Please, honey, give me this day, free of pain. Please take back your hateful words, hold my tearful face in your hand, and apologize for hurting me so deeply. I beg of you to hold back your brutish glances under knitted brows and instead, look into my soul shining beneath my tears and see, just one time, that who I am will not hurt you.

Life after abuse surpasses the definition of peaceful. There is no one but me to tell me what to do or how to do it.

In the last post, I wrote about my fear that I will damage (or kill) any healthy relationships I now enjoy due to my inability to trust the ones who deserve it. I mentioned that it is much easier for me to trust a stranger than my lover, but that dilemma is, I think, easily explained: strangers on the street do not have intimate knowledge of who I am that they could use as a weapon. Strangers may use a gun, but that type of killing is not the one I fear.

Trust eludes victims of abuse during their abusive relationship. As much as I wanted to trust my ex-abuser--and told others that I could trust him--it just wasn't so (Trust Issues and Abusive Relationships). I thought if I was trustworthy and expected to be able to trust him, then he would magically become trustworthy and our relationship would spring to life. That never happened because you cannot ever trust an abuser with your heart. But you can learn to trust after your abusive relationship.

Kristen read the post comments for Abuse Victims and Abusive Anger and asked "How do you prevent creating friendships based on a power-control dynamic and how do you escape the anger that fuels them?" Wow. Kristen is headed for success in her relationships because she is asking great questions.

After leaving your abusive relationship, no one can predict your emotions exactly. But after some time of mentoring survivors, I've found many similarities between other survivors' emotional experiences and my own. Fear of the unknown is a factor in whether or not someone leaves their abuser. So I hope this post gives you a heads up about the emotions you might experience after leaving your abusive relationship.

People trapped in an abusive relationship hear, "You're so much better than this! Why are you staying?" I knew I was better than my experience. I knew I didn't deserve to be treated that way. Yet, when someone pointed that out to me, I wanted to dig in my heels and fight to stay. I knew I was better than how he treated me, but I thought my abuser was also a better man than how he behaved. I saw us as equally hurting. I thought we both were trapped in an abusive relationship. 

Mystery surrounds victims of domestic violence and abuse. “Why does she stay?” tops the list of most asked questions when she’s in the relationship and “What is wrong with her?” is the often unspoken follow-up. It seems to me that most people who study domestic violence victims ask “What is wrong with her?” at the top of their research. They seem to forget that it takes two people to create an abusive relationship. I guess they think they’ve got the abuser pegged. He’s a narcissist, addict, chauvinist, controller, or has an anger problem or self-esteem issues. Pick a personality or mood disorder and maybe he’s got it. Case closed - on to their victims.

Are you planning to leave an abusive relationship? All plans involve future events (that's why they're plans and not actions). If so, it's time to check your thinking. Are you "planning to leave, but...", or do you have a realistic plan that will get you out of the relationship once and for all?

There are ways to help someone leave an abusive relationship. You have to be careful though. Leaving an abusive relationship is very difficult, and if you are not careful, your loved one may turn on you. They may not see themselves as trapped in an abusive relationship at all. However, there is also no harm in attempting to carefully guide your loved one into realizing their partner abuses them. And, if you are wrong and the relationship is not abusive, all you've done is guide your loved one toward greater self-empowerment (and that hurts no one).