*Updated
This poem is dedicated to the many women, especially those who I meet in domestic violence shelters, who really do believe:
If I just keep on loving him, he will change & we will have the relationship that I know is possible…
We hear the words “I thought he would change” so often inside of the walls of domestic violence shelters that I created the following dramatisation for our Talking circle so that the group of women who have sometimes had 2 or 3 relationships with violent men, could begin to unravel what keeps them there and how to recognise the pattern.
The following piece is not relevant for all women who leave domestic violence, but for those women who sit in support groups and say “I believed him when he said he would change” and “He is a really nice guy, he just had a rotten childhood”, this piece is for you.
And for my precious friend Janet who was killed in domestic violence by a man who then killed himself, leaving her four beautiful children behind.
Ode to the Rescuer:
There was something very appealing about his pain, it matched her pattern perfectly
and her pattern goes like this:
Give me a damaged man with potential and I will embrace him as my life mission
My personal quest!
I will claim myself to be his Rescuer and through my eyes he will see how sorely he has been denied Love
And with the love of this Good Woman, he will heal!
He will heal
He will heal
He will heal
With the peace of mind that I alone have brought to him, delivered to him on a sincere heart that pulses with conviction, his heart shall finally, after many troubled years finally beat with contentment in symbiotic rhythm with my own
Ahh..this future memory brings tears to my eyes and reminds me to be patient and the reward will come.
Of this truth I have created, I am sure.
He will change
He will change
He will change
I shall interpret his moodiness as poetic brooding,
his sarcasm as merely the shadow of his enormous artistic sensitivities and
his broken promises as the unfortunate repercussions of a busy, preoccupied man.
I shall deny myself my heart’s desires,
less they place too much of a burden on his already busy mind.
I shall desperately seduce him into security with words thinly veiled
with the false reassurance that I want nothing of him
After all he is the broken one
Not me!
I will prove to him that I am the one single woman
on this Earth who can heal his troubled Soul.
Because I believe in him like no other has in the past
or could possibly at any time in the future
As the rescue program gets under way I will slowly begin to allow
the duality of the situation to come to the fore
Actually I won’t have a choice!
Having ensnared him with my rescuers net
or having fallen into his
I shall wrestle with the duality of being drawn to his charismatic withdrawals
whilst also experiencing an awakening awareness
that he is indeed mirroring my own need to heal and rescue the wounded heart.
There is something painfully seductive about that wounded heart after all it’s in all of the fairytales and rom-com’s isn’t it?
Love that Beast fair Beauty for he will come good in the end!
In order to ignore the needs of my own hopeful
desperate
optimistic
aching
wounded heart
I will plunge into my rescuing role with paradox and passion
for I am drawn to the angst of tortured feelings
which I have misconstrued as Romance and Love
as haplessly as he is drawn to his broody silences
and the acidic observations he casts out to bait me every now and then.
And quite regularly at times.
And yes. He has hit me in the past but the degree to which he is so truly deeply sorry overwhlems me with compassion for him.
Every time.
Every single time.
Except the last three times when I only felt fear and loathing,
But I got over that!
Didn’t I?
Didn’t I?
or Did !?
Words that forge our bond like who else would put up with you or me and
we were meant for one another, we are as bad as each other
will be the hypnotic sound track of the saga of our co-dependence
He will be my co-star as my life unfolds according to the stories I believe
Stories that I have created, many that have piggy backed onto the romantic tales of how the good girl transforms the bad boy with exquisite mastery and tears.
Fictional stories that I will defend as
Love!
Alas it is a tired old script with no surprises in the Story whatsoever!
but it will take me a long time to understand that
to reinterpret and rewrite the lead roles
because most of this is new to me!
And I am a stranger to myself.
Indeed aren’t we all until we remember who we really are?
Therefore I will need quite some time to realise any of this
as this predictable Olde Story unfolds on a roller coaster of
drama and desire
yearning and conflict
Those old scenarios and inevitable cycles replaying themselves in the guise of Love.
Love?
No this is just unlearnt lessons in re-enactment!
I will come to realise this one day
though I do not know that yet of course!
Although my heart does skip a beat when he looks at me in that certain seductive kind of way
Surely that must be Love?
Though you may well think I am making a banquet from a few crumbs of moments of hard earned intimacy
You are wrong of course!
Wrong
Wrong
Wrong
I know this banquet will be rich in the fruits of my desires so long as I am patient.
I will be Patient
I will be Patient
I will be Patient
My mantras give my life meaning and hope
They really do
Really really they do.
In the meantime I will deny that the toxins of this relationship are causing me great harm.
Souring my naiveté.
Poisoning the sweetness of my illusions whilst I continue to defend his lack of friendliness and warmth as justified
The increasing violence as a sign
that his love for me is so much he can barely handle the intensity!
I understand that and why he is violent
on account of the awful things he went through as a child.
The unresolved issues with his difficult father
The conflict with his troubled mother
There was just so much trouble that went into creating his troubled life
that I share
I am perhaps the only one who really knows that
and understands him and LOVES him
The only one
The lonely one
BUT
Love will conquer all. I think I am sure of that!
There is only one fixed rule in all of this apparent uncertainty
And this the rule I made and now obey:
I must Love him no matter how hard he is to Love.
I will Love him unconditionally
I will Love him unconditionally
I will Love him unconditionally
This one rule will make it all wonderful one day because
He will open up
He will open up
He will open up
Ultimately of course I will deny myself the right to move forward, to reach my fullest potential because I will be anchored defiantly to our co-dependence and staunchly courageously
desperately
refer to it as
Love!
This is what I know Love to be.
The End
I dedicate this to my lifelong friend Janet 1959 -2001 who was killed by her husband who then killed himself.
Your life mattered Janet, your stories are important to be told. I miss you dearly my friend.
Carol Omer
Certified Life Coach
Author of The Big Girls Little Coloring Book