Abuser's Target

"You're attractive, intelligent, and kind--why did he abuse you?" a fellow writer once asked me. He was not the first person to wonder if I had somehow provoked the abuser. He wasn't trying to be mean, he was just trying to understand what had happened. It just didn't make any sense to him.
The human mind wants everything to be logical. And most people are comfortable with the idea that if your life is horrible, you must have done something bad to cause it...and if your life is great, you must have done something good.
If you are living in abuse or used to live under an abuser's oppression, I hope you've figured out that you were not the cause or the reason for the abuse. Whether you are gorgeous, ugly, kind, impatient, faithful, or flirty--it didn't bring on mistreatment. No matter what the abuser said. The experts say that abuse victims are found in every demographic: every financial status, both genders, every sexual orientation, every nation, every age, and every religion. Anyone can be abused.
The abuse happens because the abuser is unwilling to repent of his/her controlling and abusive behavior, period.
Have you been blaming yourself? Most victims do. Part of healing involves putting the blame where it rightfully belongs--on the person who abuses, taking what is not theirs to take and dishing out punishments that are undeserved.

"Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men;
Preserve me from violent men,
Who plan evil things in their hearts;
They continually gather for war.
They sharpen their tongues like a serpent;
The poison of asps is under their lips."
Psalm 140: 1-3