Victim Blaming

  I have decided I can't be silent anymore. Not about this. It was recently brought to my attention that I shouldn't play the victim. I must have missed that part where I prayed for what I've been going through since last August. It wasn't the first time someone has told me I should hold myself accountable. Maybe Miller ought to take his fair share of the blame as well. Because we hold about the same amount; none.
    I'm just so tired and sad at how we as a society constantly berate people(women mostly) for being a "victim". When did it become acceptable to shame someone for something that happened to them. Yes don't get me wrong there are plenty of divorces that are amicable. But this isn't one of them. I had no idea, no inkling. He left. The end. The only people that seek to shame are the ones who refuse to believe that sometimes people hurt other people. Sometimes there's only one injured party. If a man is left by his wife, no one tells him it was his fault. They call her names, tell him there's so many women he could be with out there. But they never suggest he did something.
      People constantly say it's absurd to act like there's a war on women when women in 3rd world countries are so oppressed. And I agree, there are horrible conditions for women out there. But how do you think the oppression starts? It starts by telling women to not tell what really happened, to just remain silent. If your husband has a problem with you, you must have done something wrong. No good woman has a husband treat her this way for no good reason. Abuse is the wife's fault. That's at least the message being put out there. And people wonder why women find it difficult to get out of abusive relationships.   
    If any of that was true women wouldn't be in danger every day, in dark parking lots, in shopping malls, and even in their own homes. Would you dare ask the beaten wife why her husband beat her? Maybe she should have read his mind that his meatloaf was too cold. The family who lost their home to arson. Maybe they should have known their neighbor was plotting that.
   You cannot call yourself a Christian and shame the victim and uplift the victimizer. I'm all about love the sinner, hate the sin. But where does it say tell the person that is personally hurt by the sin it was their fault. It doesn't.
    Husbands tried to rid themselves of wives that they were displeased with in the 1930s by way of having their wives committed to mental wards. It had become such a overwhelming problem that the first woman in Maine's legislature, Gail Laughlin, passed a bill that penalized husbands for bringing false testimony  in the involuntary commitment of their wives. So it just goes to show that the mistreatment of women has been around for a long time in varying degrees. And sadly it doesn't seem to be leaving us any time soon.
   In the Bible it says "Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way in the beginning"( Matthew 19:8). Notice that Jesus never suggested that the wives were to blame for the hardening of the hearts of the men. I guess today we don't believe that men could leave their wives for the hardening of their hearts. Mankind is no different today than when Jesus was here. Sometimes there isn't another side, there's just the truth.

Children

    To have or not to have? That's merely one of the questions that involves children in a marriage. If you decide you don't want children what about if your spouse feels differently. Do you have children for them or do you deny them this life experience they always thought they would have? That is assuming you can have children. Although you can adopt either way.
    Let's say you're both on the same page and you're on the page that reads, "yes we want children!". Well that opens an even bigger can of worms for some couples. One person thinks they should be fed only organic foods, the other doesn't care as long as it's not moving on their plate. You may feel like the home is the best place to educate your child, and your spouse feels like it's too out of the norm. The actual issues of raising a child don't matter, but how a couple approaches them does.
   How will you make a decision for your child's well being when you can't find a middle ground, or at least some solid ground.
    Luckily for us we're not too far off in our thinking and beliefs about childrearing. Which will come in handy one day, even though James wasn't exactly reared by us. One of us isn't too far apart from the other. But I don't really know if we were always this way or if we grew this way. Like a vine, growing taller, but closer at the same time.
    I'm not trying to say that couples are always going to think the same way when it comes to an issue like this one. What I'm saying is it's helpful when a couple grows together, not just in love but in values. Not exactly opinions per say. I would never suggest for two people to go around attempting to share the same brain. Although a lot of people do.
    Whatever choices you make about children as a couple should be just that. As a couple, not two people trying to force their way with their children, but trying to help each other through this brave new world.

Choice-shaming.

  "You can drive at 16, go to war at 18, drink at 21, and retire at 65. So how old do you have to be before your love is real?"

  When I got engaged a lot of my family and friends were shocked.( For those of you that are wondering I'm now almost 19). People were polite and most of our family and friends were great about it! It meant so much to us everyone that was supportive and nurturing of our marriage. One friend I thought would absolutely flip out was actually really happy for us and proceeded to tell me that his grandparents had only been dating a few weeks when they got engaged. But even so some of our loved ones were taken aback.
  I had friends say things like "aren't you scared?" "are you really ready mentally for this?" and of course "you're so young!". When you make a huge life choice like the one I made everyone has something to say about it. But when does an opinion cross the line from concern to choice-shaming.
  Friends and strangers alike will tell you that you must be "this" age and have done "x,y, and z" to get married, have a baby, etc. and if you don't, well then you don't know the rules to life. You'll live a life of unhappiness and despair, you'll lose your mind, and end up on the news. Nothing but bad things will follow you if you don't use their step by step guide to life.  They all think they have it figured out.
   That's just it though. Sometimes they don't. There was a time when our world was thought to be flat. All it took was one person to challenge what that culture said to be true.
  I believe that it is detrimental to the next generation to constantly put down other women for their choices. You don't have to agree or make the same choice, but no one asked us to make their choices. Apparently I missed the memo that said there's only one path.
   It's also wrong to excuse yourself for criticizing someone by saying that person is a child. Calling someone else a child(just because they're 18 mind you) won't make you anymore adult or your opinion of anymore value. Of the people I have heard dismissing other people's choices most of them couldn't be more than 2 or 3 years older than the person they were criticizing. Unlike everything else people have put age requirements on, giving unhelpful opinions isn't one of them. Makes you think, huh?
  I'm not saying that people should get married young like I did. It's just as irresponsible to push my beliefs on others. But like the quote says, when is your love real? At 30? At 17?  I can't, and I won't  put a number on something so important. My love is real when I know it's real. When I decide it doesn't matter to me what the mixed messages have to say.

   Marriage is just one of those things that if it's truly meant to be no one can talk you into or out of it. As much as people want to believe they can.
   People will tell you, you're losing your freedom, say goodbye to dating, what about all the other fish in the sea? What is the point of dating if once you find someone you want to be with forever you pass him up for sardines.

 The truth of the matter is, people have become so involved in micro-managing the lives of others that they can't even see their own lives, the good and the bad. That says more about them than it does about us.
   Here's the secret no one wants you to know....age is just a number. It can't measure maturity, love,  stability, or anything of worth. It can't make your big life choices. And it can't keep you from getting your heart broken. I think that scares people to know that a choice you make at 18 can flourish just as much as a choice made at 38 can crash and burn.
  Whatever choice you make, make it for you. Not for anyone else. And not from fear of the unknown, but from the heart.