I am catching up on some reading. I flip through the pages of a months old Elle Magazine and happen upon an article. A quote jumps out from the pages.

“There are two main reasons people cry: Being separated from an intimate relationship or feeling powerless.” – Elle Magazine

I can only agree heartily with this quote. I shed a lot of tears for the loss of my relationship. However, I shed far more over the sense of powerlessness I felt as my husband called the shots. I did not see my husband’s controlling ways when I first met him. He was not overtly controlling and as a young girl, I had no concept of the term ‘passive aggressive.’ I did not know that there were two types of controlling personalities.

I thought I had married the most laid back man in the world.

What a lesson I learned within months of being engaged and more powerfully once I was married.

I can understand control. I can even understand a need to be in control.

I cannot; however, understand the need to be in control to such a point you would find satisfaction in the tears of one you love. I cannot understand the need to be in such control that you would render one that you love powerless and helpless.

No, I would not call that control.

I would call that bullying. I would call that abusive. Tears are a submissive action.

So I would not call that a relationship.

I would call it one person being controlled by another.

I would say if you are shedding tears because you feel powerless…You have given your power to someone who cannot be trusted with it.

I wish someone had told me this. I wish someone had told me to take off my blinders, stop making excuses even once for a man that can make you cry.

I wish someone had told me to grab my box of tissues, wipe my mascara off my face, and look into a mirror. Look hard at the face that man created so I could see that love was not staring back at me. That a man who felt a powerless self-esteem was never going to do anything except try and remind me he was powerful even if watching a woman cry at his hands was necessary to do so.

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