The Part of the Betrayed

Posted on by stilllearning2b

You’ve been betrayed.

The one who promised to have and hold instead lied and stole.

Leaving you broken and questioning.

It’s not right. It’s not fair. And it’s not okay.

But it happens nonetheless.

Why People Cheat

Regardless of your feelings about monogamy or someone’s right to seek attention elsewhere if they are not receiving it at home, an affair is a breach of a contract. And many believe, a breach of character. It is an act of selfishness at best and an act of malice at worst.

But let’s forget for a minute about the betrayer. The act itself. And let us even set aside the pain for a moment or two.

Now that it’s happened, what’s your part?

What can you learn from the experience?

Don’t Internalize the Affair You didn’t cause it. You didn’t make your spouse cheat (even if they try to convince you that you did). Let go of that thought. This was their choice and their choice alone. It shows where they’re lacking, not you.

Take a Look at the Bigger Picture Sometimes an affair happens solely because of a person’s own issues. Other times, it’s a perfect storm of nature and nurture, the marital environment also playing a role. Are there areas where the marriage can be improved or where you can respond differently in a new relationship?

Add a Dash of Understanding to Your Judgment It’s natural to blame your spouse. To lash out in anger. I get it. Try also to find some understanding of why he or she responded the way they did. Just proclaiming it as wrong doesn’t help you. Understanding some of why it happened does.

Watch Your Triggers An affair can trigger earlier memories of abandonment or it can certainly be what future triggers will be about. The affair is not your part; healing its impact on you is.

Consider Alternatives Is your marriage the right fit for both of you at this time? Have you or your partner changed and now need a different option?

Protect Your Children You know how piercing and scary betrayal is for an adult. Imagine it through a child’s eyes. Shelter them from the affair when they’re young. If there are truths they need to discover (like a personality disorder, etc.) let them reveal themselves in time.

Consider the Balance of Comfort and Passion We often ask too much of our partners. We want them to be our best friends, our lovers, our dependable partner, the children’s parent and sometimes even a business partner. And all this for 50+ years til death knocks on the marital home. You can maintain passion, but too much comfort is the death of excitement. Find the balance.

You can address the above despite what your straying partner does or doesn’t do. You can learn from the experience if it ends in divorce or becomes a renewal of your marriage. You can choose how you look at the affair and how you respond.

An affair is a wake-up call. Don’t sleep though it.

I read an interesting interview with Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, which looks at the challenges facing modern marriages. Take a look at the article; it’s thought-provoking.

Oh, and for those of you that set your pain aside for a few moments, it’s okay to let it talk again. Just don’t allow it to filibuster.

Virtual Reality

Posted on by stilllearning2b

He noticed her as soon as her entered. An older woman, well dressed, standing at the counter watching the gemologist examine a rather large stone under magnification.

As my husband completed his transaction, paying for the new battery and taking possession of his watch, he couldn’t help but overhear the exchange between the woman and the expert.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I don’t know how else to tell you. The stone isn’t real.”

“The bastard!, she exclaimed,”The other one wasn’t real either.”

Through the remaining conversation, my husband was able to glean that the woman had recently been divorced and the jewelry was awarded to her in the proceedings with an assumption as to its value. Only now she was learning that part (or maybe even all) of what she thought she had to her name was worthless. And a lie.

Perhaps she was spoiled, and looking for more than her substantial settlement, but my husband read her as more panicky than pampered.

When Brock recounted this story to me, my first thought was to the duration of the deception. Did her ex husband gift her that jewelry twenty years ago with false stones in place from the beginning? Or, as I was afraid my ex may have done, were the real stones replaced at some point with lookalikes so that the husband could surreptitiously withdraw from the marital funds?

My heart ached for the woman. Not only does it hurt terribly to discover you’ve been living in a virtual reality, it is disorienting beyond belief once those goggles come off and you have to decide what is real. And what is illusion.

The mystery of the woman and the ring mirror the one question about my first marriage that still haunts me – did I marry a false man or did I marry a real man who was replaced at some point with a counterfeit? 

That’s one mystery that will never be solved. All I know is what he was at the end was certainly no diamond, despite how he acted.

And when I went to sell my ring at the conclusion of the divorce, my stone was still real. I guess he wasn’t clever enough to squeeze that stone for cash. Thank goodness for small blessings:)

What Happens To the Ones Who Leave?

Posted on by stilllearning2b
leave divorce

What happens to the ones who leave?

The ones who lie and deceive and then walk out the door into their next chapter without so much as a glance behind.

Do they feel pain? Guilt? Remorse?

Are they happy with their decisions and in their new lives?

Or do they regret the choices that ended their marriages?

For many of us, we will never know. Even if you still have contact with your ex (or keep tabs on his or her whereabouts), the life they put on display for the world may well be a front. And even if they do come back, crying about how upset they are, do you believe the tears? Or are they of the crocodile variety?

It’s common to wonder how your ex is doing. After all, they were once your partner in life, and how they felt directly impacted you. And now that they’re gone, your mind still seeks that information. Perhaps your mind even seeks retribution, wanting to see them face the consequences of their choices.

For a long time (longer than I like to admit), I needed my ex to be in pain. It was almost as though I saw it as some sort of tug-of-war with only a limited amount of happiness to share between us. And so I had to pull his away to ensure that there was enough for me.

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But that’s not really how it works, is it? It’s not as though his okay and my okay were mutually exclusive. I could be okay on my own regardless of how he was feeling.

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So why do we have such a strong drive to see those that hurt us be hurt in kind? Does it mean that we’re somehow malevolent if we harbor feelings of vengeance and pray for karma to hurry up and do her job?

I don’t believe so. In fact, I see these feelings of revenge as coming from a basic human need.

The need to be understood.

Intimate betrayal and deception is one of the most acute pains that one can be subjected to. It’s a deliberate act, carried out by the one you trust the most, that leaves residual tenderness for a lifetime.

And we desperately want someone, anyone, but especially the one responsible, to understand the depths and quality of that pain. We want them to feel it so that we can be understood and, in turn that they can know what devastation their actions have caused.

In even the most mundane of circumstances, it is beyond frustrating and isolating to not be understood. In fact, I’m feeling this way now after a day of attempting to teach math and interact with my colleagues with absolutely no voice. All day, I wrote commands on the board and tried to pantomime how to find the slope of a line only to be greeted with puzzled expressions. I would spot behavior across the room and be unable to do anything about it until I finished with the current student and navigated through the maze of desks. All I wanted was to be able to get my points across.

To be understood.

But not being able to talk for a day or two in a middle school is nothing compared to not being understood by the spouse that caused those feelings in the first place.

That goes way beyond frustrating and isolating.

In fact, for me it went into rage.

I was angry for a long time. And that anger feeds upon itself. I not only felt an immense need to be understood, I also wanted him to face punishment for his actions (it seemed only fair) and I wanted find some pleasure in knowing that I was doing better than him. Petty? Yeah. None of this was pretty.

I didn’t care where he was or what he was doing. I just wanted him to hurt. To feel guilty. Maybe even a little remorseful.

And it was my now-husband who made it clear to me that I had to learn to let the anger go. That it wasn’t hurting my ex, it was hurting me and, in turn, my new relationship. Releasing that anger was a process. I had to enlist some mental choreography to shape conclusions that let me find peace. It was a process. A slow process.

I have an advantage in this over many of you; I don’t have children. And I can’t even imagine what it feels like to see your ex hurting your child. It’s one thing to let go when you were the one who was hurt. It’s quite another when it’s your child. In fact, I see this with my mother, who can still be brought to tears when talking about my past even when I’m smiling because of my present. For you parents, all I can say is do everything you can to teach your kids to be resilient while taking care of yourself. Practice modeling for them what you want for them. And be willing to learn from them; kids often have wisdom that we overlook.

For the most part, I’m past the anger now. In fact, at this point, I want him to be okay. Partly for him, because regardless of everything else, this was a man I loved deeply for many years. Partly for me, because I feel better knowing that I’m not putting any more bad energy out into the world. But mainly for the others that will cross his path. I want him to be okay so that others will be okay. When I saw him and (I think) the other wife hand-in-hand at a festival a couple years ago, I really did hope they were happy. Goodness knows, I was happy I wasn’t the one holding his hand.

But want I want has nothing to do with reality. If he is a narcissist or sociopath, he is incapable of feeling guilt or remorse and most likely will never change. If he has compartmentalized his actions and his past to the point where he no longer remembers the truth, he will not feel pain but may continue to inflict it upon others. If he has spent so long living in a house of lies that he can no longer find the door, he will remain forever trapped.

Even though I no longer harbor a secret desire to fill his car with fire ants, I don’t really worry about how he’s doing. Because I trust that if he has been able to feel the pain from his choices, he will change how he responds in the world. And if he has not felt the anguish, then the negativity he spreads will come right back to him.

And as for me? I no longer have a need to feel understood by him. I think if he was able to understand how it felt, he wouldn’t have done it in the first place. I no longer care to see him punished; I put my faith in karma. And I no longer need to feel superior that I’m doing better than him because my okay is now completely and totally independent of him.

Besides, I’m just happy to be happy.

And I’ll be even happier when I have my voice back:)

What Do You Gain From Your Loss?

Posted on by stilllearning2b

We are primed to fear loss more than we desire gain. Numerous studies have demonstrated that people perceive a loss as more significant than an equivalent gain and will often act conservatively in order to lessen the chances of diminution. One famous example gave the participants $50. One group was given the option of keeping $30 or gambling the $50 with a chance of losing it all or retaining the entire amount. The other group was essentially given the same situation, only their first choice was framed as losing $20. In the first case, framed as a gain, the participants overwhelmingly chose to hold on to their money whereas in the second loss-based scenario, the volunteers were more willing to gamble.

We act to avoid loss.

It makes sense. From an evolutionary standpoint, a loss of food or shelter or territory could be devastating whereas a surplus did not necessarily offer increased benefit (after all, food spoils and you can only use so much land at a time). It is also much more difficult to imagine what life would be like if we suddenly acquired more, but it is much easier to envision a life without the things to which we have become accustomed.

Marketing experts use loss aversion to frame their campaigns, focusing on accentuating any potential losses rather than highlighting gains (rebates and trial periods play right into this). Behavior and motivation experts use this theory to encourage their clients to stick to a new habit (ever heard of those gyms that charge you for missing a workout?). And educators use a fear of loss to influence student behavior and learning (there’s a reason a “-5” on a paper is more influential than a “+95”).

Loss aversion can be a positive trait. It limits risk-taking and promotes a conservative view of resource management. However, like so many of our primal urges, loss aversion often operates separately from rational thought and has the potential to highjack our brain and encourage illogical conclusions and actions (like the sunk cost fallacy, which often leads us to remain in poor relationships long after their expiration date).

In short, all of these situations show that loss hurts. And sometimes that pain can be disproportionate and irrational.

As I’m sure anyone who has experienced the end of a relationship will agree.

But just like how the researchers framed the same payout as a gain of $30 or as a loss of $20, you can reframe the end of your relationship in terms of what you have gained instead of what you have lost.

No, it doesn’t change the reality of what happened.

But it can change your attitude about what happened.

Because when you see the flipside of your losses as gains, it helps to alleviate some of their sting.

I may have lost everything, but I gained a chance at a new life from scratch. There’s something energizing about purging and starting over.

I lost the shared history with my ex, but I gained the desire to reach out and reconnect with other people from my childhood.

I lost the illusion of security I had in my first marriage, but I gained a wisdom and strength that I would not have the trial I endured. And I even found 7 upsides to being betrayed.

I gained perspective, opportunity, awareness and gratitude. I found purpose and pleasure in writing and made more friends and connections than I could have ever imagined.

I gained a new lease on life. And I want to make sure I don’t waste it.

I no longer see my divorce as a loss. I see it as a chance. A course correction.

A gain.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Wayne Dyer

21 Ways to Boost Your Confidence After Divorce

Posted on by stilllearning2b
confidence divorce

Divorce has a way of making even the most self-assured suddenly become full of uncertainty. It makes us question our worth at the same time we are thrust back into the single world, only this time older, heavier, saggier and balder than before. And if you were traded in by your spouse for a younger, skinnier, smarter or wealthier partner?

Yeah.

Regardless of the nature of the split, your confidence is likely sagging after the end of the marriage. Here are some small and large ways you can rebuild your confidence as you work to rebuild your life:

1) Sign up for something with a finish line – This can be a race. A degree program. Anything that has a line to cross and a process to get there. I promise you’ll be smiling when you’ve reached the end.

2) Write and post an achievement list – This is a time to brag on yourself to yourself. Create a list of all that you have accomplished in your life. Post it where you will see it every day. Let it bring perspective that your current situation is only temporary.

3) Invest in an item that makes you feel attractive – I bought one dress that I wore on almost every first date I went on. It made me feel beautiful at a time when nothing else could. Find that one item that makes you feel good and wear the hell out of it. Careful here, notice I said one item. Don’t blow your budget in a quest for confidence.

4) Create a list of goals and track your progress – My goal post lived above my computer for the first year. Every time I felt unsure, I would look to see what I had accomplished and what I still wanted to do. It was motivation and recognition rolled into one.

5) Change your password to an affirmation – In our modern life, we enter passwords all day long. Why not make that password work for you? How would you feel if you typed, “BetterEveryDay” or “IW1llSurv1Ve” several times a day?

6) Flirt and be flirted with – You don’t have to be ready to date to meet someone’s eye and exchange some flirty banter. It feels good to be reaffirmed of your desirability. Go for it.

7) Write the timeline of your divorce and recognize your progress – Often we feel discouraged because we are so focused on the here-and-now that we don’t realize how far we have come. See it. Celebrate your progress.

8) Surround yourself with quotes and pictures that lift you up – Put them on your walls. Your computer. Your phone. Your car. Your jewelry. Let every surface whisper to you.

9) Take a break – Sometimes you just need to step away from it all for a few hours or even a few days. If you can, go on a solo trip. It’s exciting and empowering.

10) Put down the self-help and pick up some fiction – The divorce books have their place, but if you’re needing confidence, trade it in for some great stories about strong protagonists facing and overcoming challenges. The courage is contagious.

 

Continue to read the rest.

 

 

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