow aid in.

In the meantime great relief ships from around the world, sat at bay for days, unable to help, all because the leaders could only think in terms of power.

For days, the world sat and watched helplessly.

When the generals finally gave in, and let the aid in, they made stickers with their own names, and placed them over the international agencies names when distributing.

While some of us look at every event in terms of serving others, and helping, and just plain doing good, we can be hindered by self absorbed power hungry souls who would rather see those they are supposed to care about suffer, rather than aid.

Dealing with those in any level of power, who see everything in terms of power and control, and trying to do good while dealing with them, is a pain.

Some people just want to see good things happen. Some people just want power.

Those who are motivated by the quest for power, do not and cannot comprehend those with intentions of merely doing good and doing what is right.

What Really Provokes You?

Anger and Hate are two emotions I was raised to see as ungodly, unchristlike, almost forbidden.

I always saw those who exhibited them as emotionally weak and ignorant.

But what provokes me?

As an adult, there are many things that I will feel personal hurt or pain for.  Most anyone can slight me, or whatever, I may feel hurt or upset, or confused, but...

But the only thing that ever provokes me to what I would call anger, or even the forbidden hate, is when someone hurts my children.  Oh, I don't mean bumps or bruises or even a broken arm.

I mean when my child is confused, emotionally overcome, trying and struggling, and someone kicks them when they are down.

Thinks like that.

Most parents try so hard to help their children through so much.  We try to protect them and help them understand themselves and the world around them.

To see your child come to a point where they are hurting and reaching out for help, and then to see someone kick them or do anything to make their adversity worse.

I am far more inclined to stand up to protect and defend my child, than to do so for myself.

The moments I regret the most are the moments I let my children down.

Most mothers are this way.

Bouncing Head

I can't tell a recent story, but I can tell an old story.  To old.

I will skip to the main point, the story is long and interesting.  Eventually I will tell most of it, but for now I will tell part.

During the divorce, my children's great grandmother died.  His grandmother....   Out of respect for his absolute power, I had no intentions of going.

Even in the divorce I struggled to stand up to him.   Not following his every whim as I had for years, was like keeping my hand on a burner. 

Well the night before the funeral I happened to speak to a new friend,  who's mother attended "the funeral" in the same circumstances.  She told me how proud she was of her mother.

Out of the blue I had the sudden feeling that I had to go.   Little did I know it was the main reason I was to be in Idaho.  (good detailed story omitted for times sake)

I realized that it was wrong to obey his every whim.

I was terrified but I did it.  Choosing to do something that I believed was right, was an important step in truly "divorcing" him.

After I went, I was glad, his family was kind to me and several members said they were glad I was there.

He was angry when he saw me there.  He came out of the funeral and screamed at me because I came.  I just said, "It's not your decision.'

I think that was the big part.  It was important for me to learn to make my own decisions that I believed were right and not continue to follow him as my "husband".

Later that night, when I was alone at my home, he came to the home to pick up our youngest child.

In the doorway, he screamed at me for  a while, and I just said, "It's not your decision."

He bounced my head off the wall in the doorway.  I don't remember if my baby was in my arms or his at the time. (funny how your brain has a hard time recording events when its sloshing in your noggin.)

The neighbors called the police, despite the fact I told them to call the Relief Society President instead.  Yes funny story, sick funny brain I had at the time.

But the point was, I defied his absolute power and he bounced my head off the wall. 

I will tell the whole story, but for now, I have to get going to take care of other responsibilities I have right now.  Anyway, one of my thoughts for the night.

Redirecting Anger

Redirecting anger is an amazing talent the spouses of abusers develop.

If an abuser is angry, they are angry.  It rarely has anything to do with you.  Well, sometimes it does, if you violate their absolute power in the slightest way, it will anger them.  But sometimes doing what's right requires not following their dictates.

Anyway, most partners learn quickly to redirect and appease the anger of an abuser.  They may initiate sex with them.  They may give them a massage to calm their nerves.

If the children are the target, the spouse may immediately direct the anger of the abuser away to themselves to protect the children.

Most teenage boys, by the time they are 14 have intervened with the father and had a physical altercation to protect their mother, and "redirected" the anger back to themselves.

A step parent or new partner, faced with the abusers anger in the presence of the abusers children, as the children are not her/his own, may redirect the abusers anger to the abusers children in their own attempt to emotionally survive.

Well, some step parents, not all or most.  But some do.

Yes that is a particularly frightening thought.

Obedience

Obedience is essential for human societies to survive.  Obedience makes it possible for the 7 billions humans living on this earth to work together without completely wiping each other out.

A certain level of obedience is what makes our country so mighty.

With Obedience, comes Power, the power of the one being obeyed.

While it is important to learn obedience, it is also important to learn when not to obey.  

If we are asked to do something that violates basic principles of right and wrong, we are not required to obey.

In World War II the world learned the awful human tragedy that follows absolute obedience to that which is wrong in Germany.

It’s hard for those of us who were raised in a atmosphere of strict obedience to learn when to disobey, and to find the strength to stand up to someone you’ve always obeyed, because you realize that they are not asking that which is right.

It takes super human inner strength.

The hard part is learning when to obey, and when not to.  We have to learn right and wrong for ourselves as much as possible.

Sometimes Obedience is essential for survival.

Sometimes, you have two masters and you have to choose between them.   Sometimes, you have to choose the more righteous path.

Neil Kressel wrote some insightful essays on the subject in the book, "Mass Hate:  The global rise of Genocide and Terror."    Yes the title is awful, and the subject matter is painful.  But it's better to read of the awful and painful that to have to live it for ignorance.   If you have the stomach, I recommend it, otherwise, just smile and nod.