 Ever found yourself in a difficult relationship where leaving is as painful as staying? Those times when you feel you would rather be dead than be alive to witness the shame and stigma of being addressed as a divorcee? Those times when you find yourself in a relationship ‘just for the sake of the children’?
How many times have we found ourselves in unfruitful and unproductive relationships? Indeed how many times have we not only made a horse go to the river but also tried to force it to drink water? How many times have we tried to resurrect a dead relationship and make it work? Finally, how many times do we sit, lie down, stand up and brood over bygones and what might have been? I know that often times when we are trying to forget a painful past or hurtful experience, something might happen which then triggers off a sad reminder of the very event we are trying to forget, it is at this time more than any other that we need to summon all our will power and of course seek the face of the Almighty God to see us through. I was summoned by a friend recently who has been having some trouble with her husband over threats by the husband to take a second wife because nowadays, ‘he does not get appropriate respect from his wife’. Sleeping outside the family home by the man and even corrective beatings of the wife have become regular events. While I have no qualifications as a Counselor or a Psychologist, I could not help wondering if there was any point for this woman to hang around such a man in the name of been married and for the ‘sake of the kids’ as she put it. How useful would she be to the children if the regular punches sent her to an early grave? The man in question does not hesitate to deal his wife some heavy blows even in presence of the kids (for whose sake she is still in the relationship) if she dares ‘speak to him anyhow’. Now are these kids really better off as witnesses to the incessant name calling while reducing their mum to the equivalent of a punching bag? Where exactly should one draw the line? What is the guarantee that these kids who will ultimately become adults themselves will not replicate what they witness as kids? Daddy calls mummy names and punches her and vice versa, this because a norm. Now don’t get me wrong, men are also victims of domestic violence although the percentage is greater with the fairer sex. My point is, if you are stuck in past rot (male or female), I mean caught up in a relationship that is neither here nor there, one that has become more of a liability than life enriching, I think it is time to let go and move on. If you are holding on to something that does not belong to you and was never intended for you, then you need to ...LET IT GO!!! If you are holding on to past hurts, disappointments and pain, believe me, you need to let go. I speak not from my head but from experience. I have been there many times. If someone does not treat you right, return your love or appreciate you, and does not see your worth... LET HIM/HER GO!!! If someone has angered you so badly and you are holding on to some evil thoughts and revenge ....LET IT GO!!! Tina Turner once said ‘don’t get even, get out’. There comes a time in our individual and collective family lives when ‘Letting Go’ becomes the only option, even though we may fail to see it, just like when we refuse to let go of a hopeless relationship even when it has become a burden and has stopped adding substance to the quality of our lives. We must accept responsibility for our own actions. In many traditional set ups in Nigeria, if a man beats his wife and she reports him to the extended family, the first question she is asked is ‘what you do to warrant the beating’. Give me a break! In the words of our own Mrs Betty Irabor, “We very often hold on to ‘friendships’ that do anything but esteem us, and cling on to affairs that should long have been discarded – all because we’re afraid of the vacuum their loss might create. We must also learn to let go of lingering grudges and past wounds if we are to be free from their vice. Letting Go takes courage, and perhaps divine intervention, but at the end of the day, it is in Letting Go that we actually ‘keep’ our dearly beloved ones – believing God that we raised them well enough to always remember everything we’ve ever taught them”. How true! And then from Bishop T. D. Jakes, “There are people who can walk away from you. And hear me when I tell you this! When people can walk away from you: let them walk. I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you. I mean hang up the phone. When people can walk away from you let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. People leave you because they are not joined to you. And if they are not joined to you, you can't make them stay. Let them go”. The words of our elders are words of wisdom. The wise man hears and gets wiser.
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