Scaling the Wall

When does a problem stone wall you? When you can't crawl over it, get around it, or find a door through it.

For years my ex-husband was my stone wall. I gave him complete control of my life by not fighting control the right way. Let that sink in... I gave him permission.

Many women in my previous situation will not agree with that statement and years ago I would have thought that someone advising me in the same fashion was being insensitive to my needs and desires.

What we allowed to continue in our lives, jobs and in our relationships will continue as long as we fail to take a stand and set clear boundaries.

I was very young when I married and very impressionable. When my ex-husband began tightening the reins, so to speak, I acquiesced out of fear and out of ignorance.

The first step that a controller will implement is narrowing the circle of the person who they wish to control. One of the first steps they suggest to you is that you remove your friends or other people that do not support the relationship in the fashion that it is currently arranged, or people that don't like him (or her). Eventually those people leave you alone.

How does the controlled give that permission? They submit and agree to distancing themselves from their friends. Family quickly follows if not concurrently in this arrangement. If the people who love you know what's going on, they will give unsolicited advice or solicited advice. The controller cannot have that threat so they separate their loved one from family and friends so that theirs is the only voice that the person they are trying to control hears. They make their argument persuasive and punctuate it with consequences or punishments.

Often, they frown on the partner who they are trying to control getting or remaining at a job and getting out into the world with people hard to control. Someone who is influenced by others in the world who are not being controlled will raise doubts in their mate. The one they are trying to separate from the world may be invited out with friends and this could pose problems in maintaining control.

This may work for a long time until the person in a relationship who is being controlled begins to feel isolated and wishes for freedom, any freedom, even driving. I was told I would probably not be a good driver because I was easily distracted. It was just a ruse to keep me in the home with the kids, where I belonged.

Because I was married young, at seventeen, and quickly became pregnant with my firstborn child, I now had another reason to try to make my marriage work and responsibly dug me deeper into my controlling marriage.

I tried to escape and would separate many times but finances and lack of support from the friends and family which I had allowed him to distance me from created a chasm which I couldn't seem to breach. With no job, transportation or support he would stalk me and beg me to come home for the kids.

Decades went by and I separated in crisis due to abuse but would find myself back in the same situation repeatedly.

People who didn't know me well or understand what was going on would shake their heads in dismay and believe that I was stupid, or even more, that I liked the control or the abuse.

When my mother committed suicide, I hit my stone wall. I began to realize that I could end up in the same position, hopeless and alone, if I didn't change my life and change my relationship. I began to stand up for mysel and to point out the wrongs in the marriage that he was doing by controlling me even to my and the children's detriment.

The evolution of my freedom was catapulted by extreme loss and the growing deep down understanding that only I could change our situation. This recipe of changing a problem can be applied to anything in your life which is causing you unhappiness.

Stone walls can become positive reinforcements for change if we let them. Change does not come without fear or risk, but if you apply faith and courage all things are possible.

I am living proof. Be that change that you are looking for and you may just find your dreams are on the other side of the wall.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord , thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
Jeremiah 29:11 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/jer.29.11.KJV

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This is my five minute freewrite using prompt stone wall.
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