Does Time Heal All Wounds?

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When people contact me early in their divorce experience, the edges still rough and the emotions raw, I often find myself saying, “It’s early still. Give it some time.” It’s counsel I hate to give because it suggests that the pain has to be endured before it can be erased. Yet it’s also truth; there are some parts of healing that can only be addressed through the passage of time.

Time is a critical component of healing from loss. Yet it is no panacea, containing all of the answers.

What time does…

Time Softens I like to think of time as flowing like a river. When you first experience loss, it is a rough and jagged stone, thrust suddenly into the stream. At first, the river is diverted, pausing as it navigates this alien and unwanted intruder. In time, the river wears away at the rock, softening its edges and incorporating it into its topography. The loss is still there, but the serrated edges that sawed through your heart are worn into a blunt edge that provides a constant, yet bearable, pressure.

Time Muddies Memories At first, memories come in great waves, slamming into your gut without notice and stealing your breath away. The images play across your brain in high definition and the current reality pushes in with its ugly disparity. As the calendar advances, these memories lose some of their clarity, the details fading like linen left in the sun.

Time Permits Acclimation When you first experience loss, it’s like the gaping hole left behind by a missing tooth. It demands your attention. You worry at it. Obsess about it. Over a period of weeks and months, the shock and novelty fade. The need to talk about your situation will become less pressing and your mind will begin to make space for other things again.

Time Provides Experience The first time through any difficult experience is always the hardest, as the coping mechanisms and strategies have yet to be developed and you are not sure what to expect. Time gives you ample opportunity to practice breaking down and making it through. Each time you feel the pain, you get a little better at being with it and moving through it.

Time Allows For Opportunity Time supplies you with opportunities to implement the modalities that help with healing – counseling, journaling, mindfulness, movement. All of those strategies require time and repetition in order to be effective. Time also allows for new experiences, reminders that even though you’ve experienced loss, you’re still living and there are smiles to be found amongst the tears. Those moments of respite give you hope that things can be better.

 

What time does not…

Time Doesn’t Mean You Forget You will never forget. Time does not erase all memories, delete all pain. It’s still there, but there is also space for you to live alongside of it.

Provide Automatic Processing Time doesn’t do the healing. You do. If all you do is wait, you’ll feel much the same, only with more wrinkles. Time simply gives you the space and opportunity to work through it.

Time Doesn’t Provide Understanding Time won’t answer the “why” question for you. It won’t reveal why life is harder for some of us than others and why bad things can happen to good people. What time does give you is some perspective that suggests that maybe understanding why isn’t really that important.

 

Time may not heal all wounds, but it helps to cushion you from the emotional wound, becoming a sort of insulating layer. And with that distance, you have to space to breathe, to process and to live again.

 

 

Ten Things We Do For a Sense of Control During Divorce

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Divorce is weird.

Before separate homes are obtained, your spouse is someone you (probably) see more days than not, someone you (most likely) speak to at least once in a 24-hour period and someone who (ostensibly) knows you better than anyone else.

And then you split. And the person who was your everything becomes a sort of avatar in some alternate universe. I mean, they’re not dead but they’re also not the person you knew. They’ve become an almost stranger, yet one that is still somehow familiar.

It’s a weird feeling, going from thinking about them all the time to struggling to not think think about them at all. And in this topsy-turvy turned around world, we often do some strange things in an attempt to regain a sense of control and dominion over our own lives.

Are any of these familiar to you??

 

1 – Sleuthing and Snooping

This was my preferred bid for control while I was waiting to for the courts to confirm that my marriage was over. I somehow felt more comfortable, more confident when I had an idea of where my ex was and what he was doing. It was simply too… well, weird, to go from daily contact to none. So I, in essence, kept up a one-sided relationship for several months by checking to see if his car was at his parents’ and reading his other wife’s blog.

The snooping gave me a sense of control over what was happening to me. Even though I had no influence over the events, I could at least gather some information. And since that’s exactly what I didn’t have during the marriage, it was sort of currency that helped to pay down my anxiety.

Information can become addictive. I realized that my need to keep up with him was beginning to hurt more than help when I recognized that I was energized by the discovery of new information, defeated once it was learned and allowing myself to be controlled by the incoming data.

I made the decision to go cold turkey and never look him up again. That choice was right for me. Do what’s best for you. No matter your choice, think carefully – Are you gaining a sense of control or are you allowing the information to control you?

 

2 – Giving Advice to the Ex

I have worked with several people who find themselves in a position of advice-giver and informal life coach for their ex spouse. The role is often a comfortable one for both partners, especially as it continues to promote helplessness in one and power in the other all while continuing a sense of connection.

I understand the motivation to act as guide for your ex. It’s scary to have someone loose in the world who knows your innermost thoughts and vulnerabilities. The thought of them moving on can stop up a sense of unease. What better way to limit the damage and narrow the options than to act as their advisor?

Of course, this role is often limited in scope and span. At some point, the former partner will either ignore the counsel outright or will begin to seek advice elsewhere. And for the advising partner, the control is more illusion than reality. You can suggest, but you cannot mandate. And that’s a good lesson to learn.

 

3 – Assigning Labels 

I’ve spoken quite a bit about the current trend of labeling people as narcissists. Regardless of the true rate of the disorder, the motivation behind readily assigning labels comes down to a desire for a sense of control.

Whenever we have encounters with difficult people or situations, we use labels to name it and give ourselves a sense of mastery over it. It’s not unlike the concept of knowing a monster or demon’s name in literature; once we name it, we can begin to understand it. And once we understand it, we can then control its influence.

Labeling is a powerful tool. A necessary one. Especially in cases of abuse or extreme power imbalances, labels are extremely effective at deflecting attempted attacks and predicting future ones.

However, labels are also limiting. They are like Cliff Notes, a mere summary of an entire narrative. If you spend too long focused only on the brief synopsis, you risk losing sight of the larger picture.

 

4 – Applying Rigid Rules

“I can’t date again unless it has been at least one year since the divorce.”

“I will never allow myself to trust again.”

“I have to walk exactly 2 miles every single day.”

Rules have their place. Guidelines are important. Yet when requirements become too restrictive or inflexible, it’s a sign that they are being clung to out of a need for control. Sometimes having too many options becomes overwhelming, so we artificially prune our choices until they seem manageable.

I fell into this one during high school with my eating habits as I struggled to gain a sense of control over my health after a freak arm condition and my life as several young friends died. I cut many foods out of my diet and limited my fat intake to unhealthy low levels. In the midst of all of the craziness, calories were one thing I could count on.

By all means, give yourself lines to color within. Just make sure that you’re also giving yourself room to grow and expand.

 

5 – Allocating Blame

The most powerful person in a courtroom is the one who hands down judgments. When we point our fingers at another, it helps us to feel as though we are the ones who are calling the shots. After all, the voice is the only weapon left to the victim, the ability to say, “You did this to me.”

Sometimes blame can be empowering, the acceptance of a painful truth acting as a starting point. Other times, blame becomes a trap, keeping you from looking within.

I felt righteous as I first blamed my ex. After all, I didn’t cheat. I didn’t steal. He was the bad one; I was the good. It seemed so clear. But as time moved on, it also rang false. Yes, he did do those horrific things. And no, I did not. But that didn’t mean that I had no responsibility to accept myself.

What I was really looking for was a promise that this wouldn’t happen again. And that wouldn’t come from pointing fingers at him; the best assurances would come from understanding myself.

 

6 – Micromanaging the Kids

Coparenting is no joke. Just when you get the whole parenting together thing figured out, you have to learn to trust your ex (of all people!) with your children.

A common response to this stressful situation is to try to control all aspects of the children’s experience with the other parent, from the color of their shirts to the side of the car they sit on. Every detail is considered and communicated.

All of that is fear talking. The fear of letting your children out of your sight. The fear that maybe they don’t need you as much as you think they do. The fear of letting go before you’re ready. And so you strive to hold on any way that you can.

Kids need space to grow. Their other parent needs room to navigate their role. This is where trust comes in. Decide what is really important and let go of the rest.

 

7 – Looking For Reasons Why

I was desperate to figure out why my ex did what he did. I turned myself into an amateur sleuth mixed with armchair psychiatrist in an attempt to make sense of the unanswerable. The search itself made me feel like I was more driver and less passenger of my life as I controlled my focus.

This strategy offers a different sort of control. We want the world to make sense. We expect things to be fair. By looking for explanations and motivations, we are trying to prove that the world still operates according to some common sense guidelines.

Looking for “why” can become a trap because there is rarely a satisfactory answer that suddenly causes everything to fall into place. Instead, some tentative understandings may be reached along with a hearty dose of, “who knows?”

 

8 – Obsessing Over the Ex’s New Partner

As soon as I learned the name of my husband’s other wife, I set out to learn everything I could about her. I found out the names of her family members, her place of birth and the high school she graduated from. I used the wedding receipts to ascertain that she was a vegan and I learned about her passions from her blog entries.

In my case, my interest was short-lived. Once I actually talked to her (a conversation that is stranger than fiction; check out the book to get the full story), I realized that his actions were way more about his escape than her attributes.

Others don’t have such an easy out. The new partner is front and center in their minds, becoming all-consuming. And by focusing on this (probably) inconsequential person, they are able to look away from the more painful aspects of the split. In other words, obsessing over the new partner is a way to control the overwhelming emotions.

 

9 – Diving Into the Court Battle

You’ve accepted that you can’t change the past. You’ve admitted that you can’t alter your ex’s behavior. But you can still steer your attorney as long as you keep signing the checks.

Some people seek to find some feeling of jurisdiction during the changes that accompany divorce by striving to dominate the legal process. Some do this through offensive moves, requiring that their ex respond to the constant volley of demands. Others control through noncompliance, dragging out the process and stringing their exes along.

Ultimately, only the attorneys benefit from this bid for power. And no matter how much you pay your lawyer, you may discover that only the judge can make the final call.

 

10 – Changing the External

The breakup haircut. The divorce remodel. We joke about those things because they’re true. When relationships end, we are often driven to make changes in our external world, either by changing our appearance or by altering the space around us. It’s a small way of exerting just a little bit of control in a world gone mad. It’s a way of saying, “I may not be able to command everything, but at least I have authority over this.”

This is one of the healthier ways to find a sense of mastery in your new and unpredictable life. As long as you maintain control over your budget, that is!

And if you think your need for control is out of control, check out this advice on how to rein it in.

 

 

 

6 Self-Care Tips When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed By Divorce

Posted on by stilllearning2b
overwhelmed

These aren’t magic elixirs that will suddenly make everything okay, but these six strategies can help you cope while divorce seems intent on bringing you down:

 

1 – Limit the Time Spent With People Who Exhaust You

It doesn’t matter if it’s your mother or your neighbor, when you’re feeling flattened by divorce, it’s okay to limit your exposure to people that you find emotionally draining. It’s okay to not answer your phone. It’s okay to come up with an excuse why you can’t make the weekly dinner this Friday. It’s okay to duck behind the couch when the doorbell rings.

Right now, you need to take care of you and if that means keeping others at arm’s length for a time, so be it.

 

2 – Say “No” to Unnecessary Obligations

Maybe you’ve always been the one to organize the neighborhood Halloween party or spearhead the new campaigns at work. Perhaps your friends are accustomed to asking you to help shuttle the children around or you are the family “go to” when discord arises.

Their expectations and your past history do not mean that you have to continue those things. This is a time to pare down, to simplify. Say “no” to those burdens that can be pushed off, ignored or delegated. You’re not helping anyone if you spread yourself so thin that you begin to disappear.

 

3 – Cut Yourself Some Slack

You are not going to operating at your normal levels of functioning right now and that. is. okay. Consider this like recovering from a major illness. You’re not going to go straight from the sick room to the starting line of a marathon. Likewise, don’t expect to leave divorce court and immediately be operating at peak capacity.

This is a perfect time to adjust your expectations. Let some things slide. Prioritize where you spend your energy. And, most importantly, forgive yourself for your mistakes and your shortcomings. You will return to your normal bad-ass self again. In the meantime, it’s okay if you’re just managing to get your ass out of bed.

 

4 – Set Yourself Up For Sleep Success

The hours between sunset and sunrise somehow manage to feel twice as long and three times as lonely when you’re struggling. You can make the nights a little more bearable by priming the pump for a calmer mind. Explore trying vigorous exercise at night to exhaust the body. Try instituting a ban on any divorce or ex-related tasks for the 2-3 hours before you retire. Make sure your bedroom feels like a comfortable space with no visible emotional reminders. Lose yourself in a story by watching, reading or listening before you retire.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and find that your nightmares have traveled with you, make an effort to interrupt your thoughts. Try an engrossing puzzle, take out your journal or even just take a bath or shower to help your mind shift gears.

 

5 – Incorporate Daily Movement

When we’re exhausted, we often think that what we need is to stop. Yet too much time in a still body makes the mind quite the active wanderer. Make a vow with yourself to move every day. Go for a walk before dinner or try some morning yoga. If you like being around people, use this as an excuse to join a team or group exercise class.

On those days when you just don’t feel like it, tell yourself you’re going to give it 5 minutes and that you have permission to stop at that point if you want. More often than not, once you begin moving, you’ll want to keep moving.

 

6 – Ask For Specific Help

People want to help. But first, they need to know that you want help and then, they need to know what sort of assistance they can offer. So tell them. I know it feels weird and maybe even shameful to admit that you can’t do it alone. Yet that’s more an internal dialog than an external truth. After all, when you offer assistance to a friend in a rough patch, are you secretly judging them or are you just happy that there is something you can do?

Ask for what you need, whether it be picking up your dry cleaning to an evening phone call to help keep the loneliness at bay. It’s amazing how freeing just a small bit of help can be when your plate is both overflowing and collapsing.

 

The way you feel right now is not the way you’ll always feel. What works for you today may no longer be appropriate tomorrow. Reevaluate your self-care strategies every 6-8 weeks and be ready to modify them as needed until that day comes when instead of feeling overwhelmed, you’re feeling energized and ready for the next step.

 

The End of a Relationship: The Leavers and The Left

Posted on by stilllearning2b
end relationship

This piece, about what happens to the people that leave relationships abruptly and/or with deception, caused quite a stir on Facebook recently. The comments fell into two camps: “Thank you for validating my experience” and “I’m the one who left my marriage and I’m tired of being painted as the bad guy.”

The reaction got me thinking about our overall views and assumptions about those that leave a relationship versus those that stay. Rarely, is it as simple as leaver = bad and left = good. Let’s explore what it means to be the one who leaves versus the one who is left behind.

The Leaver

Anyone who has chosen to end a marriage faces societal stigma. No matter how sensitively and maturely (don’t worry, we’ll talk about the jerks in a minute) they approach the divorce, they do often face the bulk of the criticism and blame. Those on the outside may paint the leaver as a quitter, not willing to put in the work to sustain a marriage. Even without any suggestion of impropriety, people may question if there was an affair that prompted the decision. Friends of both partners may empathize more with the one who has been left and put the responsibility for the pain at the feet of the leaver.

The spouse that is left may lash out in pain, a struggle to accept the situation morphing into an attack on the departing spouse. Because no matter how much the leaver tries to deliver the news with compassion, the pain screams louder than any concern. In an attempt to garner more sympathy, the left may spin stories about their ex, painting them as horrible instead of human. And for someone who struggled mightily with the decision to leave, this can be an additional punch to the gut.

It is often assumed that the decision to leave was made rashly, selfishly. Yet for the non-jerks, it may well have been an internal battle that had been tearing them up for years. And the decision may have been made as much for the well-being of the other spouse or the children as for the happiness of the one who made the decision.

Sometimes a spouse demonstrates great courage and character by deciding to end the marriage. This is certainly the case when an abused partner gathers the conviction to leave their abuser. It is also the case where boundaries have repeatedly been ignored and promises left unfulfilled; it takes bravery to say, “Enough is enough” and be willing to walk away. And this can also be true when the marriage has real issues and the one who leaves is the only one willing to peak beneath the facade of perfection.

Those who leave are taking a blind dive into the unknown (I know some have a new bed already made; we’ll get to the jerks soon!). They are the ones making that choice and willingly accepting the repercussions. In the case of the good folks, they may agonize over the best way to announce the end so that it causes as little pain as possible.

The leaver may appear to be rational, even cold, after the news is delivered. For the non-jerks, this is usually a combination of months or years adapting to this decision and a need to start creating some emotional distance. They may be dealing with massive guilt and simply can’t bear to see the destruction of the family from the front row. The withdrawal can read as non-caring when it may simply be self-protection.

When it comes to the jerks, their motivations and approach are entirely different. They often exhibit cowardice when leaving – choosing to disappear completely, painting their unsuspecting spouse as the malicious one, embezzling marital funds to ease the transition, or cultivating an affair so that they can slide out of one bed and into another. They make no attempt to soften the blow and may even appear to revel in their ex’s pain. Their reasons for leaving are selfish in nature and may even involve years of deceptions and manipulations. Some of them are ignorant, some of them are mental ill and some of them are just assholes. And they are a big part of the reason we tend to stigmatize those that leave a marriage.

The Left

The spouse who is left usually has the benefit of society’s empathy and commiseration. We’ve all felt the pain of rejection and so it’s easy to put ourselves in that person’s shoes. Even though there still may be some judgment, usually in the form of, “What did you do to make them leave?” it is less pervasive than the criticism faced by the one who leaves.

The one who is left may be in shock and, as a result of not being prepared for this sudden change, may make decisions that seem strange or even harmful. Even though they may not face the same stigma, they may feel pummeled by a storm of the “shoulds” by well-intentioned friends and family.

Sometimes, the one who is left demonstrates perseverance and hope, aware of the issues in the marriage and determined to address them. Maybe they have sought counseling, taken the hard looks inside and made the personal changes needed to improve the marriage. When their partner throws in the towel, they may feel angry that their efforts were wasted.

Other times (like in my case), the one who is left is cowardly, afraid to see the reality of the marriage in case a mere glance is enough to shatter what remains. Maybe they are more afraid of being alone than of staying put and so they close their eyes to the facts. Or perhaps they struggle to take responsibility for their own actions (and consequences), so they stay put hoping that their spouse will be the one to take the leap (and assume the culpability).

The ones who stay may be motivated out of codependence, a belief that they can “fix” their partner. They may be willing to be a doormat, preferring to be trampled on than not needed at all. If there is abuse, they may stay because they’ve been led to believe that they “deserve” the mistreatment (abuse is never okay!) and they lack the self-worth needed to make an escape.

The one who is left may be blindsided by the split (raises hand) or may have played an active role in triaging and trying to treat the marriage. For the former, the one-sidedness of the end can not only create immense shockwaves, it can also make it harder to move out of a victim mindset. For the latter, they may feel gratitude towards their partner for taking that needed (and uncomfortable) step.

No matter the nature of the end, the way that the leaver handles it is a key factor in how the one who is left will respond. The worst ways include abandonment and character assassination. The best, a calm and in-person conversation with time to talk after the initial news has been processed. And that responsibility lies entirely with the leaver, which means the one who is left often feels powerless about the decision and the way it was handled. And this helplessness is perhaps the worst part of being left.

(I’m not going to get into the myriad effects of being left by a jerk here; I feel like I’ve addressed that enough over the years!)

Divorce isn’t easy for anyone, whether you were the one who decided the marriage was over or you were the one who received the news. Regardless of your situation, you are responsible for your actions after the decision has been made. Strive to act with compassion and kindness towards yourself and others. Divorce is hard enough as it is, there’s no need to make it harder.

Who Is This Person? Coming to Terms With Your Ex’s Sudden Coldness

Posted on by stilllearning2b
sudden coldness

We stood in front of the security line of the Atlanta airport. I felt so loved, so safe in the familiar space created between his chest and his arms, listening to his heart beat through his shirt. I teared up a little as I turned away, already missing my husband of sixteen years as soon as the physical contact was broken.

It was supposed to be goodbye for a week.

It turned out to be goodbye forever.

By the next time I saw him, eight months later in the courtroom, he had become a stranger. A forbidding stranger.

In an instant, this man had gone from my protector to my persecutor. My ally to my greatest threat. And instead of professing love, he was waging war.

It was as though a switch had been flipped.

I just couldn’t wrap my head around the seemingly abrupt transformation. Had this malicious man been hiding in my marital bed the entire time? Did he somehow wake up one morning a different person? Or was he always this way and I was finally able to see the truth?

The reality is probably a little bit of all of those.

Self-protection is at the root of behavior.

To begin with, it’s important to remember that at its core, all behaviors are self-protecting. To that end, it made sense for him to play the part of a loving husband while he chose to remain in the picture. This act allowed him to avoid my rage, sadness and disappointment over the reality of his actions.

Once he left, the distance and coldness again protected him from feeling my pain. In essence, by acting as though he didn’t care, he could begin to believe it. A barrier of disassociation. In this view, the switch was flipped more in an effort to prevent pain than in an effort to inflict damage.

For my part, believing in his good-husband routine insulated me from the painful truth during our marriage. I didn’t want to see the deception he was capable of, so I chose to believe in the best of him. And then once he left, a switch was flipped in me. I couldn’t understand how someone I loved (and who I thought loved me) could do those things, so I chose to see him as all-bad. This view, and the distance it provided, served to protect me from further damage to an open heart.

Cognitive dissonance is a powerful force.

Cognitive dissonance happens when somebody’s beliefs about themselves and their behaviors are not in alignment. It is a very uncomfortable position, and so we often strive to change either our actions or our beliefs so that they again line up.

One of the ways that my ex minimized his cognitive dissonance between the conflicting belief of seeing himself as a good person and the action of committing bigamy is by justifying his choices. Over time (and without my knowledge), he had demonized me, both in his mind and to others.This belief then allowed him to act in a cruel and hateful manner towards me while still maintaining his internal integrity.

My own cognitive dissonance was amplified towards the end of the marriage as the belief that my husband was an amazing guy was beginning to be challenged by the cracks in his facade. And then upon the receipt of the text that ended it, the wool was brutally ripped away from my eyes.

And for the first time, I saw him as he was, not as he wanted to be seen.

You can’t see the big picture until all of the pieces have been assembled.

I now believe that the man I married was not the same man I divorced many years later. He changed, significantly and detrimentally, most likely from a combination of addiction and unaddressed childhood trauma.

Yet, even though he was not the cold and calculating man when we wed, that potential was within him. I saw some of the signs and yet I chose to discount them, brush them off as inconsequential.

And it was only later, once he removed his mask and I began to assemble all of the clues, that I could see how it all fit together. Even though the change felt abrupt, it was more a matter of the final piece being slid into place.

Hate is not the opposite of love.

And then there’s this – the opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference. When we truly don’t care about someone, we don’t expend the energy to make them miserable. When an ex is trying to make your life difficult or attempting to manipulate you, it’s a sign they have not yet let go. And it can also be an indication – albeit an agonizing one – of their own pain.

When you’re facing the brunt of your ex’s coldness and distance, it’s hard to respond with anything but shock, hurt and indignation. Maybe this will help.