LACK OF SLEEP

     If you go day after day, week after week, not getting enough sleep, the toll it will take on you can be greater than you realize. Lack of sleep can clog up your ability to think clearly, and can make you feel more raw and sensitive emotionally. The effects tend to be cumulative, so that the longer you've been having trouble getting enough rest, the greater the impact on your life may be. Some people report starting to have depression, hopelessness, or even a sense that they are losing their minds. You can start to just plain feel shaky, physically and mentally.

            So if you feel as though you're falling apart, one possibility is that you just need to sleep.

            Being involved in a destructive relationship can make sleep hard to come by. The stress and emotional pain of being mistreated can keep you awake. Your worries about what your partner will do next can do the same. Maybe sometimes  -- or often  --  he doesn't let you sleep, either to punish you about something he's angry about or as a way to force you to have sex with him. When a man causes sleep deprivation in his partner, he is actually committing one of the more serious forms of physical abuse -- yes, sleep deprivation is a form of physical abuse  --  but the depth of damage he can do in these ways is often not recognized. 

            If you have young children, that adds a lot of additional challenges to getting sleep, especially if your partner isn't carrying his weight about sharing the times of getting out of bed to attend to a child in need.

            Keep some notes about how much sleep you get, and track your rest patterns over a period of weeks. Putting down on paper what is going on can help you to assess whether lack of sleep is actually one of the major contributors to emotional and physical struggles you are having.

(This post is based on an entry from Lundy's forthcoming book "Daily Wisdom for Why Does He Do That?: Encouragement for Women Involved with Angry and Controlling Men", which will be released by Berkley Books (Penguin) on April 7, 2015.)

You Are Their Mother

The title of today’s second post may seem odd to you. If you have children, you’re probably thinking, “Of course I’m their mother. What’s up with that?”

In the rush of daily responsibilities and challenges—especially when you are in a relationship with someone whose behavior is a huge problem some days—it’s possible to forget just how important you are to your children.

Biology is not the issue here; in fact, some of you are raising children you didn’t give birth to. Motherhood is about so much more than giving birth or breastfeeding, as powerful and profound as those are. As your children’s mother, you are their protector, their moral compass and teacher, their key source of love and affection and nurturing, their refuge, their source of faith.

You might ask, “Isn’t their father supposed to be these things too?” Yes, although even the best father can’t be exactly what a mother is. But if your partner is struggling with addiction, is deeply selfish, or is abusive to you, he can’t even begin to be what the children need him to be. So your role as a mother grows even bigger.

The bitter irony here is that many destructive men attack a woman’s sense of her value as a mother. Your partner may say that he knows better than you do what the right way is to raise children, . He may even try to convince you that there is something toxic about you that your children are in danger of catching, and use that as an excuse to take away your parenting decisions and rights.

So when you say to yourself, “I am the children’s mother,” you are making a profound statement that is not about being their biological or legal parent. You are stating how absolutely critical your role is in who they are and who they will become, and how inalienable your right is to guide them and love them. Your children are looking to you.

(This post is based on an entry from Lundy's forthcoming book "Daily Wisdom for Why Does He Do That?: Encouragement for Women Involved with Angry and Controlling Men", which will be released by Berkley Books (Penguin) on April 7, 2015.)