Frequently I receive emails and messages from people who tell me they are in love with someone who is abusing them or having an affair with someone else or who has left them for another. They are desperate, lonely, feeling lost and betrayed.  While my heart longs to reach out and wrap my arms around each and every one of these people I also want to sit them down in the corner and have a serious and honest chat.

Behavior, not words, is the true indicator of who someone really is.  Abuse is not love. Dishonesty is not love. Betrayal, control, lies are not love. We feel miserable when these things happen to us. Not so much because the other person does them but because WE BETRAYED ourselves by continuing to allow it to happen when we have known that something is not right.  We do not just wake up one day to another person’s negative behavior.  We have been aware of it, and have betrayed ourselves by either choosing to ignore it because they say they love us, or because we love them, or we think they will change, or by expecting them to take care of us emotionally, physically or financially, or for whatever excuse we accept in the moment.

Our healing starts when we honestly admit to ourselves that love does not abuse, or use, or disrespect, or cheat, or lie, or say one thing and do another.  Once we are honest with ourselves we begin finding the self-love, self-respect, and self-reliance necessary to change ourselves.  We find the courage to stop clinging to a fantasy of what we think should be and wrap our arms around the reality of what is. Truly accepting what is allows us to bravely act in our best interest.