To ask how you became a "strong" woman?

[LiteraryDevil1]

I've been musing for a while now as I read thread after thread from women who are enabling their husband/partner/boyfriend to be a selfish, thoughtless, disorganised, pathetic manchild. There are so many women on here who know their own worth, have great self respect, great dignity, independence, confidence etc and have no trouble in maintaining firm boundaries with other people. I see so many women helping others to get rid of partners that are no good for them and I think it's amazing how they come across. How did you get to be that strong, independent woman who's not afraid to stand up for herself?

Be single for a prolonged period of time, ideally in your most formative years. I would say going to university helps but obviously isn't open to everyone, and that might just be because I'm doing gender studies! Don't take any shit, say what you feel, don't be afraid to start conflict. Put yourself before others when you need to, practice self care, and always always follow your gut instincts.

Was a single mum for a long time and did all the things other families did just without a bloke (drove through Europe with 3 kids etc).

@HollyGibney I would say it isn't you in the sense that you're mean or a bad person to be friends with or anything. Something similar happened to me as I started sticking up for myself, and in time I found better friends who were more beneficial to me and brought more happiness and less negativity to my life. You get higher standards as soon as you start realising your worth and sticking up for that - you have to have patience to wait for the people that fit in to those standards rather than settling for second best.

I refuse to associate with men who think treating women like shit is acceptable. Even friends or family.
I don't want them in my life. I have what other people think is a high bar for acceptable behaviour.

I think it’s a tough question to answer since there is an element of personal characteristics combined with upbringing ( strong attachments and role models of good relationships). I also think it’s easy to be strong when you actually haven’t suffered very much. If you’re in a good relationship Of course you can set boundaries or stand up for yourself or to disagree with your partner because you are in a safe place to do that. You know youre not going to be abused as a consequence. Its hard as a result to understand why anybody would tolerate difficult or damaging relationships. Remember people can talk a good game on here and perhaps skim over the part of themselves which are less desirable. People are self editing so are only showing you the side of themselves that they want you to see. A seemingly confident person can be wracked with self doubt or could actually be perceived by others as rude or bossy as hell. Im not saying that’s always the case but I don’t think it’s helpful to think that other people are somehow blessed with superhuman qualities that you are denied or that are unachievable to you. No one has all the answers.... we’re all just making it up as we go on.

I had a feminist mum, and a feminist dad, who both instilled in me a belief that I could do anything. Parents who stressed that they would not pressure me to get married and have kids, and that there was more than one path to take to be happy in life. Nursing my mum through terminal cancer when I was 23 and my dad a few years later made me realise that if I could get through that, I could get through anything. My mum was a woman who went against the flow, and I am my mother's daughter. That is her legacy to me.

It took me a myriad of shit relationships.

I did the freedom programme after a relationship (which was extremely abusive) and something clicked in me to say I wasn't doing it anymore.
I had many sessions with psychologists, counsellors and CBT therapists to realise exactly what was wrong and the solution.

When I was in the abusive relationship I didn't know it was abusive, everyone else could see it but I protected him in every way I could. On the outside I was furious that anyone would be brazen enough to try and say that things weren't right, deep down I was terrified of him and saying the wrong thing.

It beat me down so much that I was a shadow of myself and once I had my daughter and all the above therapy sessions I realised that the only way to protect myself was to become strong.

I looked at my mother’s life and did everything in my power to make mine as different as possible.

My mum internalised the patriarchy and my dad is ''benignly sexist'' but like literarydevil, 37 was a turning point for me too. I left my x at 37.

I'm still evolving though. Quite often what happens is that intellectually, rationally I 'know' something is right, but then when I'm tested in practice I don't play it as well as I could have, so it takes me two runs at things. I need to learn it in theory, and then I literally do need to practice it in reality, a couple of times even. Then I get there.

There's always something new to test your strength! But the 'tests' don't take very much out of you when you're strong. That's how you know I think.

I can’t tell you how it happened but it was something inside of me. I’d been an unhappy basket case for years. I was in a destructive relationship.

I started counselling and I realised I wasn’t in tune with what I wanted at all. I was too busy pleasing everyone else. I had low self esteem and I wanted a ‘normal’ family life.

I realised I couldn’t live like that anymore and I decided to leave. Best decision I ever made. My mistakes, my victories and my choices are mine alone. I am present in my own life again.

I would never surrender that feeling for any man. And if he expected me to then he would be the wrong type of man entirely.

I’ve grown to accept myself for who I am and I’m working on improving the bits I don’t like!

I am that way by default. I feel in a way it may have worked to my detriment, as society likes a woman who puts up and shuts up. It doesn't like a single mother. I am financially independent, but still skint. Grass is not always greener.

Self reliance, and financial independence.

Having my heart shattered and then rebuilding I'm afraid. It's hard but so worth it.

I have always been independent, have never relied on a man for anything, to my own detriment sometimes, have never married despite several engagements, although I genuinely loved at the time I played it forward and was never sure enough that I would sustain the relationship, it’s been a huge struggle at times but I know I am strong and have had so much to contend with there’s pretty much nothing I haven’t experienced, good and bad. So I definitely have a problem with long term commitment, I recognise that, but I have found my own worth

Holding my new baby for the first time and realizing with horrible clarity that I, too was as deserving of love, respect and protection as that little mite. That the little girl I once was had deserved none of the shit she was put through, that there was actually nothing wrong with me at all. I deserved good things. I wasn't dirty, unloveable or defective in any way. I had come into the world as pure and lovely as my own boy.

That realization turned my world upside down. In the end I left my possessive, controlling, chronically critical, exhausting dh, created grey rock relationships with my toxic, demanding, equally critical family of origin, took flight in my career, lost many friends and suddenly found more in unexpected places.

I've cried so much over the things I've realized but I wouldn't take any of it back. Thank you DS for saving me from my life!!

I've always been independent and never needed a man to make me happy or had to be in a relationship. I live with my fiance but I'm financially independent, if we ever have a child, I will go back to work full time.

I agree with other posters about knowing your own boundaries and being able to walk away from situations and people that don't suit you.

I'm sorry about your friend, Holly.

Like a lot of others on the thread, leaving a bad relationship & building myself back up more or less from scratch. I got to know myself, love myself & go from constantly thinking "I can't, I can't" to "Can't I? Why not? What's stopping me?"

As a PP has said for me financial independence is the key. I think it’s important for my DS’s to see me working full time in a fulfilling career. Everyone in our house pitches in and neither me nor DH are “in charge”. I hope that, in turn, they will give their future partners the respect and equality that I’ve had in my relationship.

I’ve just read the thread about a woman who was shouted at by a horrible man when she parked outside a shop. Lots of parking stories followed about the vile men shouting at women for their parking. I guarantee these men would not have behaved towards a man in that way. Problem is, all of these women were terrified and reduced to tears! Anything like that happens to me and they’d get a mouthful back from me. Women need to start asserting themselves more otherwise these men will keep getting away with it. Raise your daughters to be fierce!

Financial independence is so important

But when you have young children it can be difficult but when you are in a position to work do so

And stick to your boundaries. Even if at first those boundaries may not seem much at all once you start allowing them to be broken it becomes a habit. You stick to them and build on them

Shouting from the rooftops how you won’t stand for something but you do is pointless stick to your guns no matter how much it hurts you will feel better in yourself in the long run

Financial Independence is very important on a practical level of course but before I became 100% financially independent (and from the state, too) I think having an identity which wasn't formed as a basis of being x, y or z was important. Eg, when I left my x I had none of the usual accoutrements to identity. No qualifications, no job, no husband, no nice house (or any home of my own), no circle of friends, no car, nothing really! I felt really stripped bear. All there was to me, was me and from there, I thought about self-worth and identity and purpose and strength and direction. Financial Independence came later and I'm glad as I wouldn't want to build an identity on financial independence either
I feel very fortunate that I'm FI now but I don't for a moment think that there aren't thousands out there who aren't as fortunate but who are stronger than I will ever need to be.

Watching

I don't think being strong and being in an abusive relationship are mutually exclusive.

An abusive childhood made me strong and independent at an early age. Long before reaching double figures I was resilient in a way many adults aren't.

Throughout my teens I genuinely didn't understand why peers with supportive loving families, who were the victims of bullying let it even bother them, from my perspective at the time it was just weakness to get upset about treatment that was fuck all compared to what I coped with at home. I could only empathise with vulnerable peers.

It was a case of learning the hard way not to give a fuck what anyone else thinks, and not to be dependent on anyone. I remember being in y6 and having the realisation that even though I was clearly a vile child to warrant the abuse, I could either give up and die or get on with it. Finding happiness where I could instead of crumbling was also a fuck you.

Didn't stop me getting into an abusive relationship in my late teens, purely because my sense of what warranted abuse was enOk tirely warped. Stuff that would hurt others went straight over my head. Even the things I did notice I didn't think were abuse I thought were deserved because I was so vile. Being pregnant changed that because I had to protect myself to protect my baby.

There were times after I left I had problems in a practical sense, no amount of mental strength made up for his physical strength or my circumstances. But to this day I don't feel I have that much in common mentally with other dv survivors, because it genuinely didn't leave emotional scars. I don't think that's down to strength per se, more that after my childhood it was trivial.

You could say my strength comes from knowing I don't need the approval or support of anyone else. And the determination that my child will not have her childhood ruined whilst I wallow in self pity about mine.

Seeing my mother perform the role of the doting wife when she has always been desperately unhappy.

Always been very independant and feisty.

Always refused to put up with shit from a man thinking I'm a doormat in the making. Some of the men I've come across really don't like independent thinking women and always tried to make out it was a problem I had.

I've been a single parent to four children working full time.

All of these things have shaped me into who I am.

I became strong as a teen after a bereavement. I had no one to fight my corner so i had to do it myself.

It's a mixture of being confident in yourself, having standards and boundaries, wanting to better yourself, being fair and being financially independent. Or having the skills to be independent if needed.

Yes you lose people along the way but those people would just drag you down, and stop you from being you (for their own gain).

I've never met an abusive man because I didn't put myself in situations to meet them.

I wasn't particularly strong when I left my ex-H but I've become strong. As other posters have said, it is about creating clear boundaries and knowing that you can say 'no' to things that do not work for you or that cut across what you believe.