Hope for Change

Like many women, I stayed and hoped he would change. 

After everything fell apart, I believed he would come to a point and realize that everything he did was wrong and cruel.

But I also knew  I had a calling.   I knew for a long time that I was called to speak out and teach others about domestic violence.   Women feel so alone as they endure.   They feel like their family just doesn't understand.

I knew that it was my calling to speak out, so I incorporated my fantasy hope of him changing into my calling.   I wanted him to repent completely.  Then after he repented we would work together teaching others about abuse.  He would be able to speak to the men and counsel them to help them to stop abusing their wives.   And I would help the women stand up to there abusers until they changed.

But he never repented.

And I waited.   The waiting was torture because there was so much I felt I needed to say, to help other women.

The waiting and silence felt like death to me.

But he never repented.

Sometimes he seemed kinder.  But he never said he was sorry.  He never admitted what he did.  I could never have anything to do with him without absolute, unquestionable, reform and repentance.

During our marriage he would act out, then the next day behave normal like nothing happened.

I was used to twhat.

After everything fell apart, I realized that he couldn’t change for real, without apologizing and admitting what he did, and working to make amends.

And that a repentant man should be just as aggressive with his reformed kindness, as he was with his  aggression.

I knew that if it wasn't real, it wouldn't be real, and our eternal family would be a sham.

Finally I realized, after major life events, that the change I was waiting for was never going to happen.   I realized that I was waiting for the man who raped me to give me permission to speak out.   That my waiting was putting my life in the control of a man who raped me.

And so, without the permission I had been waiting for...

I spoke out.

A couple of weeks ago, my playful son put a hole in the wall next to the front door while, "climbing the house".  He covered it up with a picture of the Savior Jesus Christ. Many people profess the Savior Covers our sins, and go on, but the Savior is supposed to help us repair ourselves and the others we hurt, not cover the damage up.  Faiths that teach that the Savior just covers are sins, are as lame as the effectiveness of a picture of the Savior over a 1 foot hole.