Relationship Advice - Spiritual Healing

This blog is an answer to a couple of letters from a friend who is having difficulties leaving her abusive husband. If you have some practical advice or resources for women in California with this sort of difficulty please post as a comment.

“Dearest Michael,

“Thank you for your Relationship Breakups – How to Cope blog. I have found it helpful and I am in agreement with much of what you have said.

“I have been trying to make a marriage work for a long time now that was more than likely doomed from the start and now I am trapped or at least unaware of a way out.”

Becoming trapped in a relationship or feeling trapped is a very bad sign that you are not in the right place, not with the right person, not doing that which nurtures your soul.

“I was unable to work for most of the last 5 yrs due to the abuse I received from my husband. I was depressed and suicidal. I committed myself to the mental hospital 2 or 3 times and was heavily medicated for much of that time.”

I often wonder why people stay in such relationships for so long. I guess this is how we learn that we cannot change other people who do not want to change. But I would suggest to a young and inexperienced person to take heed of such telltale signs early in a relationship and get out much sooner. Don’t let tradition, religion, or the coercion of family stop you from protecting yourself.

(Removed much of my advice due to the reasons stated below.)

“My husband was sexually molested by a catholic priest when he was 10. He was an altar boy. I am telling you this because I want you to be able to understand, as I do, that there are reasons in his case, for the arrogance as you have explained it. I understand that I have been subjected to his lies, cheating and manipulation, emotional, verbal and financial abuse because of what happened to him.”

(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)

“After a lot of soul searching, reading and contact with blessed angels such as you, I have finally come to a better place within myself; I have a greater understanding. I no longer take any medication other than my blood pressure pill and a multi-vitamin. I was finally able to get a part-time, minimum wage job, which has recently become an “on-call” position and have kept it for about 3 months now.

“Unfortunately, while I am extremely grateful and blessed to be mentally and spiritually better, some of the abuse continues and I know that it would be best for the both of us to move on. He still has anger management problems and is verbally abusive and he still controls all of the money except my tiny paycheck. I have been unable to set much of that aside as I have had to use that money for my basic necessities. I don’t even know how much he makes. And he has told me he will fight having to pay me alimony because of all of the years he had to support me while I couldn’t work. I cannot afford to be alive right now let alone afford an attorney to help me.”

(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)

“There are shelters that may be able to help me, but they are run by the Catholic Church. How am I supposed to go and ask for help from the same people that technically put me in this position to begin with? I have no money or support system. No family that is willing to help me, I’m lonely and scared and I don’t know what to do. And so yes, I have considered suicide. All I know is that I cannot take this situation anymore as it is eating away all of the progress I have made healing myself.”

(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)

“We don’t own any property except our car and I guess I would be entitled to 1/2 the value of that, which isn’t much. I could not afford to stay in our apartment even if I could “kick” him out. I have a call into an attorney and I am waiting for a response. My father told me that he had to pay for my mother’s attorney when they divorced eons ago and he wants me to make my husband pay for the attorney. I honestly don’t know if it works like that or not anymore and I won’t know till I talk to the attorney.”

(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)

“We have been married a little over nine years. Living together longer but I guess that doesn’t count. In California 10 yrs is considered a lengthy marriage and after 10 yrs of marriage I would be entitled to 1/2 of his retirement when he retires. According to the attorney I spoke to a while back, up until 10 yrs, I would be entitled to some sort of alimony for 1/2 of the yrs we were married, so about 4 1/2yrs.

“Understanding how my husband ticks, I think there is an effort on his part, sub conscious or not, to make me end this before our 10th anniversary in December so that I won’t be entitled to any of his retirement. He also has a law suit pending against the church, of which I know few details. I don’t think he wants me to have any access to that potential compensation either, regardless of the fact I have suffered collateral damage from his abuse. He is very Jeckel and Hyde when it comes to money; he always has to have control of it. He is nice as pie when we have it, and mean and nasty when we don’t. So in all honesty the only thing that will be an issue is alimony.

“I’m not looking to rake my husband over the coals. I left my last marriage with little more than bedroom furniture and could have had some alimony but declined it. I just wanted out. I was 22 then and had just gone thru some training and knew that I could get a good paying job. The situation is quite different now. I am going to need some help until I can get on my feet and that’s all I want. After everything I have been through with him (much of which I haven’t mentioned here), I think I deserve at least that.

“I have an appointment with an attorney next week so I should know more then.”

(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)

“Last Sunday I started attending Co-dependents Anonymous meetings to try and get some help and support. My whole life has been spent trying to help and rescue others and now when it is vital to my wellbeing that I focus on rescuing myself, I honestly don’t know how. I am angry and hurt over this relationship and I’m finding it hard not to focus on him and what he’s done to our relationship. And because I’m stuck here with him, I cannot mourn the loss of this relationship appropriately which in turn makes me angrier and hurt.”

(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)

“On top of the marriage problems my 17 yr old college bound, high school basketball star, daughter, informed me last week that she is pregnant and wants to keep the baby. I have a 19 yr old alcohol and drug addicted son who isn’t speaking to me and a 21 yr old daughter who decided to become a stripper instead of going to college. She just got out of jail because her abusive boyfriend falsely accused her of domestic violence. Instead of taking a plea that would have kept her out of jail and could have been expunged, she decided, against my advice of course, to take it to trial where she could end up in jail for quite some time. And, I’m still looking for another job. One with which I will be able to support myself.

“Michael, I feel as though I have stepped into the twilight zone and it is very hard to stay positive during all of this. But I want you to know that I am so grateful for you and my other blessed MySpace friends that have been so caring and supportive during this extremely stressful period in my life. I don’t know what I would do without you guys and I thank my Creator everyday for the blessing of my friends.”

(There WAS much more to this blog but it has been removed…
see details below)

Click here to read the comments left by those that read the full blog. You will see that MANY people found a lot of help in the content of my blogs. Unfortunately I had to remove the content of most of my blogs for the reason stated further below.You can continue reading my blogs by joining my relationship healing group, the details of which you can find at http://RelationshipAdviceSite.com By joining my healing group you will get…

• The Ultimate Guide to Relationship Healing a four hour Audio Program.
  
• All of my blogs.
  
• MANY hours of additional Audio programs.
  
• Live Tele-Classes given by me where you will have the opportunity to ask your own specific questions.
  
• Access to my coaching via email just like you have seen in my blogs on MySpace.
  

Why did I Remove my Blog Content from MySpace & gr8Wisdom.com?

 I spent more than a year doing free spiritual and relationship counseling on MySpace. If you review the comments on my blogs (which I have left intact for you to review) you can see that I have spent a great deal of time, covered a lot of topics, AND A LOT OF PEOPLE WERE HELPED BY MY ADVICE. I have really enjoyed it and thank all of you who have participated. Many of my friends have touched my heart very deeply. I love you all!

Unfortunately doing it for free has resulted in me not being able to write new blogs or serve as many people as I would like too. Doing it for free has caused me to maintain a fulltime job with not enough time to coach those people who want and need the help I have to offer. By charging for my services I will eventually be able to quit my job and do my spiritual counseling work full time.

My blogs really do contain all you need to know in order to live a healthy and happy life and the live coaching I offer in the healing group fills in the gaps. Please consider joining this group today. http://RelationshipAdviceSite.com

Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story

image credits to Joseph

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