What A Home Should, MUST Be

What a Home should, MUST be.

I want to start this off by making a few points about what this is and is not. These are my feelings on what is necessary to have a thriving and happy Home. I had to arrange them into individual topics just to keep me from rambling too much. In an effort to not cover the same ground over and over I should let you know what the topics will be (as of now).

A Home must be free from violence.
A Home must support you.
A Home must respect you.
A Home must give you the right to be the person you are, not what someone expects you to be.
A Home must respect your children
A Home must protect your children.
A Home must allow your children the right to speak up if a parent or sibling is abusing them.
In a Home you have the right to leave if you or your children are threatened with or subjected to violence.

The topics aren’t the result of hours of research at a university or hospital. Some of them will overlap because in the end you can’t put a Home into little boxes. The topics I picked and the things I have to say about them come from life. I have suffered through more than one divorce and when I talk about where the mind goes on the cold, dark, night; it’s my own journey down that road that I refer to. That journey has determined what I have to say. I am no Oprah or Dr. Phil. However, if anything I write here, gives you comfort, helps you on your own journey, helps you through that night, helps you to thrive, then it was worth dragging up those old memories ten times over.

With that in mind, here we go, topic number one (for good reason).

1. A Home must be free from violence.

A Home is a place of refuge. It is where you go when the world bears down on you. There is where you must feel safe.

A person who violates the sanctity of the Home is the lowest form of life. When a person comes home, looking for, hoping for, the welcoming kiss or hug but instead finds the slap, the hit, the slam against the wall, the damage is devastating!

There are no words that can describe the hurt, the disbelief, the shock, THE BETRAYAL which assaults ones mind the first time violence appears in a Home. The attack on ones psyche when Love turns to fear under the hand of violence will always be remembered. In the dark, cold night, the tears will burn, the heart will break, and nothing will ever be the same.

When a couple establishes a Home, that is, when they decide to share lives, hopes, dreams, and futures, they are making a commitment to each other. It is not a one-way relationship where one person exercises total dominion over the other. A more direct way of stating that is, in the Home no person is entitled to force the other person into a specific behavior. Any expectations of what a person is to do or not do should be decided and discussed before the commitment to a life together is made.

Of course people change. If the relationship is expected to last for years, it will happen. When this does occur, if one of the partners is unhappy or uneasy with the change it’s time to talk, now, not later when the changed behavior becomes unbearable. If your partner is unwilling to talk and instead becomes angry to the point that you are subjected to violence whether it be physical or mental, then you no longer have a Home, you no longer have a partner. You have a room-mate that you can’t trust and there is only one safe alternative…leave. Leave before violence becomes part of your life. Recovering from a failed relationship is hard enough. When violence becomes part of the formula you will feel naked, helpless, and friendless, without resource or a place to turn. That is not true, it is a lie the violent room-mate would love to have you believe.

If you are to thrive, your home must be a safe place! If you are currently in a relationship be sure it is one where the joy of discovery is shared, where beauty is not only appreciated but sought after. If you are by yourself, you should do everything in your power to make your Home a place that is pleasing to your heart, your spirit, your soul. Music, art, and most importantly, constructive contemplation of the fact that you are a precious thing, a human being who has value and is valued all contribute to a Home where you can thrive.