Love is not the end all be all that it is made out to be. It is supposed to be this ideal and perfect enveloping emotion that solves everything....um, no. It's not like I can speak for all us on what love is, but I can tell you for certain what it is made up of according to me.
Love means doing what we need to for those we care about. This is often an unpleasant and draining task. There is no joy in watching someone else suffer. Anyone who does cannot claim love. There are far too many times that one finds folly in someone else's falter. This isn't to say that we should pick others up when they make a mistake, but it damn sure doesn't mean you laugh when they fall, or worse...kick them while they are down. This brings me to the stream of conscious thinking that I unbearably write with. It brings me to "tough love". That is the act of letting someone learn from their mistake instead of fixing it for them. Intervening is easy for most of us, after all, we are terribly nosy creatures. It is much harder to sit back and let them have claim to the lesson learned.
Barring spilling my entire personal life on the interwebz, I will provide some detail to inspiration for tonight's entry - tonight I got confirmation that something I feared has come to be. My ex walked a trecherous path that seemed pretty alluring - fast and easy money. That fast and easy money spent just as quickly as it came, now he is damn near destitute and in financial trouble in a big way. Two of my children live with the MC and me full time. This was at the request of my ex (he has a particular fondness of the youngest and an obvious showing of favoritism). We are now looking at her joining us relatively soon as well because of his financial faux paus. There was something in his voice tonight that frightened me for him and for my children, desperation. He is prideful and wants to pass the illusion that he is doing not only fine, but well. For him to ask us for help was scary. Enter tough love. We will take my youngest and give her the same love and opportunity that we have given the others. What we won't do is financially bail him out. He is going to have to learn his lesson to be a better man for himself and most of all for his children.
On to the second part of the post: a term I have coined as "Karmic Whipping Boy". This to me means that you pay penance for someone else to learn the lesson from them and for them. There is nothing like watching someone else suffer for what you have done to cut as deep as possible. For quite some time, I have been a Karmic Whipping Boy. Others do damage and I pay the price, almost akin to a martyr, but not self-inflicted. It comes down to a problem that I have with choosing people in my life that are still selfish and immature in their emotional and spiritual development. I like to be the catalyst for development and growth, so being the teacher means that you learn the lesson with the student. I can handle it, that is why i have this role. My spiritual fortitude is enough to carry me through it. Now it is a matter of
making sure that my children do not fall into the same situation. The goal is to make them prepared enough to be self-assured and thoughtful.
The tie-in...at this time, my children are the KWB for my ex. He is worried about their suffering for his lousy decisions (not to say that he isn't worried about his own). Back to tough love, we are going to take care of them and shelter them from as much of this as possible. He is not going to get the awful benefit of a KWB to learn his lessons. It is time to take the lashes for his own behavior. For all the lies he told about me, he is being questioned and judged. He made me out to seem unfit, so how could he ask me to care for them. He made me out to be a party-hardy fool that lived fast and free. It isn't me who is seen in the bars regulary, I am too busy going to sleep at a decent hour and caring for my household. He claimed I was out blowing my money and not taking care of my children, but it wasn't me shucking out thousands of dollars on booze and tattoos. It took some time, but the truth is finally coming out. That whip swings both directions and it is lashing back. I don't want him to suffer unduly, I don't take relief or joy in his suffering. I want the same thing that anybody who loves their children wants - two stable and loving parents doing their best to raise their children. Hopefully he stops cracking the karmic whip soon and starts his healing.
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