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Divorce and Your Abuser: Taking the Long Road Home
Divorce is not the short cut society pretends it is. I am a person who likes to be efficient with my energy so I am always looking for life hacks. But God, despite my preferences, has led me the long way round over and over. I am currently reading through the Bible through the eyes of John Wesley, truly an exercise in taking the long way. But reading through Exodus 13, I finally understood why it was that my routes through life appear so circuitous. The Hebrews are preparing themselves for an escape from slavery. They make their preparations and sacrifices. And Jehovah leads them in a puzzling direction. …
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Parental Alienation: 6 Signs It’s Happening to You
Many couples in the midst of an acrimonious divorce toss around the term, parental alienation, to describe the effects of one parent badmouthing another. This often happens when one person seems particularly at fault in a divorce. I think everyone can agree that criticizing one parent to a child is unhealthy at best and abusive at worst. But this isn’t parental alienation. I recently heard about a four-year-old boy whose mother had left him and his father unexpectedly. Understandably both were devastated. Understandably the father felt a need to process this. He would launch into his rehearsal of the sudden separation and divorce and almost as if on cue, his…
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Your Abusive Spouse: When to Leave
Leave your abusive spouse now. Before anyone protests the sanctity of the marriage vow, let me say that I don’t take this answer lightly. And let me qualify the term, abusive spouse. Most people are occasionally emotionally ‘abusive’. These days that term is loosely bandied about and it can be difficult to ferret out what one or another individual means by it. Ironically, many abusers accuse their spouses of abusive behavior in an attempt to deflect their own wrongdoing. So let’s be clear by what this term really entails. Many people shut down, withdraw, lose their temper, and sulk. As humans, we are sometimes passive-aggressive, over-step a boundary, or let…
Healing Through Art & Words
