The Price of Ownership

I dedicate this post to friends who have felt the blade of a love turned sour buried deep in their backs, but most of all, I dedicate it to the tears and fears of the children . . .

My father used to drum it into my head when I was young. Whenever I would refer to anyone as “my boyfriend” or “my . . . .” (fill in the blank) he would fix me with a stern eye and firmly inform me that when it comes to human beings, there is no “my” – we have no right to ownership – of anyone. Of course he understood the lack of personal pronouns in the English language to designate a reference without indication of ownership, but he was determined that a defect in our language should not translate to simplicity in his daughter’s thinking. And so I grew up . . . understanding from an early age that I am permitted to love, but not to own, and thereby was able to realize my right to my own freedom.

How many tragedies are played out from that one misunderstanding - from our quest to own another or others? Absolutely no one has a right to ownership of another human being. It does not matter if you are speaking spiritually or as a secular humanist – there is no right to ownership in the matters of people. We acknowledge this when it comes to slavery, though our casual enforcement of the laws against human trafficking and blatant exploitation of immigrant labor tends to indicate that that understanding is tenuous at best, but we seem to be oblivious to that reality when it comes to partners and children.

Love is not possession. In “The Prophet” Kahlil Gibran, states: “Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; for love is sufficient unto love.” On the matter of children, he says: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

Today I have two good friends who tried to escape the jaws of a partner who sought to own them and are now suffering the consequences. I have seen it before, have lived it before myself. This is the stuff of which domestic abusers, stalkers and even murderers are made. This is the emotion that drives parents to devour their own innocent children in a quest to cause pain to a partner that has attempted to break free or of whom they have tired. This is the stuff of horror movies and bloody news headlines. It is very real and too often . . . successful.

The stories vary, the gender also varies. Do not think for a minute that the only ones who would own their partner are men. They are the more visible, but to believe they are the only offenders is to risk being duped by a covertly acquisitive female and from what I have seen it is my theory that the female predator is by far the more deadly. That is only a theory, there is no research, only personal experience behind it, so please do not accept it as fact, but I ask you to at least consider the possibility.

I have lived under threat from a violent man who was furious that I helped his partner escape him (the thugs who are attempting to intimidate me into silence now might take note – that has been tried before). I have also lost a much loved doctor who was shot to death by his ex-wife on the sidewalk outside his clinic after enduring two years of her active stalking and threats, His and his wife’s attempts to seek help through the law fell on deaf ears until it was too late. I have come to the aid of other men who live with the threat of a female bent on getting even for a real or imagined offense. “Sleeping With the Enemy” is a reality for some unfortunate women. “Fatal Attraction” is as real for some men, but the men have nowhere to turn and are seldom believed. The recent arrest and conviction of one woman in New Hampshire for framing her ex-husband was not the norm. She was the surface manifestation of a growing cancer within our society. The majority of her kind remain undetected while wreaking havoc in one unsuspecting family after another. I am left to wonder: If this one who was caught had not been recorded while gloating to a friend about the judge having had a heart attack, would her well deserved sentence have been as stiff or would she have been let off more easily because she is, after all, a woman? Are there any other women out there who find the implications of that double standard as disturbing as I do?

I recently joked with a friend as he recounted his own struggles with an ex who keeps returning to plague him, stalking him, breaking into his home, threatening any woman he is friendly with. I asked him if he had any pet bunnies in his back yard – and suggested he might want to remove them if he did. Pointing out to a man that he might be dealing with a “bunny-boiler” makes for a good joke, but we don’t see it as funny when telling a woman that she might be “sleeping with the enemy,” do we? When a friend of mine looked out her window from what she thought was a safe house and saw a painting from the house she’d shared with her abusive husband leaning against a mailbox across the street, I didn’t make a joke of it. Why not? Do we believe that the men who are victimized in this way suffer less? Are men not granted the same ability to feel or to the sanctity of their own life? Or has our history of male dominance created an environment where ownership of a man by a woman is more acceptable than ownership of a woman by a man? Have we extrapolated the sins of our fathers onto the men of today? These are not rhetorical questions. I am really asking . . . trying to understand why it is so easy to treat such circumstances differently simply because of a difference in gender.

It is fine to argue this back and forth. It is not fine when that argument filters our perception of an individual’s right to the remedies of law. If you do not know at least one man who has been railroaded by a vindictive ex into poverty, failure . . . even prison or death . . . if you do not know at least one woman who has witnessed a friend, son, brother, father or uncle destroyed by a woman while being helpless to save him, then you are living your life with blinders on. I’ve known a few. I feel I must stand and speak for them because, though the abuse is real and they are human, they have no established advocates or shelters.

Of course I have known violent and/or possessive men as well, have been the target of three in my life, so I never blindly believe any man who claims to be a victim. A man who once stalked me relentlessly and who still pops up from time to time at first claimed to have been victimized by most of the women in his past. I look into what men say with a skeptical eye, more-often-than-not I do not feel certain of their claim . . . but I do look. Just that act alone is more than most of these men will ever get from our legal system – and so female predators are allowed to continue free in our midst, preying on and hobbling the men in our lives – unchecked and frequently even unseen.

But where there are men and women there are children . . . adults who demand to own their partners will believe they own their children as well, and there is the ultimate tragedy. An adult may make a terrible mistake and pick an abusive partner. Perhaps they were abused as a child, causing them to see obvious red flags as normal, but whatever the reason, they do choose that partner. This is not meant to place blame on the victim of an abuser, but to differentiate them from the victims who are so often forgotten in such a scenario – children.

Children are given no choice. They are complete innocents, unable to protect themselves and usually loving the very person who is their greatest source of pain. This is their parent, after all. Sometimes, in a particularly bitter break up, both parents will place the children in the middle as pawns to be fought over, to be manipulated to love the one more than the other or even kept from the other parent entirely. Such actions are always child abuse as a child alienated from a parent is also alienated from part of himself. No parent would or could do such a thing to a child unless that child was perceived as being owned – as theirs.

To end the abuse, we must end our sense that we can or should own others. “My” is simply a word that must suffice for want of a better non-possessive personal pronoun. Do not be so quick to automatically assume the innocence of a woman or the guilt of a man in these matters. A tendency toward a literal interpretation of “my” when referencing a friend, partner or spouse is not limited to the male gender. This may not be a comfortable or convenient reality, but we ignore it at our peril. Can our refusal to acknowledge the signs of a woman who sees men as something to be owned, used and ultimately worthy of abuse end in anything other than broken lives? Can we afford to condone the implicit violence of one human being’s demand to own another? If we continue on our present course, our children are the ones who will pay the ultimate price. They are our future. Can we afford to have them pick up the tab?