Submissive Journal

Write down three things you didn't do because you were afraid. What could have changed in your life had you done them?

1. The night before i was to be married the first time, i had cold feet and tried to back out. My fiance was panicked, and after several hours, he talked me into going through with it, but even the next day, i kept feeling like i was making a mistake, but i was afraid to let him down as well as everyone else expecting the marriage to happen. If i had stood my ground, i might have gone to college instead and become a medical researcher and perhaps married someone more suitable later on.

2. When i became pregnant the first time, i had an abortion because i was afraid. i was married and very much wanted the baby, but i had contracted rubella (German measles) during the first trimester, and i was told by several doctors that there was a 95% chance that the baby would be born blind, deaf and mentally retarded with a heart defect. i still wanted to have the baby, but everyone kept telling me that the abortion was the right thing to do for the baby. i was very young, and i was afraid to stand up to all the older and wiser doctors and family. my husband was no help. All he would say was, "It's your body." But it was our baby! i felt very abandoned by him during that time, and ultimately that factored into the demise of that marriage. If he or even just one other person had told me that they would stand by me and be a support system if the baby turned out to be handicapped, then i would have had the courage and strength not to go through with the abortion, but i was too afraid that if the baby was born so severely handicapped, my husband would leave me and everyone would be saying 'I told you so' instead of being there for the baby and me. i have always grieved for that baby, and through the years, that husband, upon finding me grieving, would remark, "Why do you keep doing that to yourself?" as if i had any control over my feelings of loss or as if my sorrow was not valid. If i had not had the abortion, i would have had another son, and maybe he would have been healthy and fine, and even if he wasn't, he still would have been precious to me.

3. There were many times i should have left my second husband, but did not because i was afraid of going through another divorce and of having my younger children go through a divorce and aftermath. What i had learned from my first divorce is that as bad as it was, it got worse during and after the divorce. He became much more vicious as an ex-husband than he ever was as a husband. So, even though my second husband was abusive, i thought he would be worse if i made him an ex-husband, as had happened before. Had i left him the first time i definitely should have, my two youngest children would never have been born, but if i had left him after my youngest was born, i would have at least been that much younger starting over and would have had fewer years spent in the misery of that marriage. i finally did leave him for good several months ago, and as it turns out, the children had been wanting me to do that pretty much all their lives, again making it clear that i should have done it long ago. All of us would have had better, happier lives.