WAR: When Conflict Is Not Normal

Plot twist: WE ALL experience conflict!!!

Some with ourselves and some with others. We may have conflict with our CHILDREN, our SIBLINGS, our COWORKERS, our NEIGHBORS, our PARTNERS, ACQUAINTANCES, FRIENDS, FAMILY.  Even COMPLETE STRANGERS!

By definition, conflict is a ‘serious’ disagreement or argument; incompatibility.  This can be over beliefs, wishes, thoughts, needs, interests or ideas.

The state of WAR is conflict.

The state of decision making is conflict.

The state of being triggered is conflict.

When someone’s actions, methods, words, tones and behaviors upset you, there exists CONFLICT.

The PROBLEM with conflict is that it exists ONLY in ONE entity, until it is brought to the surface through some type of confrontation.

Confrontation is any argumentative or hostile meeting between two opposing entities. It is the STRATEGIZING of a BATTLE, sometimes in AMBUSH and against a completely unknowing or innocent party.

More often than not, we as humans mistake normal conflict with confrontation.

Have you ever witnessed a person absolutely LOSE THEIR SHIT over something another person did, a BLITZ of negative emotions, only to find out it WASN’T the other person who ‘did it’ or that the other group had no knowing or made a simple and non-terminal mistake?

This is the type of conflict I wish to highlight today.

Don’t get me wrong, when an individual KNOWINGLY, MALICIOUSLY and INTENTIONALLY BREAKS THE LAWS OF ENGAGEMEN, also know as the rules, I do bringing their caustic behavior to the surface is NECESSARY. However, the methods chosen must be thought through because the potential for collateral damage so common in battle is GREAT.

When one harshly confronts another, enforcing rules or laws that aren’t theirs to enforce or striking the gavel for punishment when no crime exists, we create a tsunami of negativity.

In most conflict, there are two appropriate  methods of dealing: communication, the best way to handle conflict, and silence.

Within communication, there are also two methods, one being aggressive, blaming and accusing while the other is genuinely the desire to DISCUSS that which is conflicted in pure interest of understanding:

Why it was conflicting for BOTH parties

The INTENTION of the act

How to fix it if necessary

The agreement to compromise (shake, kiss, hug, whatever it takes).

Unfortunately, this route of communication is often NOT taken upon first sign of conflict and even so, most of those who aggress a conflictual situation (ie…the self-righteous one) are often quick to judge, blame and extrapolate based on THEIR narrow perspective.

From here, you often see either a full out WAR (physical altercations, continuous screaming, slamming, aggression, hateful words, telling others to just shut up) or COMPLETE RETREAT!

When we retreat into silence, there are also two commons strems

of silence we tend to follow: time out type silence and stonewalling silence. Although silence MAY BE NECESSARY to regroup and calm down, it is more often used by the aggressor as a SUBCONSCIOUS means of punishment for the other party.  The latter form is called stonewalling.

Just as a full out war is not appropriate, emotional distance and silence is NOT THE BEST WAY TO RESOLVE conflict, which is achieved through CALM and KIND dialogue, not SHARP silence used to draw a line of ‘I am right, you are wrong and unless you agree with me, I’m walking out because I have nothing to say to you’ mindsets. In fact, the use of silence as a punitive measurement towards a person you are trying to MAKE/force to hear you is the second most destructive action towards all healthy interactions and relationships, the first one being criticism of another.

Aside from an agreement to hold silence between the parties, the use of silence leaves open the door of interpretation and unfortunately, the mind often looks towards the worst possible scenario. Not to mention, punitive silence, also known as stonewalling, facilitates and breeds further destructive behaviors such as resentment, lack of intimacy, fear of being ignored or cast out again, feelings of abandonment and emotional disconnect between the parties.

There exists such compelling evidence against silence and its negative impact and collateral damage, therefore it has been the target of major studies around the world!

“A meta-analysis conducted at the University of Texas that included the results of 74 studies involving 14,000 people, concluded that silence is usually very destructive in couple relationships and people interpret it as a lack of involvement of the other and an attempt to submit him emotionally”

“…a study conducted at the University of Leuven has found that silence does not help to eradicate or forget the problems, on the contrary, strengthens them. These psychologists have found that the best way to get rid of conflicts is to talk about them.”

“Stonewalling, according to the research of Gottman and others, as well as the experience of most couples’ counselors, is far more likely to be a male thing.”

Those who specialize in relationship growth, health and longevity agree that when the stonewalling method of silence is used to punish another party, a perception begins to take place that the stonewaller is becoming more and more emotionally distant, or disconnected from them. No matter how much they try to get the stonewalling party use healthy discussion as a means of conflict resolution, the efforts prove futile and they are left sleeping in isolation, walked out on, standing in silence time and time again. Sometimes, these bouts of silence last for several hours and sometimes, they last an entire day or even more!

Another issue with punitive silence is that those who suffer the silence feel increasingly frustrated by the lack of response and involvement of the other, so the relationship will become more and more tense and there will be more conflicts.

The one being stonewalled begins to feel confused, frustrated, and even guilty. It is also likely that they will feel alone and misunderstood. Obviously, these feelings do not contribute to improving relationships and resolve conflicts, on the contrary, create a wider gap.

To further understand STONEWALLING, one must look at some very common lead-ins present during a conversation with a stonewaller:

Just shut up

Get away from me

End of conversation

Go do whatever you want

I’m not listening to you anymore

These statements are very different than someone who is genuinely setting a boundary during a discussion where one party is yelling, over-talking and unyielding (refuses to listen, digging heels in, hard headed ways).

When a person is being yelled at by another party, the absolute BEST resolve is to speak firmly and say ‘I am not going to listen to you if you are screaming at me; if you want me to listen, stop yelling or I will leave the room’. If they don’t stop, walk away.

Men, or those with a lot of masculine energy, are significantly more likely to enact yelling, control and punitive silence when it comes to conflict.  They are also more likely to ambush when they are confronting. Men are often hedged by gender roles as being the ‘strong, silent man’ and this is frequently and erroneously perpetuated by others as MEN being MEN.  Enablers and the ignorant will blame one’s ‘heritage’ or bloodline, whatever excuse others will use to make it OK.

Men are also less likely to realise they are stonewalling!

 

Punitive stonewalling has two two main types: a defensive and an aggressive.

 “Aggressive vs. Defensive Stonewalls”

In aggressive stonewalling, the stonewaller knows that the silence, cold shoulder, and emotional isolation hurts his partner. He stonewalls to gain leverage or power. This is a common tactic in battering relationships, in which the more powerful partner systematically controls or dominates the less powerful one.

In defensive stonewalling, conflict seems overwhelming to the stonewallers. It seems that their only choice is to shut it out (stonewall) or crush it with aggression. So shutting it out seems the better of the two. Of course, treatment teaches them that there are other choices, such as emotion regulation, engagement, and connection”

In light of the REALITY that we all experience conflict regularly, and this is normal, I feel it important to understand for ALL humans that the only way to manage a conflict, whether inside our minds or with another person, is to speak with kindness of the tongue and a genuine desire to resolve it, known as compassion.

The closer the relationship experiencing the conflict, the greater the need of loving compassion immediately at the source of conflict.

Harsh, critical, accusing ambush style ‘gotcha’ methods are counter productive to healthy relationships. People make genuine and honest mistakes in their lives and do not deserve to be treated as if they have intentionally, maliciously or willfully brought forth conflict.

Even if we must walk away, whether permanently or temporarily, because the situation cannot be handled through appropriate communications or a healthy time-out, always remember:

“conflict that is resolved closest to its root is one more destructive weed pulled from our beautiful garden of relationships”

 

SECRETS: Why I DIDN’T REPORT

Why I didn’t report?

I was a child, barely able to pee unassisted, bathe without an inspection or even pour my own cereal and milk. Games like ‘candy land’ and ‘lightbright’ were my obsession. My dope ride was a ‘greenmachine’ tricycle. My profession was pretending to be a master chef serving up leaves and dirt to the neighborhood kids.

I was learning about the alphabet via inflatable animal models, the parachute in PE class, and still taking a nap after juice and cookies. I was about 4, or 5. I was small…

He had many jobs. An auto body repair guy. An oil rig worker who carried a metal lunchbox! I remember his lunchbox, for it haunted my toy box some years later. He was unemployed at one time. I think later in life, he became a nurse.

But at one point, he wore a brown police uniform and drove a police car. He had keys to the jail cell, and took me there to see the scary space where ‘bad people who don’t listen’ get locked up. He was there to serve and protect us, YOU, from harm. He was there to keep the ‘bad guys’ from hurting YOU and ME. You know, those horrible men who hurt their wives, those monsters who beat their children, those crazed drunks who cannot control their tempers and of course, the super bad people who sped through the city streets late at night!

To serve and protect. He wore his shield with honor.

He carried a gun. He drank beer. He had a recliner from where he watched football, sometimes falling asleep mid-game and sometimes, yelling in angry manly voice at a TV screen full of images of people hundreds of miles away who couldn’t hear him.

That always confused me because those people couldn’t hear him.

He was in charge! A man who ‘hung out with the ‘bros’. He could hunt and fish and he even did many things like ride motorcycles! He liked to light fireworks on the 4th of July and attend family gatherings. The family holidays were so fun and full of affection and gifts, food and laughter. He smiled big and bold, full of A hearty laugh. Everyone ‘loved’ him. He was such a family man!

He supported a Christian lifestyle,

attending services and raving about the message.

God and family first.

He liked to touch little girls. He liked to touch them in places that no one else ever touched, except when you wiped or someone washed you.

He liked to teach little girls. He liked to teach them how to do things to him…’it’s like licking a lollipop’, he would tell them. He liked to make a ‘mess’ in their mouth and on their faces.

He liked to make them ‘feel good’, he would say. This is what free and wild women talk about as being liberated, right? The big ‘O’??? He like to teach little girls how to be liberated, wild and free.

He liked to prepare little girls for life. He found such power in making sure the little girls under his control were ready for life through first hand experience and training. It taught them to withstand the burning sensation a fully erect grown man penis has entering a tiny girl’s vagina.

He liked to take little girls on field trips. He liked to participate in ‘being your child to work’ days. He worked alone and in isolation sometimes; in the country…in solitude. On these field trips, he would show you how to shoot birds and how great the span an owl’s wings could be! Although a little sad, the death of a creature, It was fascinating!!!!! I mean, 5 year olds LOVE nature and witnessing new things.

Especially the newness of the cold dirty hard metal floor of an oil rig and the pressure of a 250 pound man, who was everything he was suppose to be, drilling into the most sacred of lands.

He liked to reward little girls for their ‘good’ behavior. Compliance reaped the greatest opportunities for the STAR CHART placement! Mostly, cash rewards and ice cream, candy and soda! Being a good girl created opportunities to be able to walk to the store by yourself with $5 and buy lots of .10 candy and even an ice cream bar before dinner. Conversely, non-compliance meant being grounded or punishment like any good father would do.

Punishments and rewards.

I tried to tell. I had no words! No one really listened to my fears and pleas. At one point, I did tell, but it only made life worse, stopping the behavior temporarily. He was more more angry.

I remember how bad my tummy hurt knowing I was going to be left alone again with him. I couldn’t stand it anymore! He wasn’t working, so he was always home and I had no escape.

I would walk really slow from the bus stop…the walk of shame and fear. I wished so badly that my mom didn’t have to work!!! He never touched me when she was around. He was actually mean to me, like a daddy doing daddy things like watching TV felt towards his irritating children. But in her absence….he would seek me out instantly. Almost craving me as if I were the vodka to the drunk or the cookies to the overeater!

Sometimes I would hide behind the garage. He would call my name from the front porch to come inside….I would hide until his words turned to threats of busting my ass with the belt. I knew he would make due on his promise and I would be in sooo much trouble with mom too, for he would punish me out of anger.

I’ve never known another person who could rip his belt from the loops of his jeans in less than a second! Such speed and precision. And of course, his lashes left deep purple welts on my tiny pale legs. I was instructed not to wear shorts. I guess the welts were too ugly to be seen in public.

I still hate shorts today!

I would walk the walk of shame. So slow. Like a beetle crawling through honey. Consumed by FEAR and that horrible feeling of laying on the bathroom floor, both doors locked, my head banging repeatedly into the sink’s base….wishing it would just be over; the laying in my bed pretending to be asleep when he would slither under the sheets next to me and touch me…a touch that felt so ugly and painful.

But no more! It was ‘moms night out’ and I ‘tattled’ on him ruining her evening, I’m sure.

There was lots of screaming, cussing and yelling and even calling me names. There was arm grabbing, launching me to the stage to reveal again and again details

and really angry raging faces…looking at ME. I was just ‘trying to get attention’, he said.

I was put on stage to repeat to my attacker my own vulnerability that I had just revealed.

Then came the feeling of being a bad girl. I had broken up a perfect family because of my ‘selfish’ attention-getting lies….at least that was what neveryone around me made me feel. I mean, NO ONE spoke of ‘IT’. No one told me it was going to be OK. There were no words of protection, of anger towards the predator. No one took me to a professional to help me work through it.

It’s over. It’s done. It’s in the PAST. There’s no need to bring ‘further’ harm to him or the family! I mean, what kind of family wants this SHAME looming over them?

FOREVER SILENCED….but children grow.

I did have my first visit to the gynecologist in 4th grade…A COLD rigid OLDER MAN who wore a white lab coat! I guess I was a ‘woman’ now and this is what ALL women do. The ‘women’s’ doctor. Women are condemned to suffering because of a fruit faux-pas, as the fantastical stories in the only book of rules tells us, right?

I remember the day….I was still in gymnastics, wearing my ‘team uniform’ to school. I felt so powerful when I wore my gymnastics uniform to school, which I didn’t get to do often. I wasn’t very good in gymnastics and we didn’t have the money or the ‘time’ to let me compete. I was TOO big, they said. But still… Burgundy with pink piping down the side. I loved gymnastics. I got to stay late and I was safe from his big hard fingers and slimy body part that left my high waisted white with pale blue flower panties slightly bloody…it looked like blood but not as dark. It was always in my panties after he taught me how to be a woman…three sometimes four days a week.

I was scared, being pulled from school early, in my uniform.

The doctor’s office was scary and I had to take off my uniform and lay on my back. Naked on crinkly paper. ‘Don’t say anything unless he asks you questions’. I felt alone, but I mean, it wasn’t unfamiliar.

He stuck his hard cold slimy fingers inside of my vagina and dug around. What was he looking for? Would there be a big black object of reveal? Like discovering gold?

I think I was 10, maybe about to turn 11…maybe 9 about to turn 10 years old. I don’t remember my age, but I remember the way it made me feel having an older white man with cold fingers looking at my naked body.

Get dressed and sit outside. No one asked me any questions. That’s what I did. Done. Nothing further. I guess the physician obtained the information he needed to obtain.

I was now officially a grown up! A woman!

From that point forward, my life changed. I knew this as the norm. What exactly was childhood innocence? I never knew. I simply understood that father’s left, that men were allowed to take what they wanted and that my NO would mean potential punishment.

When my friend’s daddy turned around in the car and rubbed my 13 year-old thigh, gently grazing his fingertips against the area where my pant zipper met my vagina only moments after she ran into the grocery store to get grab milk and bread.

And the old man who loved to dance REALLY close to me when I would go dancing with my family. He would squeeze me extra close to his pelvis with hard fingers and I could feel his hard cock against my body. But he was a ‘harmless’ old man who loved to dance so be nice. That’s just who he was. He would call me ‘grown up’ and comment on my ‘grown up’ body at 14. Be NICE.

When my troubled teen years were penetrated adult men. Age didn’t matter to them…some were in their late 20s, some in their 40s. They all seemed to find me appealing in some sexual way! I mean, at 14 and 15, I was a sex goddess and these grown men, educated men, professional men, married men…they were just showing me love, right? Saying NO might make them angry.

This is what happens to children, little girls, young ladies and grown women when they are being shown LOVE, RIGHT?

Because MEN are from MARS?

Because they are JUST DOING WHAT MEN DO?

Because men can take what they want, so ‘females’ should endure it because it’s ‘inevitable’?

Because no one ever told me otherwise. No one spoke about MY RIGHTS to MY BODY. No one spoke to me of respect, or what it means to respect a woman. No one taught me what was not appropriate treatment and touching of a female and WHEN NO meant NO…which I discovered in my late 30s WAS ALWAYS!

The 28 year old construction worker didn’t hear my NO. He gave me cigarettes. Pal Mal filterless. Oh and a few beers. I couldn’t understand why we had to sneak off into the woods so far in…where no one could see or hear.

The 65 year old veteran…he was so grandpa like! But I was 21 then and definitely it was my fault, I mean choice because my attempts to leave were not being very NICE. My NO was weak, which meant please proceed. He was a grandpa. A war veteran. Treating him badly would have been looked down upon highly by the ‘lady-like police’.

The married and rather handsome 30-something Air Force recruiter who tried to lure me into his private office after hours…I felt so weird inside, but I wouldn’t go back there with him. My 17-year old intuition dominated and I stayed at the front door and waited patiently. After the investigation into countless other high school female recruits from Denton, TX and the surrounding areas being sexually assaulted by him, I realized I was lucky. Nothing further.

The married with children 40-something pot-faced, super skinny ugly military tech school instructor who would physically pin me up against the wall in the loud machine room and speak of all the sexual things he wanted to do to me….his face so close to mine, I could smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breath as his lips barely touched min. He graded my work and held the key to me being a failure in the military, in tech school…the key to my future! He reminded me frequently how a GOOD military member and student would behave. He never physically touched my breasts, my butt or my vagina, but the FEELINg was the SAME. FEAR. NO meant YES. Rewards and punishments.

The Chief Master Sergeant who liked to hang out at the NCO Club and befriend the really young, underage girls who were there just to dance. I didn’t know old men did this, hang out at clubs with the guys to ogle, rank and aggress the young girls. Of course, he would take them to his house with a pool and hot tub. He even had a jerky making smoke house! I never knew people could make jerky in a house! His house was so different than the dorm rooms! He had LOTS of alcohol, brands and bottles I had never seen and you wouldn’t get into trouble for underage drinking….and NO apparently meant YES, just try harder and give them more alcohol until you hear YES.

The supervisor who found humor in reminding me that a female’s role is ‘under the table sucking his cock’ and to be a ‘good’ subordinate deserving of high rankings on performance reports, this might be expected. He always gave me lower marks…I guess I didn’t believe in his definition of duty performance.

The married, wealthy and ‘powerful’ predator sociopathic instructor who used one’s own goals, vulnerabilities and fears as a cage to obtain extreme sexual favors and rewards. How else would a married woman allow herself to be chained to a trampoline naked, a teenage girl be his ‘special’ student hedged just to take it up the ass, a grown woman walk around the streets of Vegas wearing a dog leash SHE made because he told her to? I mean, student of the YEAR and a special badge?

Distinguished and the fastest most recognized student ever?

The CONSTANT promise of advancement, a business, making money, opportunities etc.

Rewards and punishments.

I tried to tell my husband BEFORE this happened, for I felt in my gut the same feeling I had 30 years prior. He dismissed it. He was too focused on his own voyerism and alcoholism that my fears were numb to him. And when I spoke out? I was ostracized, blamed, ridiculed, ignored and forgotten.

Let’s not forget the multiple exposure to high-end football coaches and administrative staff who would look at these freshmen through senior high school girls in their sexy dresses and rank them on a scale of 1-10 as fuckable! An entire culture right there!!! And when confronted?

They were ‘harmless’ men being men!

Watching YOUR husbands going to the gym, to fitness competitions and to bars alone, to ogle, flirt with and look for open doors and opportunities from the young women trying to survive. Watching someone close to me seduce and sneak off with her ‘friend’s’ husband, having built trust with HER to gain access to HIM! I said NOTHING! I saw this insanity and ‘normalcy’ all around me! Enabling. Predatory. Ignoring. Seducing. Taking.

I started looking around the room and watching women ENABLE their drunken sleazy man’s behavior. I watched women being accosted by OLD MEN in bars…the most abhorrent of experiences in my own life….those men were really predators using your JOB against you.

You want a tip? Be extra nice.

Extra Nice = income? I don’t recall that equation in any lesson I learned from my mentors in life!

SOOO….Why WOULD a woman want to REPORT?

These predators are not ‘weirdos’ lurking in dark places looking to reach out and grab you! They aren’t different. In fact, there are MANY of them blended in with the the humans of society.

They are uncles, fathers, husbands, grandfathers. They are customers. They are patients. They are handsome, clean and friendly. They are even charming. They are grown up men with powerful positions, steady incomes and great families. They are politicians, attorneys, professors and CEOs.

They are perfectly situated in society to deflect any possibility of exposure, albeit immediately following a report or 35 fucking years later.

Why didn’t I report?

Fear of LOSS….of my life, my freedom, my own safety, my being accepted, my reputation, my divinity. Fear of retaliation from family, friends, the UCMJ and anyone who enables the behavior of a loved one.

The realization that no one fully believes you when you do report it because ‘HE’ is such a good, powerful, Christian, community giving, married man who doesn’t deserve to have his career, family and life ruined because of his pattern of JUST BEING A GUY!

I’ve grown so much since my experiences beginning nearly five decades ago. I no longer hurt or have anger. I realized that these predators are broken. That men are not from MARS and women, from VENUS except in their communication style and emotional display based on masculine and feminine energy.

I hope women everywhere are able to tell their story without tears or hate in their hearts. I hope we as a circle, a tribe of women, heal one another and are

fully present when a woman comes forward to REPORT these violations.

The ENABLERS are the reason I didn’t report. Stop the enabling! Stop domesticated acceptance of ‘male’ behavior. Stop looking to BLAME a VICTIM because of her clothing, her tattoo placement or her job. Stop putting the rights and the value of the ATTACKER as priority.

#whyididntreport

Just Being a GUY: Enabling Rape Culture

Yesterday, I attended a popular fitness competition with hundreds of men and women walking around in what is more akin to beach attire. As with any popular group activity, there is a unique and acceptable amount of ‘trendom’ associated amongst the group.

Athletes with a purpose!

Somehow, in the company of my own husband, I didn’t feel weird, awkward or even less than. I never felt as if he struggled to NOT ogle or objectify the women. He kept me safe and I felt as though I was his queen. It’s that inherent trust he has helped me build.

Honestly, I was so focused on MY own purpose and my athletes that I didn’t find any time to take notice of the skin buffet.

While here, my beloved ran into a couple of men associated with his past. One, a ‘coach’ himself whom my husband speaks of with marginal respect and the other, a married man he use to call his friend, but as he watches this ‘friend’s behavior and the way he disrespects his own wife through his flirting, lewd sexual behavior and opening proverbial sexual doors with other women, he no longer considers him anything more than a mysoginistic man lacking in integrity, degrading and disrespectful of women.

This friend is simply another male who perpetuates RAPE CULTURE http://www.wavaw.ca/what-is-rape-culture/ in our society. He is the same guy hugging your daughters, wives and female friends, thinking and even speaking loudly how much he’d like to ‘bend them over’, while his words, posts and public face all say otherwise.

I’ve held relationships with many men, from romantic to platonic, and there is a certain low and sickening vibrational frequency that is associated with these individuals.

Conversations and stories with my own husband have brought to light the TRUTH that MOST males, up to a staggering 99%, are now wired defectively to treat women with disrespect, abuse, infidelity and as merely objects. My husband has been ‘labeled’ by his male peers as THAT GUY WHO RUINS IT FOR THEM, when actuality, he reminds us that not ALL men are cut from this tainted cloth.

I digress….

The next morning, my beloved shared with me a disturbing interaction occurring with these two ‘men’ that deeply upset him and led him to a concrete statement regarding them:

‘I AM FUCKING DONE’

Over the past three years, my husband has privately expressed intense disdain for his ‘friend’s’ overt flirtatious and mysoginistic behavior towards teenage and YOUNG women, but also towards women in general. Shaming overweight women through the sending of pictures, commenting sexually about women’s body parts, making lewd comments about sex and twisting most interactions into something sexual. In fact, each time this individual’s name comes up in our life, it has something to do with his overt and sneaky ways of trying to get in a young girls pants and yet, it is dismissed as him ‘just being a guy’.

Last week, we visited a local restaurant where a waitress directly approached my husband and acted like she had some past connection to him. She was talking to him, asking about his ‘brother’ who always use to come see her when they would eat out. He said to her ‘oh, you mean my friend’, stated that he doesn’t hang out with him anymore and explained to me that when he and his ‘friend’ use to meet for Mexican food, this was a waitress the friend would try to sleep with. It had been 4-5 years, but she remembered my husband’s friend very well and lit up in an uncomfortable sort of way.

There were so many experiences mine this:

Another story of him flirting and making lewd comments with a waitress at a local sports bar while ‘hanging with the guys’…I happened to be there and it made me uncomfortable for both the way HE talked about and to the waitress and his own wife.

Another story of this individual talking of sexually explicit behaviors with a group of men my husband use to hang around about the young girls working out and my husband stepping in the middle calling them out. Of course, this upset the group for ruining their ‘male’ fun.

Another story of this same guy trying to CONVINCE my husband to sleep with a young girl at a bar (even saying ‘your wife will never know) because there was a disagreement in his marriage.

Another story of this same guy suggesting to other men where to go to chase ‘tail’ and find a ‘piece of ass’ and showing the way!

I ponder every time, how does one tolerate this behavior? How do they allow it or dismiss it? His answer was always an excuse out of obligation.

Over and over, story after story, when it comes to being a mysoginistic pig, womanizer and cheat, this friend’s name surfaces. But this time, my husband had enough. Enough to be DONE with this guy.

As my beloved told me the story of how his friend had pulled him aside, away from me, at the competition…where my husband was there to support his WIFE/PARTNER/COACH, his GYM, and his ATHLETES, and attempted to engage him in a sexual discussion about all the ‘hot ass’ running wild, my husband just looked at him and said

‘I don’t know what you are talking about’

His friend tried again to engage my husband in a ‘Tits n Ass’ conversation about the hot sexy babes in bun huggers and sports bras and what he wanted to do with them, but he refused to engage him.

This ‘friend’ had twisted a very real competitive environment into some pornographic buffet for his sexual pleasure, and was so sexually stimulated that he couldn’t contain his excitement. The same guy hugging your daughter or your wife at the gym!

My beloved didn’t engage. He disengaged. He felt this behavior was enough to draw a line in the sand. My beloved witnessed the true core of this individual, although he knew it was in there all along. My husband had always given hope to this person simply being misguided, but on this day, he realized this person is indeed a predator.

My responses to my husband’s reveal were many. I couldn’t believe (wait….yes I could) that this individual continued his attempts to drag my husband into cheating conversations.

I felt sadness, anger and a need to save all of womankind!

1. Emotion was my first reaction. My eyes instantly filled with tears as my heart shattered for all women who were wives, partners or in romantic relationships! It felt like a punch to the gut. The fact this man treated his own wife so badly (did she even know?) and that ALL of the signs were there screaming to her that he was a cheat and was looking for an opportunity to sleep with a young girl! We all saw it. Alas, she is rarely with him so she does not see. I hurt for the safety of the competitors and for the girls at my own gym, knowing I had vowed to give them a safe space free of ‘this’ kind of predator.

2. Anger followed! I did not want this individual in my space ever again! I was tired of us spending so much negative energy on entertaining, even allowing his behaviors. We were enabling a follower of RAPE CULTURE! We were allowing his disrespect of ALL women by ignoring his abusive behavior as ‘just being a guy’. BULLSHIT! He’s a fucking predator! Women deserve to be seen, NOT as objects of sex or shame, but fully intellectual humans with a RIGHT to fucking not be cat-called, ogled, displayed or ridiculed/enjoyed for the size of their body parts.

I am SICK of this FUCKING society, including family, friends, and acquaintances dismissing RAPE CULTURE behavior, chronic flirting, infidelity and the overall disrespect and objectification of ALL women! Women are the KEY PORTAL for every human to enter this life! They are the wisdom keepers and the intuitive counsel for all things.

3. I am ready to set my boundaries!!!! I expressed to my beloved that we are the company we keep and although he may indeed feel some bizarre ‘obligation’, I do not want this sleaze in MY space or in the space of the women we hold space to protect from men like this! I could not give ultimatums, but I did say if this Individual walked into my space ever again, it would be KNOWN to ALL, and WHY, what kind of mysoginistic abusive PIG he is.

4. Absolute gratitude! Then it totally washed over me that time and time again, my husband has shown me what a real man acts like and that he isn’t cut from the same cloth as 90% of the creepy males! My husband HAS integrity! My husband is a man I CAN trust! I felt so honored to be able to have one of the 1% in my own present. To me, this was more valuable than anything else.

It means more to me as a woman to have a husband I can fully trust and who is honest with me than having a husband that looks a certain way when we go out, drives a nice car, is respected in societal groups, etc.

I too am DONE!

Although I want to confront him, to tell his wife the truth…but alas, I am unable to do so for it is not my problem. It is theirs. I can only control my actions to be the best loving wife I can to my husband. I can only hold gratitude for the growth experienced with my own marital relationship, in spite of its own bumps….never with trust. I can continue to praise my beloved for being that 1% and continue to protect the space we designed and constructed for SAFETY from this type of predator. The space designed to eradicate those who engage in behaviors attune to RAPE CULTURE!

How does one STAND and fight for political righteousness, moral and ethical values, expectations towards the family and church, definitions of a union, who should be allowed to ‘carry’ and yet, be a living example of the most destructive behavior to the very core of what sets all of the other beliefs in motion?

I stand for women, wives, the feminine!

I hold sacred OUR entire being and will cut ties with those who feel a need to comment on the PARTS of a woman with a low frequency connection! A woman is not an object and deserves the same respect as a powerful queen, Jesus the healer and your very own daughter!

Stop enabling RAPE CULTURE by perpetuating the ‘he’s just a male’ behaviors.

Step up! Speak up! Leave! Whatever it takes to shut this shit down.

Otherwise, you too are harboring the next potential RAPE.