Maybe you stay.
Maybe you be thankful you have a roof over your head and food to eat. And a van to drive. And a good job with good people.
Maybe you just go to work and go the gym and go to Toastmasters. And you get what you can get and you give what you can give.
Maybe you you keep on loving those who love you.
And for those who don’t, well, maybe you turn the other the other cheek and keep on walking.
Maybe you take the crumbs that fall and enjoy them for what they are.
Maybe you be thankful for your flowers and your garden and you sit in the sun on the week-ends and watch the birds and the butterflies. And enjoy the beauty that you have.
Maybe you just suck it up because everybody has something, a cross to bear, and this is your something, your cross to bear.
Maybe you accept that Cinderella is just a fairy tale and that there is no handsome prince and no happily ever after.
Maybe the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep and maybe you chalk each day up to a good day fighting.
Maybe you let your dreams turn to dust.
And maybe you stay.
Passive Aggressive Abuse 
And maybe you realize it will only get worse.
And maybe the thought of 20 or 30 more years being abused is not acceptable.
And maybe the thought that you do not need a man to rescue you…frees you.
And maybe loving yourself will allow you to love completely.
And maybe…will one day turn into I will.
May the Lord walk with you and bless you with strength and wisdom as you continue your journey.
Beautifully said, GS!!
God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference
I realized that I can’t change my husband but I can grow personally, I can be a better person- someone who is moral, faithful, compassionate, respectful, and kind.
Put yourself in your H’s shoes. Try to understand what he must feel. I found this book insightful: Getting the Love You Want
ouch- respectfully I disagree- women living with PA men are often co-dependent and concentrating far too much on what he is feeling and not at all on their own needs. We are over-empathic and lose ourselves in the process. Lets concentrate on what WE are feeling and let him be responsible for his own feelings.
Agreed. I’m glad you spoke up.
No thanks Charis…passive aggressive men don’t want love, they want control. I do agree that WE can change, that WE can grow, and I’m doing that, because I have no choice, being married to a PA means taking care of yourself…. but it’s not my job to try to understand what my husband feels or to put myself in “his shoes”….He’s walking in his shoes just fine and is very happy with where he is going…..which is away from any emotional connection in our marriages…PAs don’t WANT us, they want all the trappings of marriage without having to work at it!
My comment of agreement was for paescapee, by the way.
Thank you
Charis has posted here before…and what she said then wasn’t helpful at all, just like now. You can’t get love from a passive aggressive Charis….they don’t know how to love anyone but themselves. Understand?
Comments from Charis are helpful to me. It’s great to have different viewpoints when dealing with any problem, especially dysfunctional relationships.
I think that the comments made here by Charis are not healthy when taken as a whole. The hard part is that if one were to break down the content of what she says, at least half of it could be found to have some wisdom in it. Some of it is downright bad advice and leaves one scratching his or her head trying to figure out how anyone who has been in a seriously dysfunctional or abusive relationship could still be thinking this way. I think at best she is confused and has not been exposed to the kinds of resources that would expose the heart of such dysfunctional and/or abusive people. It is like she is still at a very elementary level of dealing with the situation. She is still treating the abuser like he will respond like someone who does not have a seriously disturbed and disordered character and soul. The damage is that she mixes it with enough good counsel to heap a whole lot of guilt and confusion on someone who is already trying to get through the fog. I hate to add this, but I also suspect an attitude that concerns me. It is as though she is somehow just a little bit above the situation with an air of authority on the matter. It’s hard to peg because it is coming through in the attitude as much as the content. There are some pretty hefty assumptions she is making. I don’t know if this is making her feel better about herself somehow or what. My analysis here is coming from my own long history of marriage to a destructive man, from almost two years of reading a variety of blogs regarding the whole abuse and dysfunction situation, and from engaging in the conversation for more than a year. It’s not that hard to sense the humility in others and who is sharing their advice from their own experience and concern while on the same level with you versus counsel that is coming from an attitude that sends up red flags. I trust my intuition now and her comments tend to set off my alarms. Just my two cents worth.
Totally agree Seeing The Light!! I feel the same way!
Also, based on other comments Charis has made, I’ve gotten the impression that she’s very submissive to her abusive husband, thinking she’s being a Godly wife…I might be wrong, of course, but that’s just MY impression!