Be proud Warrior Woman. You’re Amazing!

A group chat on one of the WhatsApp groups has prompted me to write this blog. We talked of how we feel judged, shamed. How we isolate ourselves for fear of being ostracised. Reject before we’re rejected.

I am a non-offending partner.

On a daily basis I speak to many, many other woman going through the same trauma as me.

Whether our Partner has been sentenced or is awaiting sentencing. Whether they received a custodial, a suspended, a community order, media or no media, whether we are remaining in our relationship or not, we have one thing in common; we are all incredibly STRONG women.

Many of us have been judged and abandoned by our family, friends, shamed for an offence we never committed.

Not one woman I know had any idea of their partners offending. The day of the arrest / the knock or the vigilante sting was the most traumatic event of our life.

The rug was pulled from underneath our lives. Life as we knew it, ended they day.

Did any of us give up? No we didn’t. For our children, for our partners, for ourselves.

My therapist says that my family shouldn’t judge me for my decision to stay with my partner, they should be in awe of me at how amazing I am doing in getting through this.

I told her it’s not just me, there are a lot of us about. I am in awe of every other Warrior Woman I know. Some of whom I have the pleasure of calling friends. A few actually feel more like sisters to me now.

The majority of us are single parenting, working, studying, surviving this storm with very little support.

From our children, our relationship, our family, our friends, our jobs and sometimes our homes, our community and not forgetting our mental health, there is not a part of our life that hasn’t been affected by the backlash, shame and the stigma of our Partners crime.

For those of us with children, social care barge their way into our lives, judging us, scrutinising our parenting. Treating us like niaeve, meek, mild women who don’t know how to protect our own children form harm.

The reality is, we are brilliant mother’s. We would never have made it onto social cares radar had it not been for our Husbands offence.

We do NOT minimise by supporting them. We do NOT minimise by understanding and educating ourselves on the gateway into our husbands offences.

So I completely agree with my Therapist; every one of our family and friends should be in awe and so proud of us for surviving this and keeping going.

This blog I want to dedicate to each and every one of us.

We are Warrior Women with the kindest and most compassionate hearts. We keep on going and never give up.

We are amazing!!! We are Warrior Women and we are a force to be reckoned with.