The stages of moving from Victim of Abuse to Hero of Your Abuse-Free Life includes transitory phases of Target and Survivor.  Some people get stuck as a Target. How do you know when and how to move on?

Will would often tell me that I would never find another man like him. I did not stop to consider if I would want to find another guy like him because deep down, the answer was "No, I never want to know someone like you ever again." Instead of answering the real question, I chose to listen to him tell me why he was so great. Honestly, I agreed because when it came to work, Will was great. Will works diligently, and held two jobs in the early years. I did not worry about income. I was able to stay at home with the boys without once being asked to take a job. He willingly put up with work he hated to provide for his family. Will wanted to be married, wanted children, wanted a family. He wanted to keep us neat and tight like collectible robots on a shelf.

During the time I was trying to save my marriage, I made quite a few mistakes. One of them was naming the type of verbal abuse he used as he said the words. After educating myself with many books (mostly by Patricia Evans), I made a list of the abusive techniques he has at his disposal. I learned them (hint: great idea) and posted them on the fridge (hint: terrible idea). Then, when he'd pull one of those tricks out of his hat, I named it, told him that I would talk to him when he was NOT trying to control me, and then turn on my dainty heels to leave the room.

Although unseen in the tumultuous immediate aftermath of The Day I Left Him, justice was served. Nevertheless, in my pain, I felt slighted by my son who ran from me betrayed by my husband who wouldn't admit the truth punished by the judge who gave custody to my abuser unable to see where my actions caused him any tragic feelings remotely similar to my own (I wanted him to hurt, and he didn't) It seemed he'd won. I felt justice wasn't only blind, but also the stupidest philosophical idea ever imagined by mankind.

The whirling emotions of the day I left continued into the next months. I continued to hold on to the positive feelings and thoughts with the help of my sister, mother and friends. Without them, I wonder if I would have succumbed to begging forgiveness from Will, begging him to come home, knowing I'd only find myself worse off in the long term.

Just when I think I'm healing along nicely, POW - an insightful Facebook friend raises an important question: Am I engaging in self-blame? Um...yes. Self-blame (and self-punishment) comprise a large portion of the answer to the question "Why do you stay in that abusive relationship?!" But I thought I was beyond self-blame. I can (now) laugh at my ex's nasty comments instead of wonder how I managed to cause him to say them. Isn't that a sign that I no longer blame myself for his behavior?

Amy, a 17 year old young woman, ran away from her parents' home months ago. From one perspective, the situation could be explained as a defiant teen who doesn't want to obey her parents' rules. From Amy's perspective, the explanation differs.  She understands that she broke a rule (or three!) and expected to be disciplined for that. Amy did not expect to find her disobedience tied to be tied to her parents' marital woes. She didn't expect for a private conversation with her mother to be shared with her father. She did not expect to be blamed for her mother's choice to confide feelings about Amy's father's repeated adultery (Amy suggested Mom leave him). Also, like many other victims of abuse, she did not expect the insults and aggressive anger as her parents worked through their emotions toward her via verbal and mental abuse.

No one can take away your education. I tell that to the cadets where I work all of the time because it is true: I know from my own hard-won education, an ICBS (I Call Bulls*&!) degree, earned via 18 years of mental, emotional and verbal abuse, featuring a well-designed syllabus acted out by my controlling, manipulating, abusive ex. That man was an excellent teacher, but I didn't truly appreciate his lessons until the last years of his course (a.k.a., our marriage). It was a long course. Four times, out of sheer frustration I'm sure, he attempted to physically knock the stupid out of me, but it took that final laying on of hands to make me see the light. I graduated from that abusive experience with the ability to sense abusive bulls*&! from a mile away. Thank you, Ex-Husband, for the education.

Telling the truth is one component of integrity, but integrity has to do with being "whole" and "complete" in what we do, believe, and say. Our behaviors, thoughts, and words must align in order to have integrity. During the course of my abusive marriage, I discovered I'd lost my integrity and that I told a whole truck load of lies to boot. I didn't like myself because I was not saying or doing what I believed to be right. Although I lied to protect myself from abuse, the abuse of my most valued characteristic, my integrity, hurt more deeply than my husband's put-downs and wrongful conclusions.

Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines wrecking as "to reduce to a ruinous state by or as if by violence". The crime of Wrecking in the former Soviet Union is defined as deliberately giving wrong commands for the purpose of disrupting the normal operations of the state. When I heard the term on the radio today, I was struck by the similarity between wrecking and how an abuser seeks to disrupt his/her victim's "normal operations" and how disrupting normal operations evolves into reducing victims "to a ruinous state by or as if by violence".