1:) You and your significant other (SO) are out walking with your children, one of whom is under age five, and your SO and youngest child have long since grown tired of walking and want to head back to your car. You want to continue on to your destination and then go back to the car.
Do you: A:) Get into an argument and stomp off with your two older children leaving your SO and younger child to fend for themselves all alone? Especially when you know for a fact that your SO has no idea where she is and has no sense of direction?
B:) Agree that heading back, getting your youngest and spouse safely back to your car is more important so that they are safe, secure and protected? Then maybe if your SO and child is up to it drive to your destination?
2:) You have, for whatever reasons, "concerns" about your SO communicating with a friend.
Do you: A:) Sit down with your SO and have an adult conversation where you attempt to work things out and end up closer through understanding?
B:) Take a systematic and obsessive approach to monitoring all your SO's mail, email, text and phone activities?
3:) You and your SO have a scheduling conflict, your SO needs to get to work to continue earning a living so that you, your SO, and children can all continue to live. You SO has also made plans for her lunch hour that require a car. Your SO owns a own car, you do not. A friend offers to drive whomever needs it to where ever they need to go on the day in question.
Do you: A:) Graciously accept the friends assistance and make arrangements to get everyone where they need to go safely?
B:) Do you insist that your SO take the day off from work, cancel the lunch plans they had with another friend, and take your SOs car to where you want or need to go?
4:) You and your SO are at lunch in a public place. You have a disagreement over something.
Do you: A:) Agree to table the question for the moment and wait until you get home?
B:) Do you make a public spectacle of yourself, argue with your SO, stomp off, pouting, looking pissed, and refuse to communicate with your SO or anyone else until you get your own way?
5:) Your SO expresses some concerns about you having control over ever second of her life and smothering her and wants a bit of healthy space.
Do you: A:) Break down in hysterics, cry and justify what you are doing and guilt your SO into shutting up and letting the abuse continue because you know exactly which of her buttons to push.
B:) Do you talk about it like adults, and find a healthier balance?
6:) A mutual friend expresses concerns that someone they know may be engaging in unhealthy, unsafe and quite possibly abusive and even criminal behaviour. Your friend makes a general comment in a public forum that she is concerned about two friends of hers maybe in an abusive relationship, without saying anything of detail to anyone. You suspect she might mean you.
Do you: A:) Leave it be, and wait to see what's going on.
B:) Demand accountability from your friend and harass and abuse her mercilessly until she says something?
7:) Your friend, after being abused into saying something before she is ready has said something you disagree with, you then send her an email giving excuses for why you are doing the things you do. In it you admit to breaking the law and abusing your spouse. You have long ago decided it's justifiable to abuse and harass someone until they see your point of view as being acceptable because, they are after all wrong. She calls you on it.
Do you: A:) Step up the abuse and violence on all fronts until you get what you want? Un-friend her, continue to talk complete trash about her, taking things out of context in a very public pogrom of violence and disinformation making her look like a being of pure evil? Do you privately FORBID your SO to talk to her?
B:) Acknowledge there may be problems and try to work on them?
The way I was raised, the way I feel, have always felt, is nothing is more important than the safety and happiness of my family. NOTHING. My spouse, my children, their needs are my needs, their safety and happiness is mine. I treat, or try to treat, all my friends with a level of respect and courtesy I wish to be afforded. I treasure my friends and when one of them is unhappy, I too am unhappy and do whatever I can to be supportive. When I disagree with someone who then becomes abusive, the most I'll do is establish a healthier set of boundaries. Occasionally in the process of setting these boundaries while being forced, through abuse, to see the light, I'll allow passion to loosen my tongue enough to say something long enough to get someone to leave me alone. But I won't then go on the warpath in public attempting to smear and discredit my friend as an unstable, medal some, harlot out for her own evil purposes. I will not slander my friend all while painting myself as a rosy, perfect child of innocence and love, much maligned by evil. I certainly will not start talking about a religion of love, and tolerance that stresses treating others with respect, kindness and grace all while ranting about someone else's unsubstantiated evil. I will not willingly, let alone intentionally cause others pain and suffering through constant ranting in a public forum while claiming to be part of a religion that eschews allowing others to suffer, directly or indirectly because of my actions. I certainly won't assign someone a fictional label and then continue using her as an excuse for everything that goes wrong in my life. I will state that under the US Telecommunications Privacy Act, wiretaping, or otherwise invading someone else's electronic privacy is in fact a Federal Crime regardless of why one does it. I will also state that under Federal Law, tempering with someone else's mail is also a Federal Crime regardless of who it is, or why it's done.
*Disclaimer: This post is not meant to resemble anyone real or otherwise in any way, any possible resemblance to anyone living is entirely coincidental. Should someone take offense, or find resemblance I have but to ask one further question. Guilty conscience much? No names or fictitious labels have been used in the creation of this document to protect the innocent and will neither confirm, nor deny, any resemblance of events within to real events or people.
