The ignorant tones of abuse called neglect

It’s an abuse that may not feel like abuse nor feel like you’re doing abuse.  But more and more it is recognised as abuse.  And thankfully so, because while it may not feel like abuse, it leaves a damaging and lasting impact just the same as any other abuse.

Neglect is the kind of abuse that slowly sucks the life out of a relationship.  But it can also lead to disastrous outcomes for what it allows, especially in cases where a relationship needs to provide a protective element, as most relationships can and need to do, probably akin to the biblical principle in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

Neglect leaves relationships forlorn for years before it becomes obvious to the one who has been neglected.  There are probably more marriages damaged and destroyed by neglect than out-and-out emotional or physical abuse, and of course, neglect is often the undercurrent in more visible abuse.

One person has always put in all the effort, made all the compromises, made allowances, expanded the boundaries, made excuses, and covered a multitude of sins; not out of love, but out of fear for loss.  There is a refusal perhaps to see the writing on the wall.  The neglecting spouse is either oblivious or they do not care, and in the latter case, it could be assumed that there is a more of an overt abuse going on than there appears.

Neglect leaves children feeling unloved and it leaves wives feeling betrayed.  It’s birthed in anything from sloth to selfishness to entitlement to privilege.  It’s that warrant that consistently refuses to act on even the most basic opportunities to serve others.  Rather, neglect exists to be served.  And it’s most obvious in self-neglect — “he’s so lazy he won’t get out of his own way!”

Neglect sucks the hope out of a relationship when there’s the putting up with it year in, year out.  Any resistance to challenge neglect is not met with honest self-reflection that would prove a timely course-correction, but is met with the resistance of stubbornness, which may well be borne of fear and oftentimes pride.

There’s an ignorance in neglect that seems hard to reconcile.  We may ask why a person won’t go the easier way of trying or putting in just a little effort to reap a handsome reward.  This is why neglect is so nonsensical.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Until you realise that it speaks of a heart that isn’t in it.  For some reason, there’s a motivation problem, which again speaks more of ignorance than arrogance.  They don’t know what they don’t know.

There are ignorant tones of abuse in neglect.  What should be visible and obvious to the perpetrator isn’t always, or at least there’s ignorance in not seeing the error of their ways.

Saddest of all for children is the neglect that failed to love.  Those who have not been loved, who have not been met by a parent figure, may well often go on to not know how to love, for they’ve never been loved, or they face such a mortal wounding on their inner person they’ve got a lot of work ahead to reclaim their personhood.

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash