Steubenville Exposes Ugly Truth About Rape

We currently are hearing so many feigned voices of shock and surprise about the rape in Steubenville,Ohio, after having had an election while one Republican candidate for the Senate spoke of legitimate rape after having co-sponsored the same bill with the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan in Congress, to define legitimate rape as opposed to regular rape. Another Virginia Republican candidate called rape and the children born out of the same,” The intent of God.”

If women raped men we could all bet that women would be accused of being Jezebels and inspired by Satan if the reverse happened.  We could also guarantee ourselves it would be discussed as the most evil of acts and no woman would be left severely unpunished, regardless of how the rape occurred.

Men have gotten off with the excuse of going into a blind rage in an act of murder and instead charged with manslaughter when they kill another where women are often charged with murder 1 since the judicial system does not equate fear in women with the level of rage in men.  It totally discounts the idea that women can to act out of rage after years of abuse. Where women need a well documented history of rape or abuse, men need to establish little to no history either supportive or contrary to their own word in order to get a lesser sentence of manslaughter or for lawyers to refuse prosecution for rape charges.

When women are prosecuted for twice the amount of time that men are when death occurs in a domestic dispute, but treated more justly in other charges, we do not need to even guess how much harsher Society would be on a woman rapist than they are on men. Why so much shock and surprise over a statement that has been promoted for generations by the “Good Old Boys”,caused such a stir in the elections this year is beyond me.

Let me take this time to clarify the fact that rape amongst athletes has been taking place for generations just as the mentality has existed for Centuries, “That good girls cannot get pregnant from rape”, has existed as well. for the Republican Party or Press to deny the same is what is at the root of the ignorance in America.  To feign ignorance over rape amongst athletes or the idea that a child born from rape is a “Blessing from God,” are new ideas should leave us all sickened with those who continually dismiss the truth.  These ideas have existed since the beginning of time.

In the minds of the “Good Old Boy System”, and unfortunately some women as well, a legitimate rape is one that involves Street mugging or when a rapist breaks into the home of a woman and rapes her.  Any rapes that happen when a woman is in the company of men or marriage or in the man’s Apartment, barracks, frat house or territory, provocatively dressed or drinking, and the woman is raped it is no big deal to this mentality.  To many of both genders feel when this happens a woman is just asking for sex and rape does not happen under these circumstances.This attitude has always existed over the years, and continues being the attitude of to many.

Etiquette stated years ago, and perhaps still does,”One should never speak of politics,sex, or religion while in mixed company.”  Although I believe we have developed too casual of an attitude towards good manners, I do believe that not talking about politics,sex, or religion has left too many of us brain-dead on the issues that should matter and be discussed by all of us.  When we say the subject bores us then we are the ones who lose.  This post discusses all three subjects.

Allow me to tell you,the not so uncommon stories of its’ day in regards to women and rape.   I change the names and do not name the locations but I will not tell anything but the facts in the telling of these three stories. The names or locations are not important as these stories took place across our Nation in Jane and John Does and in anywhere U.S.A. during the era in which I write, along with years in advance of the same.

One generation does not often tell these kinds of stories from previous generations because it has to often been bred into the older generations to keep secrets in the past, or perhaps with time memory does get lost, behind both denial and disease.I begin from the truth of my own memory, that is still well-preserved. I Thank You for that Dear Lord, as I also inherited the mouth to tell the truth! Way back when there were the Landers Sisters writing and publishing the Nations problems, I was nicknamed Ann Landers since both men and women felt comfortable in telling me things that they would not even tell their husbands or wives.

1. It was the Spring of 1959 and an eighth grade girl ,who was rumored to  have been molested by a family member, was dating a young man,and together they had sex,previously,to the young girl attending a keg party with highschool athletes.  She was severely gang raped that night, as a result of drinking at the party.  No local lawyer, would take her case. The young victim had a wealthy aunt who lived 75 miles distance from the town, who could afford to pay for a lawyer, so they were able to hire an out-of-town lawyer.

When the case came before the judge, the victim’s boyfriend had been rounded up and forced to acknowledge that he had sexual relations with the girl who was the victim in this story.  The Judge threw the gang rape case out of Court and his finding stated,”No young man much less young boys could be held responsible for rape when the young girl in question, had previously de-flowered herself and was drinking alcohol under age.”Nothing was said about the young boys drinking illegally,of course.

2. In the Winter of 1964 a Catholic Priest, who the Church knew had a History of molesting young women, was given dispensation from duty as a Parish Priest and instead sent on the rounds of filling in as a speaker while conducting retreats in Convents and All Girls Catholic boarding Schools.  The same happened during this time with Priests celebrating retreats in all Boys Schools, when they had a history of molesting young boys.  The Catholic Church has come clean about their history but so many other Private Schools and Colleges are still denying that this still continues in their schools.  The Penn State Coach is NOT an uncommon story but just one of many.

3.  Going back to my farthest memory, any Sports player or Coach who brought fame to their sports program whether it was highschool, college, or the pros, were entitled to take anything they wanted to take, regardless of the size of the Town, City, or Religious affiliation. If the athlete is part of the team but not a star player then they will be used as the fall guy for the stars to remain clean. Unless it was burglary, where a Store refused to drop charges but in most cases even they could be bought off, if the athlete was a star and changed his ways.  Most Teams, while traveling elsewhere to play outside of their own town or City will have a team of scouts scouting out the local scene for a Party for them to return to.  These Parties since the 1960′s have both girls of questionable morality as well as virgins rounded up to attend.

Highschool girls have always been amongst the attendees of both sports and fraternity parties. It may be cool to a 16-year-old virgin, or not, to think they look older than they do and to go ahead and drink but when these girls do, it excuses the boys from showing the girls, respect. To many believe that when a girl says “NO” they are only teasing and instead they really want sex.  Boys have been told for generations that some girls need more convincing and when they say “No”, they really mean yes. Dress and drinking in women has always been grounds for rape, if they get drunk or even if drugs have been placed in their drinks, at these parties. I certainly do not accept that this mentality has ever been right but pretending we have not only tolerated it but promoted it for generations, makes it even more deplorable now when we deny the same.

A woman or young girl who is unconscious from drugs or alcohol has never been hands off in the minds of some boys and men and to pretend that this behavior does not happen or has not happened in the past is just another lie of the “Good Old Boy System.” I do not deny that there are some girls whose morality can make some mens’ behavior, pristine, but until we accept that prostitutes are raped, then we deny reality.

We fail women and our sisters alike, when we hold all women responsible for the behavior of a few.  All women have always been held responsible for those few women; where as all men and their behavior has been excused because of the behavior of the few women, who would set up men and yell “rape.” Rape is as unpleasant for most women to have to divulge the details and to relive the rape in a Court of law, regardless of their background, as it is for a man to get his penis removed, and yet we have always blamed victims of rape, for causing rape. Women, not men, are raped again by our judicial system.

Regardless, if it is a house party or a frat house across America the boys and men of the crowd are egged on to feel that rape is justified because “Good Girls” would not be there drinking if they didn’t want sex, has always been the mentality of the “Good Old Boy System”This mentality has existed in the “bad boys” as well as the Sports teams going back at least to the 1950′s when I first heard the stories told to me by the girls who had been raped.  Going to a man’s house or apt. under the guise of having a cup of coffee or to listen to his music, has existed for just as long, as a reason for rape.  It doesn’t have to be alcohol and to pretend that it does is only promoting the same lies. I’m sure those older than myself will tell my readers the same statement of fact, if they care to be honest with their grandchildren.

For a bunch of right-wing Republican men and the media that backs them,to feign ignorance or to act flabbergasted at the same while they continue to deny women,that this has been and remains the mentality amongst the “Good Old Boy System,” for centuries, sickened me in the Republican elections this year.  The fact that the media is now pointing a finger at Steubenville,Ohio, as being small town and unique in their cover up of the most recent rape being broadcasted, leaves me equally sick.

No one who has ever served as a cheerleader or been part of the popular or un-popular group could not possibly have attended highschool and had a successful Sports team, without knowing that this behavior took and takes place whether they were or are girls or boys.  The mentality that allows whole communities to protect rape and the behavior and mentality that broadcasts,” That these women deserve to be raped”,comes from a background in which we began early, hearing these stories as always being the fault of women. Too many women who serve on Juries are even worse than male juries when it comes to pointing a finger at the rape victims. To many times the lives of all boys, girls, and women who are raped, are destroyed by the men and women who protect these lies.

To deny that as a fact, has to make all of us ask,”Just how far has America slipped into denial?’  Will we deny that 67 Republican Tea Party members attempted to hold up funding for the Hurricane Sandy victims while FEMA was saying they were going broke and could not pay back the families who had paid into their flood Insurance?

Will we remain in denial of the fact that 183 Republican Congressmen and Senators could have cared less if it cost the middle class 100s of thousands of jobs, if we had gone over the fiscal cliff?  Did we elect them because their ideology is more important to us, than are our children and elderly, who will go hungry or without effective medical care? Will we all do better living on the Republican and the N.R.A. ideology that makes us feel unsafe without a gun in our homes even though a third of all deaths of children result as our having a gun in our homes. Will their ideology make us a better Democracy if we cannot provide for our families?

Does the N.R.A. lobbying the Republican Congress, who followed through on their bidding, to disallow funding to the Disease Control Center, make us feel even safer against Disease? If this sounds like a stupid analogy to those of you who protect the Republican Congress, rape, and guns, then just think of what you, yourselves, must sound like to the rest of the World!

Will we keep denying the fact that 50 some economists outside of Washington are saying that the only thing that is stagnating the American Economy is the 67 Tea Party members voting against the needs of the people along with the far right in Congress, who clearly want to see government go broke before they serve the needs of our elderly? Even Wall Street has joined the side of the Democrats on the damage being done to Business growth and jobs by the uncertainty of the Republican Congress. How much more can we deny until denial renders us all brainless when it comes to human decency and common sense?

I ask you,”Are we now going to pass the blame on to a bunch of kids in Steubenville,Ohio, for doing what men have always done or are we going to finally acknowledge the injustice of it, ALL! The guilty in Steubenville needs to be prosecuted along with others in our Nation.  I certainly do not mean to make allowances for the people responsible for such an ugly crime in Steubenville, Ohio, but it is our Nation’s problem. We all must take responsibility for denying these problems have always existed and still do exist.

We begin by eliminating the mindset that allows us to remain in denial, to the point that those amongst us simply accept it as “Just being the way it has always been,” before another election brings in more of the same mentality that cripples us as a Democracy. To accept it as being the way it is, has always been a second crime of humanity, against both our children and women. Those who tell us they want to go back to the 1950′s morality are lying to all of us about the truth that existed then just as it does today.

I warn all parents to think twice when they think popular,”is all that,” because a cheerleader and a popular girl are twice as likely to be raped than is a less popular girl. These girls also peak early just as the ball players do, and their best memories are as children or in highschool.  They learn ,too often, to settle for less and have a far greater chance of becoming pregnant as teenagers.  The “nerds”, on the other hand, have far greater statistics when it comes to those who go on to challenging careers following a College education and happy and contented lives.  If we parents cannot consider long-term results as a priority in our lives, then how can we expect those younger than ourselves to have common sense?

When we set up our own children to continue under the system that many of us tried to stop, we punish our children for the sins of the parents.” When we lack common decency,our children lack the same.  When we make everything about ourselves then our children do as well. When we as adults deny truth of fact and our children are raised on the same, we create the monster that often leads to more half-truths and false accusations against the victims of our Society.

Ultimately the same mentality leads to an increase failure in families and a bigger concern of increased crime in children at a much younger age. We cannot deny that the viciousness of our youth crimes are not increasing with the mentality that blames the victims over the perpetrators. As a Society brain washed in gun ownership our children have emerged as the losers. We need to hold both parents responsible for the failure of the child while we increase our endeavors to spot and treat both mental illness and drug addiction as the diseases that they are.  We need to give trained professionals who recognize the need for early intervention and parents the ability to get the help these children need through our Court Systems.

Those who claim family values would not need to talk about family values, if they had any.  Conversation along the lines of family values or the worsening of morality ultimately gives our Churches a bad name for failing at their jobs. The Conservative right is doing a bang up job of destroying Religion along with the Republican Tea Party, when they are not doing it to themselves. When questionable and charismatic Religion preaches the “Prosperity Gospels” while bleeding money from the poor and middle class and then blame the poor and middle class for their own poverty due to a lack of Faith, it is time we all voice our outrage. It takes the voice of the people to stand up to the injustices taking place and have taken place under our noses for generations. It begins with placing the emphasis on the right priorities without attacking the victims.

It never solves anything to talk when we need to be acting to stop the mentality in all of the new generations while charging those,” who do not get it”,in a Court of Law.  The mentality of,”Boys will be Boys,” has always laid at the root of the corruption in morality, since the beginning of mankind. If we want to make a difference, then we must begin today in telling the younger generations, who are our future, the ugly truth of yesterday.

To tell our grandchildren that children and women experienced a kinder gentler time in History, is and always has been a lie. Any adult who refuses to accept reality, needs to also accept that they are jeopardizing the future of their children and grandchildren, when they choose denial of the facts, over the truth. When we know better then we need to do better as a Society and as a Nation of laws.

To blame Steubenville alone is ludicrous, because if we leave them carrying the bag for what has been wrong for generations,around the World, we leave all of our children unprotected against rape,guns, and our own stupidity.  For the sake of our children, we must begin with changing the mentality, that we have allowed to go on.  We can no longer deny our own behavior and motives when technology shows us the truth and refuses to tolerate lies.

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Instilling Ambition

Too many times over the years I have heard parents complain because their teenagers show little to no ambition. They are not a member of any organization at school or outside of the school. They do not have after school jobs nor clean their rooms or work around the house. They do not play sports nor join speech classes, work on the yearbook, belong to band, or partake in drama classes, or anything that is considered extra curriculum. They simply go to school and come home and sleep until noon or later on weekends.

When this happens, it is always appropriate that we parents take a good look at our own behavior. To what extent, are we the parents, involving ourselves or our children in extra activities in the home or out of the home. Do we simply go to work and come home and flop down in front of the television set and stay there until bed time and then get up and leave for work again the next day? Do we spend weekends puttering around the home and never leaving unless we go to the mall, a home repair or grocery store?

As I have said in many of my posts, our children do not hear what we say as much as they watch what we do. If we are a stay at home Mom and we are not making our children pick up after themselves or clean their rooms or share in household responsibility, we only add to their laziness.If we are working all kinds of hours and our children never see us work around the home, it can have the same kind of effect. If we have a maid and gardener and nothing is asked of our children, it can have the same results.Children are not born with ambition, it is something that needs to be taught to them. The best teachers are always the parents.

Schools can do just so much towards inspiring our children but when the majority of the classroom time is taken up with discipline problems, as it is today in most cases, then we need to inspire our own children.

If we are not taking them out to play putt putt golf,walking to the park or biking on trails with them,going to art museums or historical museums with them, bowling,teaching them to swim,T-ball or softball or games that the family can enjoy outside of the house or away from our home town or cities, then they will never leave the house, themselves.

If we never leave our home and stay in a motel but instead at mom’s and dad’s home, when we do leave our home, go to movies with them or drive to another town or city and choose different vacation spots,if they are never allowed to take a weekend trip on their own during the later highschool years,if we never volunteer in our communities or help with any special drive or organizations, then they are not being taught anything but to go to school and come home, just like we go to work and come home and never leave.

Too many times parents say,”No matter what I said to him or her or no matter how hard I tried to teach them to get up off their butts, they never listened.” Children will never listen to the parents who talk about ambition and then do nothing towards inspiring them to get involved when the parents are not showing any involvement themselves.

Many times parents can be very ambitious themselves but if work around the home, that never involves the children, is all they see us do, then they just assume that we are doing our job just as they are doing their job, when they go to school.Unfortunately, too many adults also have this attitude, as well, especially when it comes to both the boys or men in the household. Instead of having the patience or going through the headache of getting the children involved with helping with the housework, they will often convince themselves that it is not the child’s responsibility to be responsible for themselves at home.

We need to lead by example and inspire them to want to leave the home because we have taught them to be both independent through their own efforts of taking care of responsibilities both in the home as well as in the community in which they live.I repeat then: Only we can inspire them through our own behavior and through teaching them how to be independent before they are too old to hear us. Children need to start learning to take care of their own responsibilities before they are 10 years of age.

They need to be able to get themselves up when an alarm goes off, do their own laundry,clean their room and change a vacuum cleaner bag or dump the reservoir, run a dish washer, fix their own meals, even if it is only cereal or micro-waveable, earn an allowance for the work they do around the home or from a job out of the home, balance a check book, start taking a serious look at the colleges they plan on attending by their sophomore year,bathe or shower without being told and be inspired to join extra curricula activities within the school or outside of it, so that it is natural to them and habit, before their 17th birthday.

Responsible and independent teenagers are no different from any other responsible adult in that they do not want to be told to do what they already are responsible enough to do on their own. The more we try to treat them as irresponsible children the more eager they will be to get out and away from home, in order to begin their life on their own. It is when they are never taught to be responsible before their teen years, they will be content to stay home and let mom or dad do it for them. The older they get before they become independent and responsible the lower their self-esteem will become and the more fearful they will become to leave home on their own.

The more capable a child is towards taking care of their own needs, as well as, the more exposed they are to different cultures and lifestyles, because they have been exposed to different areas in the United States or the World,as well, the more likely they will also be towards wanting to leave home and provide for their own needs. If the most that we can afford to do is camping or fishing or school activities or YMCA sports or in State travel, then do that, with your children, so they do learn to leave their home because You taught them to get away from home and take responsibility beginning in baby steps, by the age of three, and while they were still young enough to enjoy the adventure of doing so.

If our children are already adults, then sometimes we will need to move them out of our home, once they get a job, even if we need to help with the deposit or they need to advertise for room mates or move in with someone else who is advertising for a room-mate, to help pay for expenses, and accept the fact they will more likely than not live the life that we lived, because we went to work and came home and never left the house but to go to the mall, a home repair store or grocery store,or to Mom’s and Dad’s. All Momma Birds, as well as humans, need to sometimes kick the stragglers from the nest, before they can learn to fly.

It doesn’t make a lot of difference if we like it or not, but our children will emulate us when they do become adults, when we do not spend the time with them to teach them a different way to live. If we wanted better for our children, then we should perhaps be grateful they did value the good in the life we may have taken for granted, instead of being disappointed with our children for not living, our dream for them, for our sake.

If in the final analysis, when we have done our job and are able to offer to the world an adult child who both knows and respects themselves as well as others, we should all be grateful. No one should ever be made to apologize for the job they hold,their own belief system, or the dedication they put into it.

It does us all well to know and remember: just as maturity comes in stages, so does the kind of life our adult children choose to live, often times move in the same or different circles, and is not always open for interpretation from us or others, of how many hours are put in but rather how those hours are spent. Ambition just like success, belongs in the eyes of the beholder, when it makes a difference to the person receiving the kindness or efforts from the job, as well as the person doing the performance.

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We Find Our Own Happiness

This post is going to relate to my own interpretation of joy and happiness as I have experienced it, as most of my posts do.I’m sure many an expert will disagree with points that I make, but in the end, I have come to appreciate that none of us can base our own lives on what someone else thinks, but instead on what we know to be true.

I have never felt the need to discriminate against anyone, once I matured into an adult.As a result,I have been befriended by both the wealthy and the poor, as well as,different belief systems, genders and races, and I find what is true with one of us, is true about all of us.

We are all looking for happiness and contentment, in life. Many of us who have children will put their happiness first, until it does dawn on us that the things we buy for ourselves or our children, have a very short shelf life.

If we do not change our direction in thinking, “buying makes us happy,” too many times, we will resent our own children or others, that we buy for,because they lack appreciation. Even when we know that the problem is our own spending habits and we are going broke,doing so, some of us will need to learn. “We don’t always get our cake and eat it too.”.We need to understand that people who wish to do for themselves,will resent our continuous need to make ourselves feel better,at their expense, because many times in our need to buy, we only make them feel obligated to us.

It is the things that we do as well as the words we use to express our feelings towards others that, often times, brings happiness to both of us. Just a smile to a stranger, can many times turn the direction of both of our days. When we choose to smile back we share our own happiness with them.

I had been spending a great deal of my time with a wealthy person in my youth, so when the person who showed up in my life, neither had her front teeth and the sole on her shoe, was loose, the first thing that was most obvious to me, was how happy she was living such an uncomplicated life.

After having listened to the wealthy complain about having to attend another, “black tie,” function, that she was dreading attending, but worried she would be shunned if she did not, it was such a breath of fresh air to spend time with the woman, who had raised her family, and did not have a care in the world. She was retired living primarily on her social security check, but since she enjoyed good health and neither wanted or needed much, her life was her own. She was content and settled with her poverty and peace of mind.

In my estimation, all human beings are made up of the body the mind and the soul, or if you prefer,our mental,physical and spiritual well-being. When we over-balance attention to another and neglect the other, we feel restless or discontent with ourselves. If we tune into our own feelings, we will not turn the negatives that we feel within ourselves onto others.

People who have learned to express themselves through crafts,art, or creative talent can bring peace to their mental well-being but if we never deal with the problem that drives us to be unhappy, we only delay the root of the problem.We need to get to the bottom of what it is that truly is upsetting us, since we need to give equal attention to the balance of our physical,spiritual and mental parts. In short we place a band-aid on an arterial bleed that needs to be sewn shut, if we only live for the minute or the short time, without healing our own pain or looking for happiness that we can trust.

As I have mentioned in past posts, too often, the victims will feel guilt or the victimizers will pass blame.When we have been traumatized, we need to talk about it and heal it, with those who can help us. If we neither confront the truth and heal it, we deny ourselves happiness.No one can make us happy if we are ready to accept being miserable nor can we be happy unless we are happy with ourselves.

Plenty of people can interfere with our own happiness, if we allow them to, but no one but ourselves,can make us happy.No one is responsible for our seeking happiness and unless we do, we will too many times blame others, when we are not happy. Once we do establish happiness with ourselves then people in our lives can either add to or subtract from it, because we have let their emotions or upsets affect how we view or accept life.

Happiness is more than just an attitude. It is what comes from inside of us so that we live and breathe it, while sharing it with others. If we find it is impossible to maintain our own happiness,without using alcohol,drugs,out working everyone else in an effort to avoid our home, or buying things, then we do need to evaluate the reasons why, we are not making the changes that will and do lead to our own happiness.

Sometimes it can be the negative crowd or group, we hang with. We do, too many times, become like the people we surround ourselves with. Sometimes it is because we do not feel good, and we cannot feel that any of us are going to feel good, when we feel physically,mentally, or spiritually, rotten.

When we know that we are a worse person with others, because we lower our own mental and spiritual well-being,in an effort to be included or fit in, we are not going to be happy, unless we do make the changes that will lead to becoming the person we wish to be.

When we over-look the truth and surround ourselves in denial, then we also are not being realistic about our own happiness. Perhaps we are the leader of the bunch, when it comes to a joyless group. We won’t know unless we try to change the direction within the group,first.

Many times, we will find it is our own lack of happiness that is spreading over all of the group. When we laugh because we are happy, they many times will laugh with us. However if they are laughing at us, then we can be certain, that we are not the leader.

The mean-spirited will always believe those who are hurt or get hurt as a result of their words or actions, are just too sensitive, so why do we stay? Happiness is a habit that is very real and is part of who we are. We find it within ourselves. We do not shove it onto others. We do not use it to judge others. We wake up with it and take it to bed with us. It lives within us when we are happy being the person we are.

We find happiness in children, who live in the present, because they can trust Mom and Dad to take care of everything. Happiness brings us back to the present, because we don’t have to worry about what we are going to do, as we already know our strengths and weaknesses.

We know or are reasonably certain, that we will react or respond according to a good day or a poor day, and as a result of how we are feeling about, ourselves. We know it all may change tomorrow but when or if it does, we can trust ourselves just like we always have before, because a Power higher than us has the last word. Happiness is truly all about feeling good about who we are and trusting our motives, as well as our love, without finding fault and blame in others.

Everyone else in our life are the extras who bring us joy or sometimes disappointment, if we incorrectly assume anything about them or try to control them. We have learned that not all relationships are meant to last. We don’t worry so much who will be there for us because we have provided, as well as, possible for our own needs.

We miss you but understand our differences were too great to over come, for one of us if not both of us, or we understand that our lives were intended to take a different path or the Dear Lord was ready for you. We have grieved and healed from the lost, and understand that we only get to live this life once so we put in the hard work to live happy!It begins with one step at a time, towards changing ourselves.

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Setting Standards In Our Life

To leave out any confusion, for those who scoff at placing rules in our homes, and maybe are confused otherwise; Setting standards in our family, that we will all live by as well as expect our children to live by, are setting rules in our homes.

By being consistent with the enforcement of the rules we establish harmony in our homes, as well as eliminate confusion over what we expect of our child or children because we ask no less of ourselves. The rules or standards, are not unjust,too lenient, or too strict. We do the same when we set the standards in all of our lives, and that is why we know how to set them, and where to draw the line.

Too many times we set standards for ourselves and others that are simply too high to accomplish or do the reverse and set the bar too low. When we are looking for a job, someone to commit to, planning to provide for our children’s future, or what we will do to contribute to Society, we need to be realistic.

Many times we will blame life for not giving us the break it gave everyone else, when in truth, we did have the opportunity that everyone else gets but because we doubted or over-rated our own ability to perform, that of our child’s or spouse’s or felt it was beneath us, we passed on opportunity when it was right in front of our own noses.

If we are self-employed and constantly set the bids too high because our standard of living needs more, we often price ourselves out of what could have been a lucrative future if we had been more realistic about the competition we would be competing against. When we are willing to let the Company hiring, indicate what they feel is fair, and we take the lost income now, we will many times find that our exposure to others,while doing that job, can many times lead to meeting the people who will give us the break, if not finding it in the Company, where we currently work.

Although Companies are slower to show loyalty themselves, they still look for it in people, who give them loyalty. Many times they will remember we were willing to work for less and reward us accordingly,the longer we stay with them. Other times they will keep us on, when the next layoffs come around.It will never be the concern of Companies to make certain we can maintain our own standards of living, but instead, our responsibility to lower our own costs by eliminating wasteful spending.

If we understand that all people age and change their appearance and our only criteria in looking for a spouse is appearance, we are going to end up with something quite different, once we are married for a few years. Their character as well as their potential to adapt to their surroundings over trying to control it or us, along with the level of communication they exert, will offer us far more in the future, when life does become difficult.

Those who are continually angry or teary eyed or bitchy now, will not improve with age or commitment. The person that says,”I fell in love with them because they liked what I liked,” is often more in love with themselves than they are with us. We need to realize that the dating period is as phony as we are, since we both are on our best behavior. He or she are trying to impress us, as much as, we are them. Many times when they are rushing the courtship it is because they know they will not be able to fake it,for long.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that we cannot force people to think as we do anymore than we can force loyalty out of others or make them love us. If we see things, while dating, that are throwing up warning signals we need to listen to our common sense and pay attention to what we are sensing is a problem. The lies and behavior, we are picking up on now, will be part of our own hell, later, when we refuse to listen to those warnings now.

For those who are confused as to the saying, “The wedding cake is the most dangerous food of all,”I will explain what it means here. We are never so vulnerable as we are when we fall in love. We will do things unimaginable for the person that we have fallen in love with. Many will lower their own standards and the most honest of people can become liars. Many times jealousy or the inability to hang onto our spouses’ fidelity will lead to murder or criminal behavior on the part of those who would never have believed it years earlier.

2500 pregnant women who are mostly married, will be killed yearly by their spouses who professed to want children. When we telly the record of battered people in a marriage who are killed or injured and add the number who marry us for both our income or life insurance, those numbers go through the roof.

We need to sit standards before we fall in love and stand by them once we do. If we fail to marry character, but instead marry the bad boys or the wild girls, we will become part of what is bad and wild about them. We will not fix or change them and that we can take to the bank and bank on it.It maybe the only thing bankable in the entire relationship. As soon as they become bored,which is frequently, we will become history and hope that we still have our lives intact. Even though they may not want us, they often, make certain no one else will get us either.

I have written enough on children to make us open our own eyes to what direction we need to take in my previous posts but I would also like to add, that average intelligent children, do not make straight A’s unless our own pressure forces them into cheating or we hire tutors to help them.

When cheating happens we need to make certain that they are doing their own homework at home because they will rarely be caught by their teachers. Most of us would not be able to figure out their systems either. If we have average intelligence in our children, they obviously will not be getting 4 year full paid scholarships.

We need to make it both our child’s priority by having them earn income as well as our own savings will need to go into that pursuit.Lower income scholarships,not based on grades, statistically go to those living below the poverty line. Middle class students with average ability and average intelligence, who do not live below poverty, will get the least in both scholarships and loans. Buying a car when they turn 16, obviously will not be part of the plan, if education comes first.

When it comes time for all of us to give back to Society, we will need to look at our own strengths and weaknesses and decide for ourselves, where we will be able to contribute the most,in the best way that we can. If we have been doing nothing but taking or even if we are not always being paid for what we do, we have a responsibility to offer our thanks for the gifts of freedom and Democracy, we all enjoy.We need to educate ourselves in the way we will vote, that will protect both our freedoms and Democracy, and understand voting is the responsibility of all of us.

We find our own niche in life, by first finding maturity and character in ourselves and then in our spouse, by raising children who will make a positive difference in Society because they learned from our own example, as well as the guidance we instilled in them, and by giving back to America. When we set standards high enough for all to reach but not so high they or we, are bound to fail, we take responsibility for our own successes of life.

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Words Do Hurt…..They Destroy

Although, I quote a great deal of cliché’s because they do ring true, who ever came up with,”Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” had to be one callous human being or had no reality based idea just how often verbal abuse can and does destroy relationships for life.

The greatest tragedy of all is that painful words used amongst children are often the number one cause of suicide amongst our young people. What children are doing to children with the use of derogatory words on their computers,cell phones,the school bus and the playground across America has risen to a new level of hate. That adults would stoop to the level of children when using the same words against their own children or others should sicken us all.

I’m always amazed when I hear mothers firing back words like”little Bitch” to their daughters or you “little bastard” to their sons and forgetting they are supposed to be the adult. Calling our daughters and sons names when it is our job to eliminate the name calling is a tragedy in more ways than one.

Even in the best of situations (if we can call it that) name calling is the one thing that women or children will never forget.When parents call their daughters little whore or slut or equally disturbing words there is never any taking the words back. The more childish we behave as adults with the name calling the more we are destroying the ability for a loved one to like us and the more damage we are doing to Society as a whole. Too often these words are being learned from parents and passed on to children.

Just as adults when the men we love or care about or our family members label us with name calling or claim we are worthless, it hurts, even when we are older. When abusers think we are just using the milder of names, there is no such thing, because under moments of high stress, if we are in the habit of name calling the worse of the worse will slip out. Words are like brands on cattle we can never take them back or remove them. All apologies will ring hollow in the ears of the verbally abused, for a lifetime.

Too many people seem to be clueless to the fact that loving each other is not the problem. Liking each other is a real struggle. The more we use words in the form of name calling or in other derogatory forms to try to end an argument the more we set ourselves up to destroy our relationships for life. Not only do we need to stop acting like children and quit using name calling as a response mechanism; our children need to be punished with cell phone or Wii removal for a period of time, or something that will cause a hardship in their lives the first time we hear the words of disrespect come out of their mouths. We can not expect our children to respect us or others, if we never teach respect.

If we are calling names ourselves then it is going to be tough for them to have any respect for us if we do it and punish them for it.”Do as I say not as I do,” has never worked and we only fool ourselves by thinking or saying,”this is my home and I can do anything I want,” or “as long as you live under my roof you will do as you are told.” Both phrases only convince them that we are either a bully or think they are stupid.

They know we not only have a moral obligation to raise our children to adulthood but a legal one as well. If our children are still living at home after they are old enough to be on their own it only tells them that we will never force them out anyway, regardless of how they speak to us.

Verbal abuse is one of the hardest forms of abuse to defend against. When we allow ourselves to stoop to the level of children by name calling we destroy the respect of our children many times for life.No different than husbands and wives do when they do the same thing.

We give to and sacrifice for our children because we love them and want to give to them,in many cases, but another well-worn phrase that means nothing to our children is,”after all the things that I have done for you.” Children are about as manipulative as they come and they get smarter every year. They also understand that if they tell us that such and such has and I don’t have…..a great deal of what we will buy for them, is many times purchased to stop the child from whining,to gain our children’s love,to make ourselves look good,to compete with our friends, or simply that they won when they got what they wanted because we were too stupid (in their minds) to know we were being played by them.

Too many people just form the idea that our children are rebelling and do not bother to do anything about it. Yes if we have done our jobs and taught them to be self-sufficient and then turn around and treat them like babies or if we haven’t done our jobs, teenagers will rebel. What too many parents do not understand is there is almost always a reason for those bad moods as well. We need to get to the bottom of why the outbursts are becoming more and more frequent. Parents who withdraw during this time of their children’s’ life thinking what ever it is they are just going to have to work it out for themselves because they are adults now, can make or break the difference in the lives of their child.

“Our children need to know we trust them,” is the most ridiculous response we can give to rebellion.What they really need to know is they have a parent in their life who gives a damn if they do make a mistake. Many times they are going through the worse struggles of their lifetimes and there will never be any time in their lives that they will need their parents more than during this time. They need our ability to guide them when they are in doubt or do not have the capacity to work themselves out of the mess they may have gotten themselves into,still often after they leave home, but definitely while they are still at home.

We must make them know we are approachable and welcome them in our lives. If we offer both a refrigerator filled with Coke or Pepsi and a private place for them to gather they will many times make our homes their “crash Pads”(sorry that is an old 60′s phrase). Other times if we are up when they come home they many times will want to talk if they know we are accessible and we are playing the adult role expected of parents.

They all have friends what they really need are parents.I do understand the difficulty of getting them to talk, sometimes is like trying to have a conversation with a porcupine, but reaching out to them at this time in their lives will often spell the difference between success or failure in their lives.If we are ever going to be the grown ups it is never more important than this time of their lives.

If we are childish enough to call them names or go after them on attack they will be at their friends houses getting the advice, many times, that will be the last thing we want them to be getting. Like for instance,” have another beer or do you want a smoke before you leave?” Our children only bring their nicest friends around to meet us. Those that they know we will never approve of but who have the connections to the”good times” are the ones we never meet.

We parents need to reach out and offer understanding during the teen years as well as be on our toes full-time as to where they are hanging out and who they are spending time with. When we do find out we need to ask questions in regards to what their thoughts are in how they plan on handling a situation and ask them if we can offer a little imput to the situation. When we go in with all barrels drawn on the attack and stinging them with name calling we will never be part of this important time of their lives.

I repeat that both children and sometimes adults, become what we say they are. The more positive you/we are towards our/your children and wives the more positive they will be in return and it works the same with negativity. Call your daughters or wife a whore and they will often prove you correct, regardless of what age they are.For all of us adults who do not already know and understand this, many times it is the person who is having the affair that yells foul the fastest and the loudest.

If we refuse to grow up our children will do the same. They are faced with so many mixed emotions as in one way they cannot wait until they leave home and in another they wouldn’t mind being a child for a lifetime if we have been generous to them while they were growing up. We have already had our chance and now its time we be the grown up who guides the family through the storm. When we guide them through the toughest parts of adolescence and their young adult years so they become the people they were meant to be,it will be the best journey we ever take when the grandchildren are placed in our arms.

(If this subject matter sounds familiar it is because I have written on it several times in the past. I will continue doing so until I quit hearing Parents say,”What can we do? They are teenagers,” Next to the new-born stages they are the most important years of our child’s development, in my opinion. Good Luck and enjoy the humbling experience they teach us all.)

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Cont…..But He Is A Good Father

The two biggest arguments that women use when staying in an abusive relationship are:”I still love him,” and “He is a good father.”

If we could get through the message to people who are abused that it takes both people to show and express love and that love does not hurt then perhaps the abused would look at their relationships more realistically. I’m not sure how we do that,myself, as many times the abused have been told so many times “how worthless they are.” many are convinced that they and their children can not survive if they do leave the marriage. All I do know for certain is that telling women that they do have a duty and obligation to go back to the marriage bed and to try harder to work with their husbands and to pray does not work and often leads to tragedy to the entire family.

All the favorite meals,mood lightening, and following detail to the explicit demands of an abuser does nothing towards stopping the abuse, either. One of the other problems of abuse is many times when women do say, “I don’t have time to do what he wants today,” and he does come home and beats her,she will think it is her fault because she did not follow orders. The abused do start believing that they are as dumb,fat, and ugly as they are being told they are by the abuser. They all forgive and promise they will never do it again,of course,but it never last. During the forgiveness period many are that sweet loveable person the women fell in love with and they become convinced they are deeply in love and could never leave, all over again. Living in fear becomes a rush and if it does not become comfortable then it becomes normal for them, the longer it goes on. It becomes easier all the time to deny all of the rest.

Of course, a parent who is thinking clearly, would never say,”He mistreats me but he is a good father.” We all understand that children cannot watch turmoil between their parents and come out with anything but psychological damage as a result of it.We know that whether children are watching abuse take place on others or it being inflicted on themselves, it alters the personality of the person they were meant to be as early as 3 years of age. To cause this kind of damage to a child does not make any of us a good parent when we realize that this type of harm or damage will affect the entire life of our children. They will grow up totally confused as to how to effectively deal with a relationship and many times will abuse themselves.

Other times the children come out just as demoralized as the battered women because just as she has no self-esteem or identity beyond him neither do the children. The sons will often repeat the same disgusting names to both their mother or sisters as are coming out of the mouth of the abuser.Many times he learns that the only value women have is to wait on and look after a man. The sons learn to bully and the daughters learn to withdraw, other times sons will become intimidated and withdraw while daughters become more aggressive and tend to become more sexually active when incest, many times becomes part of the abuse as well. This is typical behavior patterns when the abused are saying.”He is a good father.” no differently than when the children are being beaten as well.

Policemen can pick up the mentally ill and have them hospitalized without family approval in cases of discovery according to the Baker law. The problem is that putting women into shelters under the same circumstances will often times jeopardize the safety of the other abused women who are in hiding. If the victims do not want to go or be there, which is often the case, they will get ahold of their abusers and let them know where they are and once the secret address of the shelter becomes known then the safety it offers for other abused victims no longer exists.

Like all of the problems that do seem unsolvable there are solutions once an entire community of experts put their heads together to come up with different ideas. Sadly that all costs money and time and too many do not have one or the other to offer to the group. I am the first to admit that I do not have much to offer in way of solution,myself. I just understand that as long as we ourselves go into denial when our friends tell us they ran into something that gave them the black eye,because we do not want to embarrass our friend,we do the abused a disservice by not discussing it. Too many are ashamed to talk about it but once confronted by understanding instead of accusations, when the relationship is a close one,many times they will want to talk.

If we educate ourselves on the knowledge available to them like going to see their Doctor or the police and enquire about getting into a shelter or they will only repeat the behavior until it becomes worse, we can help empower them. Offering sympathy will only make them feel better temporary and they will go back to the abuse. Other times they will rely on us for their courage and do nothing else, Many times when the abuser finds out the abused are relying on a confidant they will end the relationship. I repeat, we need to empower them to get help so they do not rely on our hand holding but instead rely on their own ability to seek help.

Currently in some of the States when police are being called to domestic calls, both the abuser and the victim are being arrested and spend the night in jail or at least a couple of hours until things cool down a little. I do not think putting abused victims in jail is right but if we did pass laws that made protecting abuse and abusers illegal in our State, perhaps the abused could be hospitalized and at least kept long enough to try to work with the mental damage that is often done to the entire family by an abuser. I can already see the problems that could come out of that as well, and that is why abuse is such a difficult problem to work with and to solve.

Like everything else that is preventive, we simply need to learn and educate ourselves while we are dating and making lifetime choices for a mate. If he or she strikes or hits us or throws things at us, while dating, he or she will become much worse after marriage. Dating is the time that we are on the best of behavior and any names being thrown at us while dating will go from being cute to vindictive after marriage. Anger that is not part of the grieving process very rarely subsides without being able to release it. Healthy people will talk to someone or get professional help in order to either let go or to work more effectively around it. Others hide it behind alcohol and drugs. If we are doing both with the abusers while dating then we need to understand the hell we will put our children through if we marry them and continue the same recreational behavior.

All parents need to know and understand just how important an education beyond highschool is to all of our children. Both boys and girls. Too many times the number one reason that our children do stay in an abusive situation is because of the fear that they could not financially support their children alone,as well as, they can by staying in the abusive situation. Education does not only give them the out to do that but it also establishes the confidence in our children that often leads to their knowing they deserve better and to get out before any more damage is done to their children or our grandchildren. None of the expensive birthday parties or clothes that we are currently buying them will lead to the success of their lives as an education will. Even though abuse does also exist in the educated, it is considerably less, and nothing empowers our children like an education does.

Whatever lays ahead for abuse I feel it needs to be dealt with,as it lies at the root cause of what Americans should be most ashamed of, as well as, is twin to crime, in America today. To just wash our hands and give up or worse yet to blame the victims and do nothing, when we are so much better as a Nation than that,shows poorly against us all.At the same time I applaud all of you who have dedicated their years and time working towards finding solutions only to find out that the root problem towards solutions does lie in the victims themselves, who have been so deeply brainwashed in fear or have learned to adapt to it,to the point they do refuse help offered to them,too many times.Somewhere there is a bridge that will join the gap that does lead to successful treatment and my faith is in the fact that we will find it. Thanks to all of you who are looking.

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Will We Ever Stop Abusers?

Until we can make women and men understand and realize that the only way we can stop abuse is for adult people, who are being abused, to empower themselves,abuse will always remain.Unless we accept the reality of it happening in one out of every three homes on every block in every town,city or village, and being protected by our Christian-Judeo Society with the power of the right-wing, Tea Party and special interest groups in their corner, abuse will remain the corner-stone of crime in America.

If you have been reading my posts then you understand that I write about taking responsibility for ourselves and teaching our children to do the same. We women cannot get stronger as long as we all hold the hand of the women who are being abused, since in doing so we continue weakening them as well as ourselves. Instead we need to point out to women who will and do protect abuse and abusers what their responsibilities are and help to empower them against such treatment. Sitting in judgment of them or pointing fingers and finding blame, is no better than offering sympathy and doing nothing.

If they do get the courage to leave then we need to be certain that they are kept safe by making laws that will keep them safe as well as providing the necessary support systems that they will need. We have already made good gains in those areas and now we must convince them through our Churches that love does not hurt. Divorce is acceptable when the protection of our families are at stake. As long as abused and neglected children are growing up to become criminals and being put to death, then we need to empower ourselves into knowing and understanding that we cannot be treated like second class citizens or worse, unless we allow ourselves to be treated that way.

We know that anger-management classes that are court ordered for abusive people,whether men or women fail. We know the laws are set up to let men off sometimes in a matter of months when they kill their children and wives and are found guilty of manslaughter. Women will serve much longer if not the full 20 years, when they kill the abusers. We know that rapist and pedophiles are never cured.

We know that men have been viewed for centuries as being weak if they cannot control their women.We offer very little in the form of help or understanding for men who are victims of abuse.A real man settles his differences with fist in many parts of our Society.

We know 9 million Morman people believe women cannot go to Heaven unless a man takes them there. We know the many other millions into the billions of women have been brain washed into believing it is their duty to serve their man and make them happy regardless of how they are being treated in return. They do tell the men they must respect their women,wink wink.

Is there any wonder that bullies start out on the playgrounds of school and grow up to bully all their lives? We as a Society are clearly condoning if not promoting the superiority of men in a Christian-Judeo environment. When we add ignorance to power we get abuse.

Unless we women empower ourselves to realize that the only way our children will be safe is for women to be safe, then abuse will never stop.As long as we concern ourselves about abortion then we will never concern ourselves about the real problem and that is our own safety and empowerment.

We know that in families where men and sons are being waited on that the sons will grow up and expect it of their wives. We also know that young girls are growing up being taught that the only future they do have is to serve her man and make babies that they cannot afford to educate if they were not already being taught that education is the damnation of all mankind,anyway.

We know there is more abuse in these families than there is in families that teach equality. We know that Church goers are being taught that people who teach equality in a marriage and home are no good liberals spreading lies in order to defeat religion,such as myself. We know that if men hit they do not stop hitting.The few that do leave women living in fear with the words and anger that continues. We know their sons will grow up and do the same. We also know when mothers abuse their daughters grow up to abuse as well. Both men and women are abused.

We know that when men and women are abused so are the children abused. We know far more women are abused by the cowards who are bigger and stronger than they are and the only defense a woman has against the men is a weapon, unless they are granted all of our Blessings and Dispensations to leave the marriage without making them feel guilt. We know the scars left on children watching mom being beaten or killed will travel hurt and harm through at least three, if not more, of the generations of that family.

We know that if we believe that incest is in low numbers and we keep the real numbers protected, then people will be less concern about young women who are abused and less understanding of the need for abortion. We know if we can keep women’s’ emotions upset over abortion then we can get them to vote for the right-wing and tea party candidates who want to change the Constitution to deny equal rights.

We know that poverty and prostitution is the number one cause of abortion and yet there is a movement under way, that does not seem to concern the religious community, to legalize prostitution. The fact that it has served the pleasure of the superior male species only and has not been considered adultery in past history and existed since the days of the bible makes it acceptable,sadly. Even when it is the number one cause of death in young women either through, disease,murder or addiction.

I have only scratched the surface of why abuse happens and if not smiled on, certainly we are and have been blinding ourselves to the truth of it since the beginning of time. The only way we can stop it is by women taking responsibility for their own poor behavior because men never will give up the place of superiority over women unless we women make it clear that we and our children will no longer tolerate being treated that way. We begin today by educating ourselves.

If he is abusive he is abusive. It is not our fault that he is an inhumane jerk but it is our fault if we put up with it. If we date jerks we will marry jerks. If we marry jerks our children will pay the biggest price of all for the poor choices we make. If we sleep with everyone we meet then we will definitely fall for one of them and it only takes one to destroy the rest of our life along with our children. Divorce does cause pain to our children but it causes less pain than watching their mothers being beaten or cleaning up their blood.

Just as we women and the majority of good descent men, who come from functional homes, want to see our children happy our children want to see their moms and dads happy and the only way we can accomplish that is in equality of the genders. Women need to take the choices they make much more serious than what a man looks like and how he dresses and men need to do the same. Character can be disguised for a while but it can’t be hidden forever and for the sakes of ourselves as well as our children we need to make it our top priority.

No self-respecting human being will want to take control over another adult human being who is family, much less call the mother of their children a whore, bitch,slut and worse.Unless we are a policeman, a member of the Court system, or a jailer we guide and offer help to people, we do not control them. We need to take ownership of our own responsibility and teach our children the same by practicing and teaching equal respect for all the God-given abilities that both genders are given. We begin today.

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We Know When We Know

Too many of us fail to follow our own instincts when we know that something is not quite right or when something will work. If we would train ourselves, to trust our instincts, we would sometimes do better in life.

Our own instincts go into high alert when danger is near by. In many ways we are not that far removed from the wild, as animals are. Just as their ears perk and they stomp, when danger is near by, we also sense that same foreboding. Our hearts will race a little and we need to train our attention towards our surroundings and to go on high alert as well. We need to learn to trust and rely on our own instincts more than we do. Too many of us just dismiss them and go along willingly. It is often times a sense of fatalism on our parts that takes over and does make us give in. Many of us mistake the warning or alerts for,”I knew this was going to happen” and instead succumb to them.Other times we think I must just be dreaming or imagining things.

If it is not typical behavior for us to imagine things or to hear things then we need to trust those instincts, more clearly. We cannot live our lives on our instincts alone, although some do. We do need to mix in a little common sense. For instance if we live in the plains and have a fear of heights we do need to either determine if we are going to test our limits by getting over the fear or if we are just going to accept that our fear of heights is real and stay away from cliffs and mountain tops.

If everything makes us afraid then we do need professional help to sort out when our instincts are real or if we are suffering from Anxiety, an Obsessive compulsive disorder or Post traumatic Stress or some other affliction, and get the help we need, so that we can learn to trust our instincts better as well as enjoy life more. I stress if fear or anxiety, is not common behavior for us, then we need to trust our instincts for what they are telling us.

I have always imagined that if I faced a dangerous situation, I would just freeze up, and go along but with age comes more understanding of who we are and a little more sense of our own reactions to life,sometimes. Carrying a cane gives me a new sense of hope as to having a weapon. I now think I would be “hell on wheels” and pity the poor sucker that would try to take me and my cane on. I came to that conclusion when a mother and daughter were having a “knock down drag out fight.” and I came between them, only to find out later the mother always carries a knife. I am pleased to say that they were so shocked that a stranger would care, that they no longer hit each other, according to rumor. When I finished talking to them, they were apologizing and telling each other they were sorry.

We could prevent some of the muggings or rapes if we would learn to trust our instincts and how we react to stress. For those who have not heard yet:Never get in a car or vehicle and leave the area because our chances are much better of getting help if we remain in the area that we are in, as versus, being taken out to an isolated area where no one will hear our screams for help. A scream or a proper placed kick or resisting many times will scare off the attacker.However many are successful because they do use the element of surprise so we do need to check our backs as well.

When our instincts are on high alert we need to turn around and look behind us, as well as, look to both sides. If we run into a store or business when we feel this alert, or in the open where other people are, we may feel like we would embarrass ourselves but it is always better to do that than it is to not trust our own instincts.

Think of an excuse that you will use if you have to make a quick dodge into a business or store. We were feeling a little faint and could we sit for a moment, many times will do the trick.Other times people are coming and going to the point we may not even be noticed as being out-of-place. If we are in a neighborhood then turn and go up to an apartment building as if we live there and sometimes they will drive on by, if they have been stalking us for a while. Do not forget to pull out the phone and act like you are placing a call. Sometimes cell phones can make us less alert so make certain you are tuned in as you walk.Do remember though that most of the attacks will happen at night-time and make a schedule of taking a different route or going with a friend and do not walk if you can take transportation instead.

If I could take a quote from Dr. Phil,”The best judge of future behavior is past behavior.” If when we are dating someone we find something is not working or we are not communicating on the same level then we need to question ourselves. If we are ever abused by either name calling or they are expressing a great deal of anger by hitting windows or dashes or even ourselves,or throwing objects at us while breaking everything in the place, or they manipulate us by crying to get what they want from us when we know there simply is not money to buy it, then please know marriage will only make it worse. When two people learn to live together and share the same check book as well as the same hours and bed we take on stress in a relationship, through marriage, we do not relieve it. When we add children to it then it doubles.

If our instincts are telling us that this person is not just right somehow, then trust ourselves or trust that we are not right for them. It is easy to think that others are disturbed when in truth we ourselves are not always operating with,” a light on in the antic.”, ourself. Anytime anyone is using anger and aggression to control us or others over their common sense or judgment to show and give us respect, then the problem is us.When we give over control of our own life, instead of taking control of our life, we fail not only ourselves,but everyone else who cares about us.

Run, don’t walk away from this type of relationship. If our friends are telling us what we obviously refuse to see,we have a duty to ourselves, to trust them as well as our own instincts that are warning us, if we are trying to deny what our conscience already knows is the truth. If, on the other hand, our friends and family can not see what we know to be true and are telling us that it is just jitters or we are nuts because he/she are a nice person and come from a good family, and we know differently, then we need to listen to only ourself.

Just as instincts can warn us against danger our instincts can tell us when we are on the right path when solving a mystery,protecting our own safety, making a decision,or even investing in something we feel strongly will work. Many times the most successful amongst us are those who do rely on and do trust their instincts. What our instincts are telling us will not hold up in a Court of law,it does not offer proof to others, sometimes too often people will use it to speculate about others, but it like our conscience seldom fails us morally. So the next time our instincts tell us that the decision we are making is a right one or alarms are going off, remember,”Sometimes we just know what we know,” and learn to trust it. We can only empower ourselves by taking control of our own life. No one else can do it for us nor can we contol their lives, and expect positive results.

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New Beginnings

The challenge of starting over in life that many of us will be asked to do is always a little bit frightening until we do become settled. Many times it is not just our re-adjustment but that of our children as well. If we bring with our new start, “the same old garbage,” of the past then we can not just plan on it, but we can count on it, that we will be repeating the same mistakes that we made in the past.

If it is a new job and we were laid off in the past because the employees had no protection against layoffs then we will find ourselves in the same position again when the next downturn in the economy hits, if we can climb out of the current one. By eliminating the Unions as is happening, thanks to the efforts of the right-wing and the Tea Party candidates, we can be certain that the future of the employee will remain out of the hands of ourselves. Before the Unions there was no middle class. Just the poor and the wealthy and if they have their way, we will return to that.

Statistically, it is always the educated who have more input into what their next terms of employment will look like. Any education we can gain while unemployed always works in our own favor. If we are already educated then we must accept that the only thing available to any of us is going to sometimes mean a drastic cut in pay but the fact that we are educated gives us a better chance of beginning over than those who lack an education. People who apply themselves once they do get a job are often recognized for working below their potential and will rise accordingly in the Company. No good managerial staff will keep an over qualified person in the position when they can be better utilized else where in the Company.

Other times many of us have our own definition of what we feel we would be a success at and never had the courage or the time to try. Small business loans are clearing up a little since you last tried to appeal for one in some areas, so try again. If we do nothing to change our own circumstances then we can count on it, that nothing will happen. Sometimes new beginnings begin again in an entirely new location or region. We are as limited as our own imagination.

If the new beginning consists of relationships and we fail to look at our own mistakes or errors made, then we simply continue looking for the same kind of person who failed us previously and keep setting ourselves up to being mistreated again. On the other hand if we are the aggressor,adulterer, or just plain lazy then we need serious psychological help as to why it is that we keep defeating our own self in relationships.

The likelihood that we can change or we find change behind a glass of wine or a bottle of beer in a night club,bar or lounge is next to nil. Eyes do not meet across a table with a blaring band in the background and we behold the person that we have been waiting our whole life for. That happens in the mind of a romance novelist on a cloudy day somewhere in Manhattan or the burbs or in an isolated cabin in the woods.

When new beginnings are about new relationships or the fulfillment of a life long dream we need to depend on reality in a way that we have never done so in the past. The problem with on-line dating is anyone can agree with what we are saying and too many times we are trapped into the moment of,”Oh wow! We have so much in common. They like the same things that I like and so on and so forth. It might help if before you told them every thing about yourself that you ask them first who they admire and why,what they believe in and why, and if they depend on themselves or someone else first and any of the other character based questions, so that they do not have an opportunity to parrot your own beliefs or Character.

Meeting people in Church activities does not guarantee us that we are going to find someone who is as dedicated to their religion and the Church as we are as the word has been out for a while now that it is a good place to meet new men or new chicks. Even if the commitment is there too many fail to understand that being a Christian does not guarantee morality. Some times people who do attend are trying to clear a conscience that clearly needs to be cleared and are doing it without success.

We need to trust our own instincts and have a clear understanding of what makes us tick and what our own standards are. If people would get counseling before they dated instead of when they are ready to get a divorce they would be so much wiser. Too many times people will tell themselves that their standards are just too high and end up with real jerks time and time again. There are those who claim a nice guy just is not exciting enough without realizing that many times relationships like wine take time to age. It is when we give the nice guys a chance to develop that we do find the person we have been looking for all our life. We cannot fix anyone other than ourselves. We can only improve on what is already there.

Too many times men look for the most shallow of reasonings for their future mates. They like the personality of the woman who will speak out and stand up for herself, until they marry them and find out sometimes they are also a selfish bitch who is taking him for a ride or who has no wish to ever uphold her end of the bargain, but foolishly they lost touch of their male logic and allowed themselves to be rushed into a marriage. Other times they are looking for a woman who wears a size 3 and is a virgin and has no interests at shopping at the mall, and do not see the humor in that, that the rest of us see. Other times they do want the woman on their arm to be arm candy and look good and do not have a clue just how much that is going to cost them.

Other times and ladies beware, he is looking for an income large enough to support his dream of being a rock star. That interprets into this man is never going to support you. Other times men are looking for a woman he can control and then will complain that they cannot even communicate on any level beyond what her sisters and mother are doing.

When it comes to people, and we want them to care about us, we have to accept if they are obsessing over their own looks they are rarely going to put us second much less first. I do understand we all want people who wear deodorant and is pleasing to our sensibilities but the places most people are looking for them is not the most realistic places to meet, all the times. I do not suggest that we quit looking in those places so much as I do that we beware of what strikes are against us when we do meet there. Common sense should tell all of us if we meet in a location where it is easy for another person to know and parrot our own feelings,religious beliefs, or we are uninhibited due to that last drink, then we need to be that more alert of who we are meeting,before we invite them into our own space.

Sometimes starting over has nothing to do with replacing or meeting new relationships but we feel that we are losing control over our own ability to discipline,maintain, or become all we want to be, and like a ship “we feel a little lost at sea.” We have become Mrs. So and So or the Mom of So and So and we realize that we have or are close to losing our own identity. We need to discover, through a new beginning many times, when it was that we felt we did not matter as much as the rest of the family.

Other times we wake and discover that the life we dreamt about all our lives is not nearly as fulfilling as we thought it would be. We all do well to understand that many times the problem is not with or in the people that we are living with but instead something that we missed out on in ourselves. We can leave and destroy all that is and was sacred to us but ultimately we solve nothing because the problem is in ourselves. We need to get the help to find out what makes us tick.

Just praying does not always bring us answers, although I am a big supporter of prayer, sometimes we need to find that person who does work with us on a professional level and helps us understand ourselves better. Well intentioned friends are always going to give us a way out and too many times that is what we are looking for. A professional will not let us excuse ourselves. If we are fortunate to have a friend who will not let us b.s. ourselves and short of funds then sometimes that will work as well. Men and women alike, often feel that they are doing nothing they ever wanted to do or are locked in a place that they can’t get out and will turn to alcohol and or other women and men because their wives or husbands do not understand them.

Do our family the favor of getting help before we do something so stupid or rash, since way too many men and women do find when we do get help we already had everything we wanted but were too foolish or stupid to know it. Many times we let our own pride or insecurities lead to hearing things that were not said and having hurt feelings as well as all the other issues that go along with living with the same person for so long, really get misconstrued. Do not spend the rest of our lives grieving the loss that we create during a moment of temporary emotions gone astray. Many times our family are more than willing to help out and offer us the breaks we need or listen to us but it is we ,ourselves, who are shutting them out. More times than not, we do find that we had all the support we ever needed but refused to see it. New beginnings are about getting rid of yesterday’s garbage and finding we are not all that bad of a person to spend time with nor are those we did our best to try to drive away.

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When All Trust Is Gone

After spending a great deal of time on describing what guilt does towards destroying relationships,it would be remiss of me to say that too often it holds poor relationships together,as well. Those relationships can consist of couples, friends,family,groups,organizations or political party.

When my husband and I married, I told him that if he ever hit me or had an affair that our marriage would be over. What I really meant, but was not aware of it,since I can forgive almost anything, was if I ever reached the point that I could never trust him again, the relationship would be over.

Many times couples will say, “they no longer love each other,” and use that as the grounds of their divorce. I argue that if once we truly love each other we cannot simply quit loving each other. Instead I reason that most couples or one of them in the marriage, have hurt or betrayed each or the other to the point there is no trust left in the relationship. This is true when long-term friendships end, as well as, when family members leave and never return. Without trust we lose the entire foundation that holds up any relationship.

Love and respect go hand in hand with trust. Why else would we promise to dedicate ourselves for life, to a common cause, and forsake all others if we did not have a great deal of trust in each other and our ability to maintain as well as keep the oath of marriage?

Some people can reach the conclusion that a person or group is untrustworthy after the first time they betray them, and walk away in peace. If you can, more power to you. I can also do that until I am dealing with one of the most important people in my life. I think that is true with most of us. Many times we just keep taking on the poor behavior until we do realize we have spent way too many years hurt by the same person.I make a great deal of allowance for people who would lie to me when they are family, before I draw that conclusion. Too many of us will think that they will start treating us nicer the more we try to do for them. Even when I knew two family members thought they were playing me for a fool with their conspiracy to get out of me, all they could,and they thought I didn’t know a thing, I gave them years of knowing they believed they were out smarting me, until I reached the point, “that the straw broke the camel’s back.”

There are people who can’t fathom that people are willing to do nice things for others without being paid for it or having strings attached. When we do, “random acts of kindness.” those same people come up with words like “big Turkey’,”loser”,”Sucker”,”"Wimp”, and you name it. It is sad that we have such little respect for people who are simply kinder than ourselves. I have often thought the resentment for them makes others who always have a price for everything, simply feel uncomfortable about themselves. The sad thing, is when people do behave in this way, those who receive the kindness many times then do feel as though they are entitled to the same behavior again and again. There are also those who treat family like they are the bank and as long as they are willing to pay them back(sometimes no matter how long it takes) they are entitled to borrow any amount at any time.

As is common with all abusers my antagonists enjoyed their own deceitfulness for almost 40 years (I exclude the other years of my life before they formed their collusion)about how they went behind my back and outsmarted me, before I decided that enough was enough. I need to make certain before I do make that final and last decision that I will never contribute another dime,lend another hand, show up to visit and be insulted one more time, or write another word or letter or make another phone call again, before I can comfortably leave a relationship where I still love the people involved.

Walking away from those who have formed a tight co-dependency or any organization that we have been passionate about for years, is not an easy decision to make but when every ounce of hope or trust is used up, it is time to move on and never look back.

Not all people seek peace of mind and joy but when it became necessary for me to do so in order to look into those trusting eyes of my sweet trusting grandchildren who tell me,”I love and need you Grandma” How could I possibly explain to those sweet boys that Grandma allowed two people to think they were playing me for a fool, while I kept giving of my time,money and love, for so many years, and not feel shame? I knew my efforts to accept, the abusers’ hurt needed to leave in order for my health to give me all the time the Dear Lord would grant me with the grandsons along with my other loved ones,whom I truly admire and respect. Once I made the decision I could almost hear the Angels sing:)

Most people do not get in a lifetime, the number of truly terrific people who I have been fortunate enough to have in my life. I’m sure that played a role in being as tolerate, as I was, with the one-sided relationship,as well. I have always believed, “To those who are given much, much is expected.”

I never spent much time in thinking living with chronic pain due to spinal stenosis on both sides of my spine,before I reached 30 was a hardship. I also did not waste time making decisions based on childhood abuse as a reason to walk away. When the verbal abuse began again in my adult years I did take breaks from it by walking away but never quit loving my mother nor being concern about her. Life has always had too much interests, to me, to let much of anything or anyone get me down for too long.

I got set up even on my wedding day by the twosome and then there was the time I walked into the hospital room in California to be told I was the biggest loser of all only to have it repeated a number of times over the years, later, a trip to Kansas City where I was deliberately shunned by the two of them, pretenses and lies surrounding Mom’s moving in making demands followed by abusive behavior encouraged by my sister, and being excluded from the family reunions that I organized for my brother and again when my daughter got married, and the list continues from there only getting longer the longer I stayed and put up with it. Still I stayed and contributed but the knowledge that I need to give back to those who do love and appreciate me, for being me, and do not have ulterior motives as to how to best use me, has made my decision an easy one, at long last.

I do not write this to encourage or discourage anyone else from knowing when and if the time is ever right to leave a relationship of any kind much less one that you feel is void of hope, but instead to put it out there and let you understand why a person can know and find joy on a daily basis, by making some of the toughest decisions that they will ever have to make. Being honest with ourselves and finding and evaluating our own mistakes are always a more difficult endeavor than doing it in others. I know and understand that for those who have never had to deal with abuse, it does sound ridiculous, to think walking away from it would ever be difficult. That is the point of my writing this entire group on guilt and taking responsibility. I want you to know if nobody else understands you, I do.

43 years after marrying my husband I realize that if he had hit me or had an affair I probably could have forgiven him, but I still would not have stayed, even though when I was young I never dreamt I would ever let anyone ever abuse me again,much less the same person who did when I was a child without letting her know exactly how badly she hurt me.

That would come approximately 30 years later and accelerate their vindictiveness. Since it was so out of character for me and I had a lot of ground to cover, I have no doubt that she must have felt a small amount of the pain I felt all those years. I did not expect acknowledgement of my hurt as no abusers ever will acknowledge they did anything wrong. It is the peace of mind I received in being able to finally face the truth that had went unspoken and denied for years, that matters most to me.

I made some of the family members irate when I did it,but I spoked for them as much as I did for myself. We were all meant to keep what we all had spoken about behind her back, for years,secret, as near as I can tell. In dysfunctional homes,it is rare if ever, that truth or mistakes are confronted or spoken about. It is always better to avoid “the elephant in the room” than it is to acknowledge its presence.

It took maturity on my part and knowing life is seldom as it seems until we live it, before I knew it was the total depletion of trust that would have destroyed our marriage vows. Since that is what it took to end my relationship with my mother, no doubt it would have with my husband as well. I am very fortunate that I got the good guy that I did choose and never had to be tested that way but some things we know in our hearts.

I’m a slow learner folks,when it comes to matters of the heart, but I do encourage all of you to make certain you know yourself well enough to know what it is that will allow you to walk away from or recognize when a hurtful relationship leaves no room for hope, and still feel joy on a daily basis, before you make that decision. Too often we are the losers when we make decisions based on hurt feelings or rash judgements.

No one certainly needs to put in 40 years as I did but I do not regret turning the other cheek either as it did convince me “That, that does not kill us, makes us stronger.” I do regret though that it did take my teen-age daughters to tell me,”Mom if you don’t stop her from mistreating you, we will lose all respect for you.” I would like to think had I had been wiser, I would have stopped it before the verbal abuse started up again. Other times I think sometimes it takes knowing 100% before we find the peace that comes along with giving our best. I take full responsibility at the same time that it was wrong-wrong-wrong for me to let it go on for that long and never would I repeat that mistake again, for the sake of those who truly do love me. Sadly abuse is always a contradiction and for that reason none of us should ever judge the confusion of the victims. All abusers are convincing manipulators and con artists.

I will jump a moment to political party as versus personal problems, since a great deal of todays upset also center around politics. I’m a much faster learner when I see what the right-wing conservatives and the Tea Party are doing towards drying up the United States Treasury in the interests of Wall Street and the Oil Companies. I know leaving party affiliation is as difficult to some as leaving our own family is. There is no possible reason, in my view, that anyone could trust any of them in the Republican Party, nor any of the right-wing who number a few in the Democratic Party. They simply are missing any foundation of trust that would allow equality for all or the middle class to exist in Democracy or to grow and I urge all to think before we vote. We must vote wisely and informed, for the sake of our Children and Grandchildren, “who love and need us.”

We all have our own response zone as to when to stay and when to leave. Those of you who think I was a fool for staying as long as I did, have every right to think as you do. I can promise you that some of my greatest supporters would agree with you:) Guilt held me and an inability to forgive myself because of my belief in the Commandments kept me going back for more.I finally realized the best way to “Honor” their last round of rejection was to honor and love her in silence, as two of my other siblings do. My soul needed to heal from the insanity of it all. I will always be grateful for the effort I made but even more grateful for the new-found freedom that I own.

I hope I covered the entire subject of guilt,responsibility and forgiving ourselves well enough over the last few weeks so it can help you if you are at a cross-road of indecision regardless who the person may be who you are struggling with or what group that relationship might be with.Denial of the stress it creates not only strips all of us of the joy we are entitled to but also can lead to an early grave. Good luck!
(even I am a bit over whelmed by the cliché’s in this post but they are often quoted for a reason:)

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