“ Why did you come home a different path than what you normally do?” Stew asked Rachel before she could even get her car door closed.

“ You are over 15 minutes late and how many times have I told you that I don’t like that? Hmmm…You are so stupid. I can’t trust you with anything. I hope you had fun on your little adventure on the way home.”

Rachel could feel her heart racing.

The tension in her chest, the nausea rising.

Your stomach was upside down and in knots.

She felt worthless, stupid, and as if she always messing everything up.

It could have been a nice evening at home.

They could have just enjoyed dinner, a glass of wine and chilled watching their favorite show, but no, she messed it up yet again. Stew always made her aware of her screw ups and how disappointed he was in her. He was good at making sure that she held the blame for the “bullsh*t” as he called it, and made sure that she was aware of how little trust he had in her and that she was nothing but a stupid child who needed constant reprimand.

“F-ck You!” Robert yelled at Sally as he slammed the door shut.

“You are my wife. You should not disrespect me like that.”

Sally breathed deeply, trying to keep her composure as she finished getting ready for bed.

She knew that if she took too long that things would get worse for her. She also knew that if she raced out after him that he would only yell something else and potentially get physical. So she breathed, let a few tears fall, looked herself in the mirror and told herself, ‘Everything is going to be okay, we are going to make it through this.” Then walked calmly as she could with her knees trembling out of the bathroom and into the bedroom where Robert had planted himself on the far edge of the bed, eye’s closed and obviously disgusted and ready to attack. Sally sat down on the bed next to him and said, “Honey, let’s talk about this. I just wanted to know what you wanted with the video, it made me feel uncomfortable.” Robert sprung up off the bed in a rage, yelling…

“You are my f-cking wife, you don’t need to know what I want with anything. I can do whatever I want with pictures and videos of you.”

Sally sat still as can be, looking down at the bed.

She knew that she could not say anything else.

Or be accused of not loving him, not caring, disrespecting and so much more.

Tyson leaned in grabbed Steph’s long hair and pulled her back so that he could whisper in her ear. They were in the thrawls of sex and it was getting really heated. He pulled her head back, wrapped his hand around her hips and said, “You are so f-cking hot. You are so wet. I want to see another woman going down on you. I want to see her enjoying you.” Steph felt a moment of panic in her body, tightness crossed over her breasts. Her heart began to ach. She did not want to wreck his fantasy but she was the furthest thing from aroused at this idea. Tyson loved to “talk dirty” and he loved to paint images of wild and risky events in her ears during sex. Steph hated it all. She just wanted to be with him. Every time Tyson spoke of other men, women, threesomes and moresomes, gang bangs, and risky locations she found herself in a state of fear. She could no longer feel pleasure or be present there in the moment with him. And she did not want to burden her husband with her silliness as he called it when she tried to share that she was not into these things. He always would  paint the tale and then tell her that he could tell how turned on she was from it, that she wanted it. If she said anything different then he would get angry, stonewall her for days and only tell her that she was so closed down and disconnected from herself that she could not even tell when she was aroused. But he knew.

These are all true stories!

These are my clients of the past. ( names changed to keep privacy)

Women who shared with me the deep pain that they went through consistently in their relationships. The stress that these things put them under and now here they sat before me wanting to unravel the mess that had been taught to them, that they had somehow started to believe was true.

Now one might wonder how can anyone believe something of any of these natures if it just is not so. It is obvious to the outside reader of these tales that these are women who are being abused emotionally, physically and mentally. You might say they should just wake up and get a divorce, save themselves. Not always that easy and everyone has their own reasons as to why that is not always on the table. Most of the time the woman in this instance believes that she is responsible for how her partner is treating her and that she even has it coming.

Ingrained in her psyche from the earliest of years, the majority of women are taught to look pretty, be kind, always put others first, keep the peace and do what is needed or expected of them.

These teachings support the nature of the feminine fully to be peace keepers and nurturers. However they do not support a healthy relationship container, nor a healthy individual.

Women suffer from depression, anxiety and other stress related disorders more than men do across the board.

Upto five times more women suffer from such ailments as TMJ, hormone dysfunctions, migraine and an array of autoimmune disorders than men. Over fifty percent of women surveyed in multiple studies said that they suffered from “high stress levels” and that their stress has increased immensely over the last few years where only one in four men said the same.

70% of women claim they don’t orgasm during sex.

A striking 60% plus claim that their male partner has forced sex on them even after they said that they did not want it.

It is an understatement to say that that only 60% of women have been sexually violated at some point in their lives, and almost that many have also experienced physical and/or emotional and mental abuse as well from a male close to them.

These acceptances in relationship start in a woman’s youth.

The expectations that she is taught from age three forward.

Her relationship with her father, brothers, uncles and other men.

How she is looked upon, the remarks made, and then the constant awareness that she is responsible for the actions, words and even thoughts of the men that come into her life.

She is trained to care at all cost for the man in her life.

To sacrifice her own needs and boundaries even. to make sure that he is happy and satisfied and she is taught that if she does not do this that it is to be expected to be “punished.”

In today’s world of feminist rights and movements, you would think that these ideas would have been put to rest a decade or so ago at very least, and they are starting to loosen around the feminine but now are turning toward the masculine where we women are attempting to make right the wrongs by inflicting our pain and revenge on men. However, all we are truly doing is creating more pain for both sexes. We are traumatizing all sides and we are putting all the more stress and anxiety on we women as we believe strong heartedly that all men are toxic. We now undervalue the beauty and strength of the masculine leadership, logical minds, ability to nurture in their own way and stand true at their core. These characteristics however are only instilled in the masculine if they are raised to believe in themselves and to value and trust the feminine. Our men of today and of the last few decades have been raised by a scorned feminine. They have witnessed the pain of both sexes and they do not know where they stand or what it means to be a man in our world.

There is truly no safe haven for man or woman in todays world.

And we have all been raised by victims.

So where does this musing of today take us?

What is the take away that I want for you to gain from this message here?

First, I want to share that my above client stories all came to me because the men wanted change for their relationship and woman. Although, none understood what they were truly asking nor what they would get, they were the leaders of the change. They were the ones who said, “Something has to happen here. She needs to find her power, her self-love and worth.”

The women, most of them would have chosen to remain in the same shoes, to not cause a stir in their relationship. They would have sacrificed the rest of their years on this planet not initiating, not speaking their truth, staying the peacekeepers that they were and having limited confrontation. Because that is how a woman thinks and believes.

She does not want to fight.

She wants everyone to just get along.

And she will deal with herself,

Her emotions and fears,

Her negative thoughts and her broken heart most likely in the parking lot of the grocery store. Alone. Parked and crying until she feels spent and able to move again.

Next, relationship…. All relationship is about power.

There is delicate harmony to the dance of power, and intimate relationship all the more delicate because it deals with the heart. It deals with our hopes and dreams. It is the one space that many will do what they would never do anywhere else. They will speak the cruelest of words to one they hold so dear because they know that they can get away with it. They will say yes when they are hard no because they do not want to be a disappointment or let the other down. They will accept so much less from their partner and take more on for themselves. And they will do all of this good and bad alike because of their positioning in the relationship and how they have been taught. You see, its all a cookie cutter thought process. Its about what we will accept for ourselves, how we value ourselves and what we have been taught to believe and look for in the opposite sex.

Unfortunately, none of this is healthy.

None of this has anything to do with love of our mate.

It only reveals how we view ourselves and what we will accept.

It shows our scars.

It shows how easily we will give ourselves away in a multitude of ways and even let our health be destroys all for the attention and approval if only for one second in time from another.

These men, who brought their wives in to “get fixed” all said the same thing in their consult.

“ I love her. I want her to see how powerful beautiful and radiant she is. I want her to speak her truth even if it hurts. I want her to know that I support her.”

However, as the women learned to speak their truth which is where they found their power and self-love and worth, the men found themselves being told the truth more and this caused more pain, more confrontation, fights, anger, rage and sometimes trauma. Some of these couples are no longer together. The men discovered that as amazing and hot as it sounds to be with an empowered woman who will tell you the truth that they could not bare to be with her any longer, they wanted something less testing in their relationship. They did not want to hear her pain, her disagreement, her thoughts. And the women discovered that they needed a man that was willing to truly listen to her as well as himself. They discovered that they required and deserved a man who was willing to work on himself as well and valued her for all her feminine tendencies instead of looking at these natural characteristics as betrayals or disrespect.

And the couple who made it through this edgy space of healing?

Well they discovered who each of them were.

They learned how to communicate without violence.

They learned how to stop blaming and jumping to conclusions.

They learned how to remain present in the issue and moment with each other.

And above all else, they learned to let go of the need to be right.

To be seen or understood, even by their partner.

And that they were never going to fully heal their wounds of the past or overcome the triggers associated with them, but that they could inquire into the self as, “how does this support our relationship right now and what can I do to better hear my partner?”

If you take nothing but this last line away with you today, then that my dear reader is enough.

Know that you are worthy.

You are whole and enough.

And it is always okay to make mistakes,

You will not get it right all the time. You will not always stand strong in your word even.

Some days you will fall great distances.

Because you are human.

And so is your partner.

As Always,

Stop Existing & Start Living

René (KW)