Replies to '09/05 The Divorce Experiment'

Guff about "soul mates" is one of those fairy tales that gets us into trouble. It's wishful thinking. If "self-esteem" comes from something outside of us and beyond our own accountability, we are indeed doomed. I'm not buying that at all. It requires work and a certain amount of sacrifice and delayed gratification to earn one's own respect, not a magical prince/princess behind some mystical door, just waiting to rescue us from the normal hardships of life and from ourselves.

Obviously marriage needs give and take and supportive partners, but it also needs two people who are healthy to begin with. It doesn't matter how much one person gives if the other is not in a position to receive. If the "low self-esteem" partner is not doing anything for her/himself, nothing anyone else does will change anything. It also requires a large dose of humor! It seems to me that a lot of people are taking themselves way too seriously.

Self-esteem does not come from a partner, loving or otherwise. Self-esteem can only come from inside oneself.  When one is with a partner who is verbally and/or emotionally abusive that can certainly be destructive to a person's self-esteem, but if the victim had good self-esteem to begin with she (or he) wouldn't have put up with an abusive partner after it became clear the partner was abusive.   

   

If you love and respect yourself you won't allow anyone else to disrespect or mistreat that special, valuable, wonderful person you know yourself to be. If you believe you are "less than", not good enough or for some other reason deserve rotten treatment, you'll accept it until you reach a breaking point. (Dr. Phil always says that you teach people how to treat you. That is part of what I'm talking about here.) These beliefs about the self can be so ingrained that someone who has them may not even realize how strong or destructive they are.  Perhaps a parent or other authority figure planted the seed for them in early childhood.  

   

There are usually early warning signs that a potential mate is unsupportive or abusive.  Often, people expect that the person will change and improve with time and marriage. What time and marriage do is bring out the quirks, warts, and whatever dysfunctional upbringing people have and opens the door to unrestrained abuse from those who are abusive.  

   

I believe that poor self-esteem PRECEDES an abusive relationship, and is at the core of why victims become victims.  The abusive spouse simply pries open the crack and makes it a chasm. The crack had to be there to start with.    

   

I can tell you that no man will ever get away with being verbally/emotionally abusive toward me again.  After much self-analysis, I could finally see how I didn't respect and love myself and in turn didn't require men to respect and love me.  Marriage or no marriage, I guarantee you that I will walk away from any man who doesn't treat me as an equal, valuable, wonderful, true partner, or who doesn't recognize and appreciate the unique and wonderful woman that I truly am.  

   

-Hannah R.