Seeing Clearly

“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 my ex 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 people. 

         I wrote the previous paragraph 5 years ago, almost to the day. I still maintain that each person has their own version of reality but now I have some added perspective. I was blind, yes blind....for most of my marriage. I never saw what was real, nor did I accept how bad things really were. I had an uncanny way of glossing over the bad parts and glamorizing the good. I suppose that this style of coping is quite normal. Some do the opposite, they only focus on the bad and minimize the good. Those types of people can never be happy. My version kept me functioning in a pretend happy, type of way. At first, when we were separating, I cycled through peaks and valley's of mourning the loss of what was and what I hoped it would be. I was so excited five years ago about a new path and tried to navigate my way through the present moment at the time. As time marched on, year after year, my mourning has turned into shock. I'm more shocked now at what I put up with for so many years, and surprised in my own ability to tune out what was really going on! Yikes, I was just way too optimistic and forgiving! LOL. I guess the healer in me always wants to believe the best in folks, but sadly...some people just have not so nice intentions. Here is the best analysis that I can muster up, to explain my incredible tolerance for not so nice behavior. 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, because we grow and our expectations and tolerance changes. Often, two people begin to hinder each others growth and staying together would just create more pain than letting go. I also observed many adults not honoring themselves and I just followed suit. So here I am, five years wiser and I'm so glad that I am shocked at my past tolerance because it means I've grown. The absolute best gift from my broken marriage is my three amazing children whom make life absolutely magical. I watch them and am so sure that they are the best of my ex and I. They are the miracle that teach me that there are no mistakes, only opportunities. As I continue to move forward, forgiveness is my lesson. All of those that have hurt us have their own lessons, and their own timing in learning those lessons. Yeah, sometimes I pray hard for karma, but that is in gods hands. I have found that some people choose to hold each other hostage in pain and anger the rest of their lives. I see that dynamic clearly now and when we all have the strength to leave situations that kept us hostage, so we have the choice to break the chains, no matter what form others attempt to control us with. Trust me, just because you divorce does not mean that dynamic is broken, it just takes a different form. My lesson is appreciation and forgiveness. It's been the only thing that keeps me free. "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).