Ball and Chain

There is a phrase I heard that as a stand-alone thing sounds like a real contradiction. “You set me free with that ball and chain and threw away the key.” Yet to me in context it makes perfect sense.

It was in a story that had been put to song. Someone was married to another, yet the person they married lived a double life. The fact was known to the one they were with. Yet that person to me did the right thing though it would have been incredibly hard to do. They had a perfect right to move on but chose to stay and love.
They let the person pursue their desires even though they knew it was not good for them. They never made out it was ok, or that it was not hurtful, but they knew the choice was not theirs to make. It was the choice of another, but they never stopped loving the one they were married to.

Eventually the person recognized there was a problem and chose differently. Hence the phrase “you set me free with that ball and chain”

The one aggrieved wanted the relationship to be as it should be not to ensnare the other but to liberate. That to me is a biggy. I see in so many cults and belief systems a desire to get someone. Yet it is the outcome of it that speaks volumes to me. So often in such systems walls go up. I do not know how many times I have heard it said when someone joined a particular organization, they were cut off from their family and friends. They follow and obey the leader. Like with any good propaganda machine they are only allowed to hear what the leader wants them to hear.

For parents bringing up kids that is one thing, but it is not appropriate for adults. When a kid wants nothing but ice-cream, I do not give them what they want. Denying them is not an act of malice, but of love. When the kid is out of my care, they are free to choose for themselves, but until then my desire is to set them free with a ball and chain. If a kid eats nothing but ice-cream, they will suffer consequences. The consequences are not due to the parent, the consequences are the result of ignoring the parent. It becomes a ball and chain of entrapment. The boundaries set are only for their good and because I have their best interests at heart. Rules are not there to spoil but to protect. It is a ball and chain of freedom.

So the upshot for me is a kid is given boundaries, while an adult chooses boundaries. When someone is an adult, decisions are theirs to make. What I say or someone says to me may be the truth spoken in love, but decisions made by an adult are theirs and theirs alone.

In the song an adult made a choice. Over were the days of doing their own thing. What had looked attractive was an entrapment. They came back into relationship knowing that the ball and chain was a boundary that brought freedom.