A Golden cage is still a cage…
If you are an adult,
And someone else tells you what you can and can’t do,
What you can and can’t wear,
Where you can go and who with,
You are a prisoner.

If you have to ask their ‘permission’ to do anything,
When I hear ‘I’d love to go/do/wear that, but my wife/husband/partner won’t let me’,
Or ‘I’ll have to ask the ‘boss’,
All I hear is ‘I am a prisoner and am too scared to free myself’.
There are no bars on their cage and yet their fear is their prison.

We all have priorities and can’t always do what we want,
But who set those priorities?
Who makes the decisions?
Was it a discussion of equals and a mutual decision?
Or did you just yield because you feared the consequences?

Self worth and individual freedom are important.
Many people are victims by their own design.
They are too weak to stand up for their rights,
And as a consequence enslave themselves.
They make themselves a victim,
And make their partner an abuser.

Any good partnership is one of equal respect,
Of mutual support for whatever each partner wants to become,
Where both partners get to fulfil their life’s dream,
And each one enjoys the others growth and success,
Otherwise one is in a cage,
Either of their own making or one of their partner,
Either way it is self abuse or the bullying of a partner,
And wrong.

By Steve Rowe