After Years of Embracing Struggle Love, I’m Safe.
I figured it out the poison of struggle love, late. My examples were strong women, too strong and enduring for their own good, and I followed suit. I carried on, picked myself up, redirected my focus when I felt dismantled, and kept on keepin’ on. I was “destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
I didn’t know my former partner’s complacency with my heart was a symptom of his resentment toward me. I didn’t know that sticking around wasn’t necessary to prove my value as a “good wife,” or a good person.
I didn’t understand how each year that I hung on, I diminished my opportunity to live as a person of substance, because I covered my own substance with pseudo-Christian values. Christianity was not to blame. Accepting, without enough examination, someone else’s explanation of righteousness was to blame.
I blame my misspent energy on the consequences of not carving out a better contract for myself.
Since my former and I didn’t carve out a unique agreement, we defaulted to the limiting roles society carved out for us, only mine came with a whole lot of quiet burden carrying, while his came with power he didn’t know how to or want to manage.
