Question:     I am not sure if I can get an answer to this question but it would be extremely helpful if possible.

My husband is a rather angry person, who explodes quite often, blames me for a lot of things, doesn’t tell me the truth and says some rather unpleasant things. But he can also be sweet and I guess seemingly loving. I knew before marrying him that he had made some bad decisions in his life and that there were some issues he was still dealing with, but it seemed to be going better and he seemed to be growing as a person. I have personally gone through some low times in my life, where I allowed depression to take over, but I got out and I am purposing to be happy and grateful for life, although I find it difficult to stay upbeat in difficult encounters with my husband so I am questioning if persistence and patience are the way to go in this situation or if I should take my husband up on one of the occasional threats that he wants to divorce me and that he wants nothing to do with me anymore. Is it really true that if you love them, you should let them go?

Higgins:     Friend, if you are in physical danger we encourage you to leave right away. There is no point to allowing oneself to be physically harmed.

There is also no point in allowing oneself to be emotionally harmed. It is as damaging as physical harm but manifests differently, often over a much longer time frame. So we also encourage you to leave right away if you are in danger of receiving emotional damage.

Sometimes words sting and very often the truth about oneself is painful to hear. That is not the same thing as being damaged emotionally. Emotional damage may come from belittling, criticism, fear. The difference between painful words and emotionally damaging words is painful words are helpful where damaging words prevent the recipient from living into their full being.

If you are in physical or emotional danger we encourage you to remove yourself from the situation at once. Once your physical and emotional safety is established you are ready to make your choice: stay or go.

One way to determine your true feelings about such a cloudy matter is to ask yourself some questions. Listen quietly to your inner self. The answer will come.

1) Do I want to stay or go?

You may be very clear on this already. If not ask yourself:

2) Do I want to find a solution?

If you want to find a solution then stay.

3) What is the reward for me if I stay? What is the reward for me if I go?

Reward is not financial. Reward feels like relief or happiness. Always move towards what feels like relief. If there is relief in making a decision to stay then there still is potential in your relationship. If relief comes when you think about leaving then it may well be time to move on.

You asked, ‘Is it really true that if you love them, you should let them go?’ We’d like you to understand this a little differently. You, your husband and all mankind are beings of love and light. Some of you are shining a little more brightly than others. That is simply indicative of the exquisite, delicious difficulty of the Earth game. Your husband may not be able to express the love that he is. You cannot do anything to change that. He is the only one who is capable of making change in his life. If you love someone let them go really refers to allowing another to charge headlong into their life, seeking It. If they are making a terrible mess and you can see that they are yet they are not receptive to conversation on the topic the most loving thing you can do is let them do it.

At the same time, you are not a victim and are not expected to live in misery. We would not. We would apply all the skills we have towards cleaning up the situation. If we could not improve the situation then we would retreat from it knowing that personal happiness is the most important thing in our world.

Everything you do should make you happy. If it doesn’t, then at a minimum it should feel like relief. If it doesn’t bring at least relief you should not do it.

We will allow you to mull over this response. In the next segment we shall explain how to improve your situation should you decide to stay.

Received October 23, 2013 at Lake Goodwin, Washington  USA