Misperceptions

“The divorced person is like a man with a black patch over one eye: He looks rather dashing but the fact is that he has been through a maiming experience"....(Jo Coudert). Breaking up any relationship is a messy matter, complicated with two very different perspectives and a whole heap of emotions. I understand how movies like "War of The Roses" is not always far from the truth. How do you go from saying "I do" to not trusting each other, not really knowing each other and lots and lots of hurt. I look at my own wedding pictures and remember back to how naive I was. Sometimes the goal to get married is the central theme, not how to stay married. I was hopeful way back then and thought that we had what it took to defy the 50% divorce rate statistic. I was wrong. It's no body's fault really. Oh sure, like all couples, when the emotions get stirred up, the blame game begins. The blame game is completely draining and such a waste of energy. Hurt is hurt, no matter how much finger pointing you do. It could probably be traced back to the beginning for the both of us and some major short sightedness we had in ourselves at the time. We can only blame ourselves for the break down of the marriage and ultimately learn the valuable lessons each of us needed. I am a therapist and yet I could not even fix what became so broken between us. I am also in awe in how very different our perspectives are on just about everything that has ever happened. I observe it all of the time in sessions with couples but to experience it first hand is sobering. You would think that he and I literally lived two different lives based on how each of us would describe our perception of the relationship. That goes back to the point I have made that each of us paints our own version of reality. Again, neither of us is really wrong or right, we're just very different. I cycle through peaks and valley's of mourning the loss of what was and what I hoped it would be, excited about a new path and trying to navigate my way through the present moment. In my family, divorce was pretty much the norm and I decided years ago that I would never get divorced. That was a lot of pressure to put on myself, to carry the burden of fixing an issue that was pervasive throughout my family system. I also had no tools as to how to honor myself enough to navigate choosing a partner for the right reasons. That is an issue many people are guilty of. We do the best we can at the time with the emotional tools we have available to us. As we get older, our emotional tool chest broadens and we shift and change, which is why relationships go through growing pains or just break apart eventually. Sometimes, two people begin to hinder each others growth and staying together would just create more pain than letting go. I am human and sometimes the emotional mess is just plain overwhelming. How do you grow as a person, yet deal with emotional fallout all at the same time? You step very carefully, make mistakes, reflect, learn and keep moving forward. I have a long list of positive things that I have learned over the past 18 years and I have grown as a person enormously. In the end, I just think that we never really understood each other. Many divorced couples could relate to that statement. The best gift from the marriage is our three amazing children whom make life absolutely magical. I watch them and am so sure that they are the best of my husband and I. They are the miracle that came out of this broken marriage. As we move forward, forgiveness will be our lesson, so as to not hold each other hostage to pain and anger the rest of our lives. "Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions"...(Gerald Jampolsky).