A World of Ignorance

We are all guilty of being ignorant at times, even me, as I have spent years being largely ignorant of part of a person, or people, depending on what the case may have been. I like to see the best in everybody and sometimes a person has bad things that outweigh the good things. It doesn’t mean that the person is entirely bad; it just means they’re bad for you.

I recently got into a conversation with someone. This person was straight-up fundamentalist, zealous, religious. We got on the topic of where my life was and the subject of my relationship status came up. I told this person I was working on getting a divorce. This person asked me if I had been forced to marry and I told them no. I wasn’t forced, hardly anybody is ever forced to marry, these days, I’m not saying it doesn’t still happen; it’s just not as common as it used to be.

This zealot, told me to repent and pray to Jesus and that Jesus would restore my marriage. That’s nice and all, when it’s possible, because if you’re willing and the other person is willing, religion can help you restore a relationship, but how far down that path do you want to go? What if the other person never changes? What if you stay there praying and they keep on doing whatever it is they’re doing to you? Beating you? Insulting you? Bullying you? Brain-washing you? Raping you?

Seriously, when does it stop? When do you say, “I’ve had enough”?

Obviously, you want to say, “I’ve had enough,” before you end up dead.

There are simply situations where if you stay, you end up dead.

In my life, I was scared I was going to end up in that situation, maybe not at the hand of my husband, but maybe at my own hand because I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t beaten. I wasn’t raped, but I was trodden-down to a point where I simply couldn’t handle it anymore.

I cannot imagine being in a situation where I was being beaten.

Going back to the zealot, this person saw no difference in a simple argument with your spouse versus getting beaten. According to this person, you were supposed to pray to Jesus, even if your husband was bent over you beating the crap out of you, and Jesus would make it all better. This person also said that men didn’t beat their wives for no reason. Like there’s a justifiable reason for beating your wife?!

Quite frankly, I don’t care what your wife did. She cheated on you? She made you watch Dancing with the Stars? She burned your toast? She didn’t do exactly what you wanted when you wanted?

I don’t freaking care what your stupid reason is; it’s not justification for beating someone.

There are women who die, every single year, because their husbands beat them, bully them, and so forth; either the husband kills the wife, or she kills herself, instead of just leaving. Everyone tells her, “Oh, honey, you can’t leave him, you married him. God will be angry if you left. You’ll be eternally damned if you get divorced. Getting divorced and getting remarried is committing adultery.” This woman hears all of these things, and she stays because she’s afraid God is going to be angry with her if she gets divorced. Then, the woman ends up dead because she stayed too long.

Attitudes like that get women killed.

I told this person that very thing.

Let me tell you something else–God would rather you be alive and have a degree of happiness versus you being dead.

If I had to choose between being beaten every day of my life by a man who supposedly loved me and going to Hell because I divorced him, then give me some paint and ribbons because I’m going to Martha Stuart-up the hand-basket I’m going to Hell in.

It’s a good thing.