When I met some of my older friends and when I had intense arguments with my beloved wife about bullying, I was consumed by my sensitivity to advocate victims of domestic
violence, simply because I was a survivor of such devastating human tragedy. My
side of the argument was clear from the start: violence is wrong. However,
lately I started to learn that my sharp distinction between observing and
acting on that observation needed to have a much deeper examination.

During arguing with them, I noticed them always drifting from discussing violence as an
immoral behavior to justifying their right of estimation of managing it to reach
acceptable “limits.” I remember a friend stating that his father’s abuse is now
marginal, another stated that his mother’s influence in his daughter does not exist,
as of my wife, she insisted that what happened to her has nothing to do with
her attitude as a mother.

During my early phase of recovery, such remarks used to fuel my anger and made me accuse them as complacent agents with abusers. Now I can see why I adapted this stance; I wanted to make sure I would not repeat what took me 24 years to fight inside my mind by giving such “excuses” to my abusers. Then, with continuation of
arguing, another prospect started to emerge. I began to see how different the
impact of abuse has on different people, how different setting boundaries matters,
and more interestingly how the importance of rebuilding someone’s life in a
toxic free atmosphere differs too. During hardships of my financial and social
independence from my family, I was willing to invest several years of pain
management to gain a decent job, establish a new network of friends, avoid many
seasonal holidays and family gatherings, announcing cutting ties to a degree
that made me avoid attending funerals. For me, these were golden bricks for my
new self. I was welcoming pain that came along with these massive decisions as
it had a greater meaning than tolerating pain of sticking in toxic
relationships and secure financial and political gains.

So, as Ireflect on logic and behavior of thosewho are still find it reasonable to justify what they are going through as a result of domestic violence they receive, I can now understand that some will never react differently, others one day will reach a threshold that will make them seek help ,and, a third group will always consider it a fiction of someone’s own imagination as become abusers themselves. This third group may even start campaigning by calling domestic violence as a human right!

In myself-built website , I offer those who started to relate what they are going through to uncontrollable factors in their environment, forgive themselves for resisting to believe in themselves enough and accept their powerless role in what happened to them, and recognize that starting up a new phase in life, even at late thirties like me with a spouse and four children to raise, is not too late as long it is intended to make a significant improvement in qualityof wellbeing.