I met Serge Benhayon when I was 23. I had been in a relationship with a man that I deeply loved for about three years. Over those three years I noticed that I had closed off from many of my friends, starting with my male friends (to avoid my boyfriend getting jealous). When he drank it was common for him to be abusive and rough with me. Just over a year into our relationship my partner violently beat me up. He was so intoxicated he was calling me someone else’s name. He was shocked, ashamed and regretful of what he had done. After signing up for AA and anger management he told me he would do whatever it took to be with me. He came from a tough background, very different to mine. I had grown up being told I had the potential to be and do anything… he never had this so I gave him another chance. I wanted to show him that someone trusted that he could change. There was no way I was going to get angry, shut him out and blame him like everyone else. I knew my family and friends were trying to protect me by telling me not to do this, but all I could feel was how everyone had closed off and that they judged my partner.
When I first told Serge Benhayon about the relationship I was in, the abuse – and the way people around me had changed after it happened – he just listened to me, with an open heart. As I continued talking I could feel he wasn’t judging me or my partner. He then asked me a simple question, “Do you want to stay with…?” In that moment I felt so safe and held with love and support that I shared with Serge something I had dared not to share with others. I answered “no” (and cried and cried and cried). I could feel this was the most loving thing for us both, as the way we were with each other had to stop. I then shared with Serge how much I loved this man and felt an obligation to be loyal and stay with him. Serge replied, “Being loyal does not mean putting up with abuse”. This is true. Immediately I could feel how along the way I had misconstrued what it meant to be loyal.
After that session I stayed in the relationship for about another year, and things got worse. There was cheating, lies, miscarriages, break-ups, make-ups… it was really messy. I couldn’t believe the situation I found myself in. It was complete chaos. I was getting jealous of him! I was miserable and felt guilty whenever I upset him.
It took a while to cut the ties. When I left he wanted me back and was willing to change for me, but not for himself. I knew if he made changes for me they wouldn’t last, so I kept saying no, reminding him of the toxic cycles we allowed ourselves to be in when we were together. It was very challenging to keep saying no to someone I love. I learnt a lot about myself in this time.
I have no doubt my session with Serge contributed to this change in my life. Just to be clear, Serge never told me to leave my partner, he just asked me if I wanted to stay in the relationship, and said being loyal doesn’t mean putting up with abuse. I learnt how powerful we can be by just listening to someone without judging their choices. I could feel Serge wasn’t judging me or my partner, yet he didn’t hold back from stating the truth about the abuse not being ‘OK’. At the time I felt this was exactly what I needed to hear. I was willing to listen and feel what was true.
It was after my session with Serge Benhayon, that I slowly discovered I could love my partner and say no to the abuse… so that is what I did.
Five years later, my ex-partner would now be the first person to say that our breaking up was the best thing that ever happened to both of us. He has even thanked me for having had the courage to end it – that’s pretty amazing!
by Abby
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Listening to and honouring ourselves makes so much sense, our bodies are really wise best friends.
There is so much in what you are sharing here Abby. When we are honest with ourself we know where we are standing and can unravel any situation we are in.
It’s so significant to know we can still love someone but say ‘No’ to the abuse and even walk away. This is also loving for the abuser because if we keep allowing the abuse we aren’t truly caring for that person either, we are in our own way teaching them that abuse is ok and part of loving someone is accepting that, instead of the truth to ask them to either return to being respectful and loving or to walk away.
Yes, something so important to understand. We can so easily fall for sympathy because we see the truth in another and thus excuse and do away with their abusive behaviours. But with that we are complicit with the abuse that is taking place.
All the images we might hold , are often in the way of us experiencing greater love. An acceptance to let go of the false images and allowing more love in has been the most deepest loving thing for me to do in this life, and I continue to do so..
So true – when there’s no judgment we can be open and hear the truth being delivered. Judgment makes us defend and justify our choices.
I love the all the wisdom in this blog, and feels a super supportive blog for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation. That we can love another, yet say no to abuse is the most loving thing we can do for ourselves.
We are expected to live in a way that keeps the truth underwater, our aim for comfort and shelter is greater than truth. What intelligence have we chosen that leads us that way?
It eliminates what we perceive as right and wrong when we do not judge. I am learning not to judge regardless what another says or does, simply because I have no right to do so. I have no right to think I know the journey of another and what they are here to learn from past choices and reincarnations.
Honouring what we feel is the greatest act of love we can give ourselves and another. It goes against our long sought and held pictures but detaching from them is a huge healing in itself.
How we construct loyalty and allow this to govern our movements is crucial. What are we loyal to?
I wonder how often we feel that rescuing someone is the most loving thing we can do, when actually, letting someone choose for themselves is far more loving as it let’s them know they are the ones who can change their life. Your ex-partner shared that with you and you got to feel what it felt like when Serge didn’t save you but asked you what you wanted to do. I know it is not easy but the changes that come from letting someone else be the change in their own life are far more foundational.
The opportunity to be listened to without judgement is a rarity. It shouldn’t be, but it is, we are simply full of opinions about how things should be. So, I love what you share about simply being asked if you wanted to stay in the relationship. Ultimately that is all that was important to work out and it is not always an overnight decision even when you answer yes or no, as you discovered.
It requires great amount of courage to ‘say no’ to what we love, but sometimes this is the only way to come back to love. This is a great lesson of dettachment as well as an opportunity of deepening in the connection we have with others ad ourselves. Once we experience that quality of love, we realise there’s no separation at all.
‘I could love my partner and say no to the abuse’ Coming accross to this point feels a true success Abby. From love we can embrace all and see with our eyes open what doesn’t belongs to it. It offers the needed dettachment to speak up with steadyness, respect and clarity about what feels not right in every relationship that we have. So cool, thanks for sharing so honestly
Serge Benhayon is an example about how respectful we can be with others, allowing them the space to make their own choices and not judging any of them. This humble act offers a space to see clearly what is True and what is not, a powerful way of being indeed.
‘I learnt how powerful we can be by just listening to someone without judging their choices.’ I agree. And this is just as Serge is, to completely be there and listen to someone with love and zero judgement. It is deeply loving to feel and be on the receiving end of this. Also a testimony to you that your ex-partner thanked you in the end for breaking up with him and great to hear how your relationship ended and it wasn’t with bitterness, resentment, anger etc.
Serge Benhayon is a role model to medicine, psychology, counselling and relationships. “I learnt how powerful we can be by just listening to someone without judging their choices.” We have much to learn what true power is.
Beautifully expressed,and it highlights how it is through self-love and self-worth that we are able to choose to say no to abusive relationships.
A relationship between someone who is unable to be with him/herself in a settled way and someone else who is/choose to be settled is very difficult if unsettlement is chosen as the first and most important relationship by the first person.
If we are held in love, without judgement, are seen for who we truly are and are listened to, the truth that is inside us dears to come out. It can take a while before we really act on it, but voicing it helps and the seed is planted.
“I learnt how powerful we can be by just listening to someone without judging their choices.” That is a powerful way of being in relationships and I am asking myself how many of us are offering such a way of being together?
It is a beautiful amount of courage to remain loving and to know that you have to leave.
When we realise that saying no to abuse is not saying no to the person, it is easy to end an arrangement that is clearly not working. In this way no-one has lost anything of true value, just ended the abuse.
Thank you for clarifying it further, you are not saying no to the person, you are saying no to the abuse.
‘I had misconstrued what it meant to be loyal’. It is one thing to feel and be loyal to anothers potential but if that loyalty means you are tolerating unacceptable abuse in the meantime then that is not a healthy option for either of you.
What an amazing story and it just goes to show how healing it is for everyone when we don’t allow or accept abuse in our lives. We don’t have to reject people just abuse.
It takes huge courage to end a relationship when you deeply love and care for a person. We always know, really, whether we want to be in that relationship or not, but loyalty to the person, instead of loyalty to love and truth, is an easy one to get caught in. I had similar experiences in a relationship with a partner and then with a friend, where I didn’t ever want to share the truth of what I could feel, because I was afraid of making things even more disharmonious and chaotic than they already were. I was always grasping for some sort of temporary peace, some kind of feeling of solid ground, from the other person, when really all I needed to do was stay solid within myself, first, and have the courage to simply express that the other person’s behaviour was not okay. This is the foundation that I’m building for myself now, and it feels amazing to do this for me, instead of needing this steadiness to be provided to me through another or my relationship with them.
Thank you BR for sharing, what a lovely comment, great what you have shared about having that solidness within yourself first instead of trying to maintain a solid ground with others to keep the peace.
“I learnt how powerful we can be by just listening to someone without judging their choices” – awesome. I often get caught in wanting to help, offer support, say something clever etc. but just being ourselves is love enough and that love knows the same love in another and love has no need to dictate, it just holds in absolute equalness – I am not living this yet, but willing to give this a go.
Your blog is a great reminder Abby that love is not always as we picture it, that a break-up can be the most loving and honouring thing for everyone. And I love what you shared of what was shared with you “Being loyal does not mean putting up with abuse” … this is so important for all of us to see and understand. Thank you Abby.
It’s funny, with respect I don’t mean as in haha, how we have a picture of what or how things are. We look at something or someone and what to do it differently then it’s been done or we want to give them something that no one has appeared to give them but we don’t include ourselves in that, we fail to include how we truly feel. I am just looking at the support Serge Benhayon gave in this article, it didn’t push someone either way, the to do something way or it’s ok do nothing way. He supported by supporting the person to make a decision or a choice they felt, regardless of which way it went it was more about supporting the person to make the choice they truly felt to make. That is the difference, so many times we meet people with a wall trying to push them into what we see they should or shouldn’t do and this doesn’t allow the person the space to see or feel what they actually want to do. It could be this is the flavour of support we all need, to be supported to make a choice that we actually feel and it look like from this article it supports us all.
Wow Abby this blog is powerful especially this statement – ”being loyal does not mean putting up with abuse.” How many times have we allowed this in our lives and thought we were doing ourselves justice.
I grew up around this belief that loyalty was more important than abuse. I saw abuse as physical but abuse can come through in many insidious ways. And when truth is presented without judgement it breaks down all belief systems even though at first it is unsettling – thank you.
Honoring and expressing our truth is a very loving act, one that confirms that love is who we are and love is what we deserve to live. In agreeing to live less than this love not only is allowing abuse for ourselves but also allowing abuse to be part of our relationships. Thank you Abby for highlighting, that love is not an obligation as is often misconstrued in our society, for in honouring what is true we are in fact choosing love in the truest sense.
I have just reread this blog and it is just as powerful as the first read. The power lays in the expression of the process you went through to feel the truth for yourself. We learn so much from relationships as they reflect our internal struggle. We all need to learn to love ourselves enough to never put up with abuse as this abuse starts with how we are with our self.
We can still love someone while saying no to their behaviour – wow, this is huge.
I agree Fumiyo. Our current misconceptions of what love truly is, is what is keeping us chained to an illusion that only hobbles us from living and honoring who we are and our true potential. What Abby has presented here clearly shows us that love is far more than meeting expectations or obligations, and that saying ‘no’ to lovelessness or abuse is a deeply loving act, and in fact we are saying ‘yes’ to honoring the love we are.
Thank you Abby, this shows that saying no to abuse offers the responsibility of both the abused and the abuser to say no to abuse.
When we sympathise with someones situation we are essentially blind from seeing the truth of their choices and choosing not to see the irresponsibility at play.
This has been a constant with Serge Benhayon over the years, encouraging all of us to be love, the love that we naturally are, ‘and work on bringing more love into the way they live their own lives’. The world needs and we all need love, it is who we innately are.
Every relationship reflects and affects all other relationships, and the foundation of all relationships start with ourselves. No relationship is ever perfect, it is forever a deepening with ourselves and with everyone else.
The ability to truly listen with no judgement allows the person to feel in their own body what it is they are actually communicating. Serge Benhayon is a master of true listening and reading what is being communicated.
I have been learning this, listening with the whole body, without having a conversation in your head. We don’t realise how rarely we truly listen till we start listening!
We have made love something that it is not and so it is very hard to grasp from the mind what true love is as we always compare it to all the pictures we have collected making up our understanding of love. When we allow our heart to speak up more and listen to what we feel we step by step return to the true love we know from deep within. Love is very simple and all that we need to do is stay with what we feel and express from there.
I think one of the ways we disempower ourselves is through the misuse of the word love. I too once thought I was deeply in love with a man, but that relationship was emotionally abusive. It was only when I realised that the hook I had with him was not love that I was able to break free. Unimedpedia Love: http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-love.html provides a great understanding as to the true energetic meaning of the word love.
“I think one of the ways we disempower ourselves is through the misuse of the word love.” I agree Nicola. That is exactly how we allow the abuse of ourselves and others in relationships.
“Being loyal does not mean putting up with abuse”. Serge Benhayon never tells anyone what to do, he always presents the energetic truth and allows us the space to feel what is true. It is beautiful to read how Serge held you in absolute love and equality and how this supported you to feel it was time to end the cycle of abuse by saying ‘no’ to your partner’s unloving ways.
What I love about what you have shared Abby is that 5 years after you broke up with your previous boyfriend, he said that it was best thing that had happened to him. To me that’s the inspiring thing for often that’s what we can’t see when we are in the midst of something, but the fact that it happened because of the regard you then had for yourself and the fact that you didn’t say no to him, you said no to the abuse. So no doubt he has changed considerably from this very loving act.
Awesome Abby. Your story will be of huge support to others who continue to feel they have no choice but to stay in an abusive relationship.
Opening up the possibility of saying ‘no’ is huge, to live it is seismic. It changes everything because suddenly you realise that you have choice again, and life is all about the choices we make.
I completely agree Simon. No can be the hardest word to learn to say, but once we do, we are back in the driving seat of our lives and every choice we make is ours.
How often do we cling onto a word and try to keep our promise. We cling onto the word and the association we have with it but not in truth its living meaning. Then to hear and feel the truth of it releases the shackles we were so used to walking around with and it takes a while until we learn to walk without them again.
Abby it’s a great distinction you were given by Serge about the difference between loyalty and love. What I have learned from Serge is the true essence of love holds us all equally, so in a situation where abuse is present we need to make a loving choice for ourselves – loyalty can have us sticking it out because it’s directed at supporting the other person, but consideration for self is not there. Thank you for all the insights you have given me today reading your story.
“Being loyal does not mean putting up with abuse” and as you say, it doesn’t mean you don’t love them or want to support them. However love and support sometimes means walking away so the other person can feel the importance having to make the change for themselves. I remember someone sharing with me that if I kept standing underneath the window catching any child that jumps they will not learn not to jump. It seems so obvious when I looked at it like that.
When we earnestly ask ourselves questions about ourselves and our lives the answer comes and sometimes not in the way we expect.
Gorgeous read, it is so insidious, we bastardised the word love to mean something it is not. That we should put up with abuse because we love someone. It is beautiful to read your sharing seeing what love truly is.
I agree Abby – there is great power in truly listening to someone, without an agenda or need for them to be different. Sometimes nothing needs to be said, but everything is spoken by virtue of allowing a person space to feel where they are at with something.
Abby, what a very heart-capturing healing blog through your honest personal sharing. Truth is reached so evidently after the path of honesty is taken. This will help many in relationships who read this.
It is our own choice to say yes or no to abuse that is aimed at us. And it is true love to say no to that which is not okay. Bringing us all further, out of the abusive cycles we sometimes stay in for the ‘safety’ it provides.
Hello Abby and there is a great message in this for me today, do I really and deeply listen. We think listening is just being quiet so someone else can talk for example but listening is a connection to someone and what they are saying. Often it’s not about answering what they are asking but listening deeper to what the person is really saying. I have no doubt this is what Serge Benhayon connected to and deeply listened to. Then it was . up to you how you unfolded what you saw in the session. I have never known Serge to tell anyone what to do and let’s face it most people can’t be told anything anyway. All that aside it was a very brave and loving decision you made with this relationship. Many may judge or compare their relationship to being not as bad or know that would never happen in their relationship but there is a bigger message for all of us here. We set our sights on what we think love is but it’s not love if what you are doing has any form of abuse to yourself. We may think differently when we are in the middle of a situation but I also like what you say Abby in that we need to make changes in how we are for ourselves and not for others. It may sound harsh but when you truly do things or make changes for yourself it automatically flows out to all your relationship, the way we do things, the quality, is important.
“Being loyal does not mean putting up with abuse”. Wise words indeed.
I agree. Something I have found is that the more love we are then the more anything which is not love stands out as being abusive. So abuse for me no longer means being aggressive or worse, rather it can be as simple as not deeply cherishing my partner. For if we are all love, which I know we are, then anything less than the love we are is abusive not only to others but also to ourselves.
It is interesting how we can misinterpret and misuse words such as ‘loyal’ to suit our needs and to justify our actions because we do not love ourselves deeply to not put up with abuse. The more love I have for myself the less I am tolerating abuse on all levels and in all areas of my life.
This is a powerful blog Abby on many levels. It demonstrates clearly how we have misinterpreted the word ‘love’ just as much as the word ‘loyalty’. It shows the importance of building a loving relationship with our self so as to be able to say ‘no’ to abuse. It presents the power of being met in a way that we felt seen beyond our situation. It presents how observation without judgment is love and can be heard while other well meaning advice laced with judgment cannot be heard. It also demonstrates the pain we are willing to endure and the investment we have outside of our self. Even though this was your personal experience Abby this blog speaks for many.Thank you for sharing.
That is wonderful Abby, that teaches me so much about love.
This is super important for many to hear as we think being loyal means staying with a person no matter what but to be truly loyal means to know them in essence and to not allow them to continue in patterns that hurt themselves and hurt others- if we make excuses or justify it we do not give the space for them to break these patterns- we condone it, if we step back but are still loving it allows them to feel the consequences of their choices and this offers them a greater opportunity to make the choices from within.
Thank you for such an honest sharing of your relationship and the abuse you learnt to say no to. I love how Serge supported you to find your own truth without imposing any judgment upon either of you – it was inspiring… and the best way to allow people come to their own choices.
That is amazing – and it shows how easy it can be to narrow one’s perception of what is true to oneself when we go into the mode of pleasing others.
Wow. When I read this line “Being loyal does not mean putting up with abuse” I had to cry. How toxic it is to mix up loyalty or love from its true meaning.
Thank you Abby for a very inspiring blog, It is amazing how much abuse we have put up with thinking this was love .I stayed in an abusive relationship for a number of years believing God had placed me there, I did not realise at the time that I could say no to abuse of any kind, as I grow in more self love, slowly I am dropping unloving behaviours.
Abby you wrote: “I learnt how powerful we can be by just listening to someone without judging their choices.” That is really also what I found out as well and ever since I practice it to the best of my ability as for me this is one way how I can give back what I have re-learned by myself.
The strength we discover when we are true to what we are feeling is immense, and that is the power in Serge Benhayon’s work. You can feel it in this blog, and I’m sure I have heard it in a thousand other examples where people have simply been encouraged to trust how they feel and live from that innermost knowing.
This is an extremely powerful blog and very inspiring. “Being loyal does not mean putting up with abuse”, and when we connect to the truth our inner strength guides and supports. No abuse is acceptable and when we claim that we can move forward with love.
This is a very powerful blog Abby. What you’ve share can inspire people who may be in a similar situation to understand that loving someone doesn’t mean we can’t say ‘no’, especially to abuse. To truly love someone is to express truth without judgement or expectation and saying ‘no’ can actually be very loving when it is done from a place of love and understanding. I can totally relate to your blog. I too now understand what it means to be in a relationship and what love means. Love does not contain any trace of abuse only absolute truth, joy, stillness and harmony.
This is fantastic to read Abby, it shows what love truly is, and it is supporting each other to be more and hold them dearly in the utmost regard and understanding. And in this, saying no to abuse and ending the relationship has been as you shared the most loving thing to do. It is great to get this understanding, that love is not about staying together for the sake of loving each other…