So last time my column caused quite a stir on social media, especially on New Era’s Facebook. Nothing I didn’t expect. I mean I have been on this earth long enough to know that people can get offended when you live life according to your terms.
I feel sorry for everyone who felt the need to call me all sorts of names all because I said: there is no rule book to marriage; to leave couples to figure themselves out and to stop misguiding each other and reminding married people as to how they should behave.
I feel sorry for you because, with that self-righteous complex, you don’t even realize you’re a bully. 

Not once did I say to be or do like me. Instead, the message was clear – decide for your own marriage/relationship what the rules are going to be. The reaction from some individuals was a clear testament as to how we are pressurized into following these fake ideals of marriage.
All those people who had so many negative things to say about me, have never met me a single day in their life. And by sharing just a glimpse of my life, they felt they knew me, my marriage and its dynamics. 

I am who I am, and I will not change that because I am married, or because of judgement or anything else. I have vowed to myself to live a life authentic and unapologetic. If you have a problem with that, that is your business, not mine. I value my marriage and will never do anything to jeopardize my relationship with my husband. 
My husband and I found it hella funny how easy it is for people to vilify your character just because your beliefs don’t align with theirs. 
People have control issues over other people’s lives. We look at people’s lives and have a lot to say about the way they live it, but we have no right whatsoever.

Look if it doesn’t affect you, it shouldn’t affect you.
Everything we believe in today, whether taught to us by our parents or learned and accepted along our life journey, is because we chose to believe in it. So who are you, to tell anybody what they should or should not believe and apply to their lives? This is not our way of life. 
When our creator gave us all lives, he did not make anybody supervisor over anybody else’s.  
How selfish of you to have your own life and still want to control the lives of others? Who do you think you are? What makes you so special? Stop kidding yourself. We are all equals here. And all of us will have to go answer for ourselves one day. Our creator will not go ask you about me or anybody other than yourself.

There comes a time in life when you have to face everything you know. Everything you believe to be your truth, and question whether these beliefs are actually yours or just because you were taught or saw this growing up/old. Because if you really think about it, most of our beliefs come from other people. Somebody started a tradition, and people followed. 
Everything you believe is your truth and that’s why it’s so important to choose carefully what your truth is and respect that someone else will have an entirely different truth, depending on how they grew up, where they’re from, and what they chose to accept, etc. So let people choose what they want to believe in and follow. That is entirely up to them.
And to all the victims of these social bullies, know these people have no clue what it’s like to be you or to walk in your shoes, but they have so much to say about it.

Always remember that you give people the power to control you. They are not holding a gun to your head. It only works if you listen to them. 
It’s a fight, a choice you have to make every day; to ignore and chase after your happiness, or listen, give in, and let them control you with simply their words or thoughts of you!
Who are you going to choose? Yourself or them? I hope you choose you!

Paula Christoph’s column concentrates positive and inspirational write-up’s every second Friday in the New Era newspaper.