Informed Consumer

Between the time that your wife announces the end of the marriage, and the time when you’ll find new happiness, you’re going to hurt like you’ve never dreamed possible. You’re going to go through a number of mental and emotional phases – all of which are perfectly normal and necessary in order for you to “heal yourself” of this great hurt. You’ll never be able to enjoy love or attain true happiness until you have discharged the past from your system, and healed yourself.

Think of all you’re going through as a wound similar to a gash on your arm or leg. It’s going to hurt, and you’re going to bleed, but with the proper care and time, you will recover. You must understand that divorce is quite common – you’re not alone nor going through anything that a lot of other people haven’t experienced – and that in order to “get well,” you must understand the nature of the wound, what to do in order to heal it, and as much about the pre-requisites to total recovery as possible.

At first, you’ll probably deny that this is happening to you. You may pretend that it’s just a bad dream or some sort of bad joke she’s pulling on you. This type of thinking is normal, but it only prolongs the agony of your hurt. You must face the reality of the situation – accept the fact that your marriage is over – and get on with the task of finding happiness for yourself, immediately.

You’ll probably lay awake in bed at night and review “every minute” of your marriage – thinking that in this or that circumstance, you could’ve been a better husband, and from there beg for another chance. You’ll want to accept full responsibility – at least a big share of the guilt – for the problems that caused the break-up of your marriage. These thoughts are only natural, but they cannot put your marriage back together, and any attempts to “try one more time,” at this stage will only cause you greater pain. You must accept the fact that your marriage is over, and busy your mind and yourself, with activities that don’t allow you time to “rehash” the events of the past. Don’t allow yourself to dwell upon guilt feelings. It takes two people to make a marriage, and marriages come apart because of the differences in the two people involved. No one is perfect, and happiness in life is a matter of learning from our mistakes. Accept your own short-comings; vow that you will profit from what you’ve experienced; and then get on with your life. You’ll never be comfortable with yourself, nor find real happiness so long as you’re dragging “guilt feelings from your past around with you.

Somewhere along the way, you’ll become so angry with your ex-wife – the world – and even God, that you’ll be beyond yourself in your ability to express it all. It will be necessary that you express this anger – to get it all out of your system – before you’ll be able to “feel good” around women again.

Anger is the process of projecting onto another person, your own sense of hurt and frustration. It’s such a volatile and all-consuming emotion that unless you give it an outlet, it will literally eat you alive. The thing to do is to understand your anger, and manage it in a manner that will benefit you – in such a way that your expression of it is constructive to your regaining your emotional health.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Divorce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.