She was 30 years old and had four kids. She was essentially unemployed and was divorced from an abusive man - real abuse. He had put her in the hospital.
I met her when she contacted me on an internet dating site. We started dating, and her life was a complete mess. It didn't take long for our relationship to transform from dating to just friends, and what I saw made me worried for my friend.
Her house was filthy. Two of her four kids had tried to beat her up at one point or another. Another of the kids was so ill-behaved that he had to have an adult attendant follow him around at school all day just to make sure that the boy learned something and was not a danger to any of the other students. And her dating life sucked - it essentially had devolved into her offering her body to a series of men who would use her until they found someone better, and then leave her high and dry.
I started talking to her about her life - and it was traumatic. Some of it was due to her own bad decisions. Her first sexual experience had been with a teacher whom she had offered herself to in order to avoid being sent to the principal's office. Some were definitely not her fault - she had been semi-abducted and raped in the parking lot of a local mall.
But eventually I tried to show her that no matter what had happened to her, she was still in control of what she did with her life right now. We set up a system through which she delegated chores to each of the kids. Slowly, the kids began to straighten up. As soon as her home life was less daunting, I began to show her how to be the kind of woman that a man wants.
Today she is engaged to be married.
She had been in therapy for years. Everyone she had talked to had taught her how to "be empowered" or "increase her self-esteem" or to be comfortable being alone.
What she needed all along was for someone to break the cycle of her building destructive relationships and teach her what it really is that men want. She needed someone who loved her enough to confront her with uncomfortable truths. The truth hurt - nobody likes to be told that what they are doing is wrong. Nobody wants to hear that what is generally accepted as true in our culture is, in fact, maladaptive. But she swallowed hard and listened carefully.
And today she is engaged.
The truth hurt, and she cried some tears. But the truth also helped - she has revolutionized her life in almost every way.
She learned a valuable lesson - the wonderful thing about taking responsibility is that you can change whatever you are responsible for.
And today she is engaged to be married.
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