(Real) Love Conquers All

I suppose there a lot of other things I could be blogging about right now - like Doug Phillips being sued for molesting his children's nanny, or my current perspective on Easter - but tonight I write about love.

I've written some about my first marriage and how IFB shaped my view of love here, here, and here. My first marriage tanked pretty quickly. I had no prior experience with an actual relationship, thought you were supposed to marry your first love, and believed that there would never be another person who would tell me he loved me and wanted to take care of me. I went into the relationship with a very low level of self-worth, which turned into me letting my then-boyfriend-and-eventually-husband push me into things I wasn't comfortable with as well as letting him run me down and treat me like a child (not that children should be treated that way). I had gotten myself into an abusive relationship with a racist, misogynistic, mentally ill guy who believed the world was run by lizard aliens called the Illuminati. Yeah.... He was an expert liar and I was blinded by love, only to be blindsided by the craziness after we were married. After a few months of abuse, an opportunity to get out came, and I chose to leave. As hard as it was at the time, I've never regretted my decision and am so thankful to have my life back. Other ex-fundies have talked about experiences like this and refer to marriages like mine as "starter marriages," because so many ex-fundies lack the real-world knowledge and experience to start in healthy relationships.

When I left my first marriage I was terrified of my ex, had even lower self-esteem than before, and was struggling with depression. Love had betrayed me. Marriage was supposed to be an ultimate goal that, once obtained, meant you were safe for life, but my marriage had dissolved due to things I had never dreamed possible. I lost a lot of things in that relationship, but the experience I gained changed my life for the better. I knew I would never marry someone without living with them first - no more prudish views about what I once considered a pretend marriage. No more promises made about abstaining from sex before marriage - sex was great and even sacred, and it didn't make sense for me to hold back that part of a relationship until after I had married someone. The legality of marriage was huge and scary - something I didn't fully grasp until my name was legally bound with the name of someone else whom I needed to divorce. For awhile I toyed with the idea of never entering into a legally-binding marriage again. A couple's commitment to each other was sufficient for me, so why add the hassle of getting married? What was so important about this marriage thing anyway? Was it outdated and unnecessary? 

Article from Elizabeth Esther and My Experience with Fundamentalist Christian Camp

The false, glittering promise of Christian conferences by Elizabeth Esther

I know exactly what she's talking about, and I've never been to a Christian conference (unless a ladies' retreat counts as a conference). The Christian camp I attended and worked at for several years created the same environment Elizabeth described. Everyone was on some kind of high by the end of a camp week, and as a worker you hit high after high throughout the summer, only to pack up and go back to reality in August. So many people I knew - both campers and staff - went home after their time at camp and crashed. They had made friends, made decisions, felt the rush of spiritual experience... and then when they went home it was gone. They eagerly came back the next year, hoping to regain the spiritual ground they had lost and yet again strengthen their resolve to do better. The term "camp decisions" exists for a reason....

Christian camps seem uniquely geared towards creating this phenomenon: campers/staff are completely bubbled in from the rest of the world, repeated doses of indoctrination through devotions and services, and everyone is tightly bound by strict rules and expectations that further the sense of being in a bubble (like the military, you always have someone to tell you what to do and where you can and can't be, etc.).

Now that I think back, I know a lot of fun was had at camp, and it helped me grow as a person in many ways, but the world of fundie Christian camps is not a healthy one.

Article: why “talk”? Why not just get married?

This may help you understand some of what is said in my previous post.

Thoughts on Friendship and Taking Care of Myself

Throughout my lifetime I've had the privilege of making many friends, but not all of those friendships have lasted. Time and distance are the biggest culprits when it comes to friendships drifting apart into aquaintences. There are other culprits I can point to in a select few of those friendships though - pride, selfishness, intolerance, and an inability to grasp reality. Looking back, I can see things that I did or didn't do wrong in my friendships, so I don't put all the blame on the other parties. I do my best to learn from the past and move on, but I don't forget the past entirely - that is impossible. I have a history of getting myself into abnormal relationships with people - the people and my relationship to them are both abnormal many times. I chalk it up to a strong desire to help other people and a willingness to sacrifice myself in the process. I can think of at least five past relationships in which I focused too much on the other person and not enough on myself. Wait, you can focus too much on others and not enough on yourself? Yes, you can. That concept seems foreign to many, and was certainly not something I was taught in my Baptist church or school. "Jesus, Others, You - what a wonderful way to spell JOY!" is what I was taught. The thinking seemed to be that us humans are so selfish we will always take care of ourselves anyway, so keep your focus on God and then other people. Focusing on other people is huge, and we do tend to be selfish, don't get me wrong, but I know very few people who truly take care of themselves. The push is to be active with this charity or that, to give of yourself here there and everywhere... but when do you have time or energy to devote to your own well-being?

Some recent events have shown me that I have been focusing way too much on meeting the needs of other people while putting my own needs aside. I need to take care of me before I can take care of other people. I need to make choices because they are right for me rather than build my life around what other people want/need. If I need to eat something (or not eat something) I need to make that choice and act on it regardless of how inconvenient or unreasonable it is to/for others (I have special diet needs). If I need to stop and regroup, de-stress, do yoga, whatever, then I need to do it and do it for me. I have to make my decisions with my well-being - mental, physical, and spiritual - in mind rather than focusing on what other people say, need, want, etc. Once I am taken care of, then I can better take care of others. Remember what the flight attendant announces at the beginning of each flight? If cabin pressure drops and oxygen masks are needed, be sure to put your own mask on before helping others with their's.