When can you call abuse enough?

QUESTION: Masters, I feel that the greatest lesson of my life is forgiveness. Since I was a child I’ve been forgiving the people who in some way have hurt me. First it was my mother, then my uncle, my brother, and now my husband. I’ve always forgiven and live in peace with them. With my husband however, despite of have forgiven him, I have an immense desire of leaving him and get away from his demanding/arrogant personality. With him, I have no will of my own. I feel that I should not allow this any more in my life. But, I am afraid that I still have something important to do with him. Am I right in leaving him and move forward with my life, learning to love and respect myself? Or should I stay by his side to make sure I’m doing everything exactly as I planned before I reincarnated? ~Mary, USA

ANSWER: People can only hurt you if you give them permission to do so. All these instances have had to do with lessons you wished to learn. When you forgive an incident between you and another who you feel has intentionally hurt you, the realization has come to you that it was a lesson and you no longer need to have the events repeating in your life. You find peace from the tests to which you no longer react.

Your husband is another case completely. He is not in your life just to have you learn about how another can impact your existence. He is there for you to find out about yourself and to learn how to analyze, discern, and deal with your own abilities.

You are a soul with incredible abilities, but you have not used any of them to fulfill your life. You have continued with the idea that those older, and/or to whom you feel you owe allegiance for one reason or another, have to be obeyed. This last lesson has to do with accepting yourself and claiming what is yours. You need to learn to honor yourself, love yourself, and stop being everyone’s punching bag.

The only thing you have left with your husband is to tell him you are not going to put up with his selfish, egotistical behavior any longer. You planned to discover yourself and your power – so get busy.