When Love Lets you Down

Today I got the devastating news that a woman I know, through social media, had to do the absolute unthinkable.  After a building pattern of mental and physical abuse she was put in a position by her partner where it was truly life or death. Blessedly, she chose life and yet her choice meant his immediate demise. What that life will look like going forward is hard to say. How do you go back to any form of normalcy once you've been to that edge? How do you turn your face to the sun after love has so utterly betrayed you?

Another dear friend had the brutal misfortune of learning that the man who swore to protect and honour her, let her down in the most heinous and selfish of ways. In doing so, he stripped away her entire past and that of their children. Her life has completely been turned upside down and her self opinion has been struck a fierce blow. All because his narcissistic behaviour was masked under the guise of a loving partner. He played her like a fiddle and left her when he was discovered. What he doesn't know or care about is the wreckage and rust he has left behind. All these pieces my friend has to sift through and put back together in some semblance of a life. All because love let her down.

It breaks my heart and boggles my mind that people who stood before a god they doggedly believe in, and pledged with  their mortal soul to honour, respect and cherish another human, simply could not follow through.

I wanted to try to understand what went so wrong for my friends. So I began reading, as the mother of a daughter what I gleaned made my blood run cold.

• Children are more likely to witness domestic abuse if the victim is female
• Domestic Abuse is described as a pattern of behaviour which involves physical, emotional or sexual abuse by one person against another in a domestic setting such as marriage or cohabitation

These are real and this is happening. People are dying, people are losing so much more than their innocence and oft times children are part of the equation. Children who didn't ask to see/hear/feel what is being forced upon them. Families ripped apart and battered by lies and feelings of shame. This happens in every community, all the time. ALL THE TIME! 

I don't have a magic solution to stop it. I wish that I did. What I can tell you is what I am going to try really hard to do. I am going to try really hard to raise my daughter to know her worth and not settle for anyone or anything that doesn't appreciate that. I am going to raise my son to value his partner and to always strive to be worthy of their affections without compromising who he is in his soul. 

I pray that I can achieve this lofty goal and I hope with all that I have that it will be enough to keep my babies safe. I don't want love to let them down. Not in this way.