How to Move Forward When You Still Want Revenge

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Stephen King calls spite “methadone for the soul,” a replacement preoccupation we partake of in order to avoid the real pain of suffering.

And much like a drug,  a feeling of ill will towards those who have harmed us is a challenging habit to quit.

It’s normal to want to strike back, to want those who have rendered harm to experience the pain. Yet, as we learn from Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, a life solely lived for revenge ends up only inflicting more harm and doesn’t act to end the pain.

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I know I struggled with finding a balance between my desire for retribution and my hunger to put it all behind me after my divorce. Petty or even violent thoughts pushed through the aura of compassion I tried to carry, simultaneously capturing my attention and making me feel dirty. Proving the aptness of King’s description of spite.

Eventually, I found a place where I can live with what he did and, perhaps more importantly, live with myself. Here’s what helped me:

Distinguish Between a Place You Visit and a Place You Live 

It’s impossible to suppress all feelings of spite. So don’t. It’s okay to spend some time with fantasies and feelings of retribution. But think of them as a temporary residence, a short-term stay rather than a homestead. Visit when the urge overwhelms and then close the door behind you when you’re ready to leave.

Be Mindful of Your Intentions (and Their Consequences)

Are you motivated to lose weight solely to show your ex what they’re missing? Are you trying to make your life look Pintrest-perfect in order to make your ex jealous? Although your actions may be perfectly okay, the underlying motivations will only undermine your actual experience. It’s hard to be in the moment when you’re focused on how you hope your ex will respond to the moment. Do what you want for you, not for them.

Apply Humor Liberally

Almost everything is better in life when we take it a little less seriously. And revenge certainly falls into this category. When you’re flooded with malevolent feelings, take them into the absurd. Make light of them. Finding humor in your malevolent desires not only helps to make you feel better, it also helps to burn through some of that excess energy that revenge tries to capitalize on.

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Be Careful With Communication

Thoughts can only hurt you as much as you let them. But once you put those thoughts out into the world, others can elect to weaponize those ideas against you. Be careful what you speak and to whom. Venting is better expressed in your journal than on Facebook. A little selective silence here will pay dividends when you’re no longer focused on retribution.

Refrain From Judging Your Vindictive Feelings

Ban “should” from your vocabulary. You do feel this way. Start with accepting that. When we fight too hard against something, we only feed it through attention. A desire for revenge doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean you’re sinking down to their level. It simply means you’re human and hurt and angry.

Feelings Don’t Have to Translate Into Action

Accept your feelings, but also refrain from giving them too much power. Just because your urge is to act out, you don’t have to listen. Create barriers and boundaries if you need to that allow time and space between the impulse and your ability to act upon it. Enlist help here, if needed. Sometimes just venting to a trusted ear alleviates much of that desire to act.

Focus on Elevating Yourself Rather Than On Tearing Them Down

Revenge is often motivated by an impulse to be doing better than the one who did you harm. And there are two ways to accomplish this – by tearing them down or by building yourself up. The latter provides better and more lasting results.

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If you want to read more about karma (and have a few good laughs too), click here!

6 Ways Re-Watching Your Past Can Help You Move On

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Brock and I are currently re-watching all of the released seasons of Game of Thrones.

We were late to the GOT party, only bingeing on the first 5 seasons just last year. But even though the characters and plots should be fresh in our memories, we realized after recently viewing season 6 that we had significant gaps in our comprehension and analysis of the story.

The initial viewing was a journey of emotion, raw and often impulsive. It provided us with feeling (so much feeling!), but left much to be desired in terms of understanding. The second viewing has been illuminating. The emotional response has nowhere near the intensity that it did in the beginning, but from this perspective, we are now able to make connections that eluded us earlier. It all makes sense now. 

After the finale of season one wrapped the other evening, I realized that the process of re-watching Game of Thrones in order to build a complete picture of the story and find understanding of the characters and their motivations was analogous to how I approached processing my own past.

Here are 6 ways that re-watching your past can help you move on:

Re-Watching As an Active Pursuit

If we simply sat inert on the sofa with Game of Thrones playing on the television, we would gain nothing more from the experience. Instead, we are alert as we watch, looking for clues and connections we missed the first time. We utilize the pause button so that we can discuss a theory or a sudden realization. When we’re still confused, we seek help, learning from those who are more experienced. Overall, we benefit from considering other perspectives and opinions as we develop our own.

It’s easy to be passive about your past, allowing mental films to play on repeat. This is ruminating, not processing (learn more about this) and keeps you stuck instead of helping you move on. Instead, be an active participant as you review your marriage and its demise. Focus on making connections and creating understanding. Seek outside viewpoints and guidance, but also realize the importance of adhering to what feels true to you.

Analysis is Easier When All is Revealed

When we first watched Game of Thrones, we had to accept certain actions and decisions by the characters at face value. We didn’t yet understand the history and background that would lead a character towards a certain choice (especially because some of these connections are not revealed until much later). This time through, we’re able to piece together the long-standing conflicts between the families and follow the wrongs that have been committed on all sides. It doesn’t make some of their decisions any more palatable (I had forgotten how gruesome the Stark slaughter is!), but it does provide some insight into their motivations.

When you’re reviewing a marriage after it has ended, you have all of the puzzle pieces you need to create an awareness of the big picture and to propose some plausible motivations for choices and behaviors. If you can find some understanding into why your ex did what they did, it can help soften any residual anger and release any lingering victimhood. Seeing the bigger picture doesn’t excuse poor choices, but it does help to see them a bit differently.

Assumptions Are Often Incorrect

As we watched the first time through, we lost track of many of the details and often took a wrong turn while trying to decipher the tangled branches of the family trees. We made assumptions to fill in the gaps of knowledge and to bridge between story points. We help many of those assumptions through all of the initial viewing. They became our lens for creating understanding. And now many of those conclusions have been challenged and it impacts the way we interpret further information.

The end of a relationship is a fertile breeding ground for assumptions. So much is unknown and so much is felt, that we easily assign erroneous conclusions. Conclusions that then become the basis for any further interpretation. By actively re-watching with an open mind, you can evaluate your early assumptions and decide if they still hold true or if they would benefit from revision.

Nobody is All-Good or All-Bad

I had forgotten how much we hated him in the beginning. One of the characters is a multi-faceted and overall kind man in the latter seasons. But in the first episodes? He comes across as a self-centered and impulsive man. And he was. Until he faced things that forced him to change his ways and broaden his perspective. Throughout the story, we see the weaknesses and strengths of all the characters, even those who are most celebrated or reviled. Some have commendable motivations for horrific acts while others perform valiantly in one venue and are reprehensible in others. Ultimately, there are no “good guys “and “bad guys”. There’s just guys, trying to make it through.

At the end of marriage, especially when your spouse behaved badly, it’s easy to cast them as the “bad guy” and paint yourself as “the good one.” It feels virtuous at first and there’s a comfort to be found in shifting all blame. But eventually, you end up typecast, not as the “good guy,” but as the victim. As you re-watch your past, be alert to signs that your ex had a good side and be aware of your own darker urges and behaviors. Nobody is all-good or all-bad. We’re simply all human.

A Negative Event Can Lead to Positive Outcomes

One of the aspects I love most about Game of Thrones is the strong characters who refuse to be limited by the tragedies that befall them. It’s easy to paint some of these events as negative. And in the short-term, they often are. But then we see the characters learn from the event, challenge their limitations and finally grow stronger than they were initially. As you see a paralyzed child learn to master his mind, it’s no longer clear that the event that caused his injury was detrimental to his life in the long run. And now, watching those early tragedies, there is none of the original sadness, because we see it as a beginning, not as an end.

Our lives aren’t filled with as many plot twists as the series (thank goodness!), but we all expereince events that are easy to qualify as negative because they are unwanted and often injurious in the beginning. Work to slide the “negative” label off the events in your life. Start by striving to see them as neutral, simply what happened. Then, take inspiration from your favorite characters and think about how you can create positive outcomes. How can you make this your beginning?

There Will Always be Some Mysteries

Re-watching has answered many questions. And prompted many more. The writers of Game of Thrones are careful to always withhold some information. They reveal clues rather than announce outright. There is always room for questioning and position-taking. And re-taking. It can be frustrating at times when you just want to know the facts and all you’re getting are hints. Life is no different. There will always be some mysteries, forcing an acceptance of some unknowns and acknowledging the limitations of re-watching.

No matter how many times you revisit your past, there will remain some unanswered questions. There is no benefit to continue to re-watch after you have learned what you can. Work to find an acceptance of the unknowns. You don’t need to know every detail in order to understand the first part of the story and to begin to write the rest.

Just as the events in Game of Thrones unfold in the same way the seond time through, revisiting your past does not change it. That’s not why you re-watch. You view again to see with newly opened eyes, to approach with a less emotional and fearful mind and to gain understanding and acceptance. And once you’ve done that, the past no longer has anything meaningful left to offer and can safely be taken off your mental queue.

After all, there’s always another show:)

Why “How Could You Do This to Me?” Is the Wrong Question to Ask

Posted on by stilllearning2b
how could you

I was a playlist on repeat.

“How could he do this to me?” I wailed to my dad as he made sure I was restrained by the seatbelt before racing off to the airport to escort me to the ruins of my once-placid life.

“How could he do this to me?” I cried to my mom, recalling how she always stated she found comfort in knowing that my husband looked after me.

“How could you do this me?” I whimpered on my husband’s voicemail as he continued to avoid my calls. I screamed it into the phone hours later.

“How could you do this me?” I carved into my journal imagining I was carving into his flesh instead.

“How could you do this to me?” I keened silently from the cold courtroom chair as I scanned his face for any sign of the man I had loved.

It seemed like the most pressing question. Holding an elusive answer just out of reach that, once found, would make sense of the senseless pain. I struggled to comprehend how someone that had only recently professed his love could instead act with such apparent malice.

The question consumed me. Engulfed me. Propelled me.

But all along, it was the wrong question to ask.

—–

It’s a normal question. We personalize. Internalize. When we’re feeling the impact of somebody’s actions, we can’t unfeel them. And those emotions are struggling to understand as our expectations are rudely slammed into an undesired reality.

It’s also a pointless question. One that rarely gets answered and even more infrequently, answered with any truth and clarity.

Because the reality is that the person didn’t act with the intention of doing this to you. Instead, they acted for them.

And you just happened to be in their way.

 

Here are the questions to ask instead:

What did they have to gain by doing this? What discomfort did they seek to avoid?

I was actually relieved when I discovered that my husband had committed bigamy. It was the first moment when I realized that his actions said way more about him than about me. It gave me a glimpse into his hidden world, where he was trying to escape the shame of a failed business and was trying to create a fictitious world where he was successful. Yes, he lied to me. But he lied more to avoid facing the truth himself. I was able to see his actions from his perspective, each choice either serving to bring him enjoyment or to offer him relief.

People act to move towards pleasure or, even more frequently, to move away from pain. Take yourself out of the picture for a moment. What did they have to gain from their actions? How did their choices help them avoid discomfort?

Yes, it’s selfish to act for your own benefit without considering others. And being selfish may be their character flaw. But selfish is a sign that they acted without regard for you not that they sought to do this to you.

Understanding their motivations goes a long way towards releasing the anger. It doesn’t excuse their choices. But it does help to unravel them and in turn, release you.

Why did I not notice? Why did I allow this?

Disorienting is an understatement. I stood in the property impound room beneath the police station as the policeman pulled out my husband’s everyday workbag. Inside, there was a wallet I had never seen filled with cards that were foreign. A camera soon followed, a duplicate of the one he had in his other life. The entire bag was a mix of the achingly familiar and the shockingly new.

I was confronted with the reality that my husband had been living a duplicitous life for years. Maybe even ALL of our years. And I had been clueless.

His actions were his problem. My ignorance was mine.

If you were decieved and manipulated, dig into the reasons that you were blind to reality. Like me, were you too afraid to face the truth and so you didn’t look too closely? Or were you pretending that all was okay and distracting yourself to maintain the illusion?

If you knew that you were being treated badly, why did you tolerate it? Had you been taught in childhood that you were lucky to receive any attention, even if it was negative? Were you afraid of being alone, opting for the devil you know?

These are big questions and ones often rooted in childhood or in trauma.It’s worth spending time here (maybe with the help of a counselor), especially if you want to avoid a repeat.

What am I feeling now? Is it all directly related or is some of it associated with past trauma being triggered?

I was on a mission. Needing information, I ran background reports. I combed through scraps of paper and old pay stubs looking for any relevant information. Driven, I triangulated his whereabouts using our checking account and used Google Earth to get a street view of his other wife’s home. I had one goal – to see him face the legal consequences for his actions.

It was all ultimately a distraction. If I focused on the detective work and the state of the pending legal action, I didn’t have to focus on me. On my pain. And on what I was going to do about it.

Are you focusing in the wrong direction? Maybe you’re busy attacking the other woman instead of looking at your marriage. Perhaps you’re busy going on the offensive for your day in court so that you don’t have to look within your own courtyard.

Be with your feelings. All of them. Even the ugly ones. Listen to them and then you can send them on their way.

Once I invited my feelings in, I was surprised to realize how much of my pain was only tangentially related to my husband’s disappearance. And how much was related to my own father’s perceived disappearance many years before.

It was an opportunity. A crossroads.

I could either ignore this triggered response only to have it return later.

Or I could address it. And work to understand how it impacted my adult choices and behaviors.

Stuff was done to you. What you do with it is up to you.

How will this impact me going forward? What do I need to do to move on?

“I need to find a way to make some good come from this,” I stated in a moment of profound clarity on the day I received the text that ended my life as I knew it. I had no idea how I was going to make that happen, but I knew on some level that creating something positive was going to be my key to survival. To thriving.

I had no idea just how hard that road was going to be. That even seven years on, I would still struggle to differentiate between true threats and echoes of the past. I have had to become an expert on my own healing, learning my triggers and becoming a master at disarming them.

Become a specialist in you. Explore your trouble spots and experiment with ways to strengthen them until you find what works. Be attentive to you. Be proactive. And most of all, be determined.

This is a defining moment in your life. You decide what it defines.

How can I avoid being in this position again? What are my lessons I need to learn?

A part of me – a BIG part of me – was surprised to see my fairly new boyfriend at the airport to pick me up. I had assumed that since my husband deemed it suitable to abandon me while I was visiting family, a recent beau would certainly follow suit.

I was operating from a place where abandonment was presumed. And if that mindset persisted, so would the discarding.

Instead of focusing on what happened, shift your attentions to what you can learn from what happened. They’re hard lessons, I know. The most important lessons always are.

Your power comes from choosing how you respond. And every bad moment is an opportunity to learn to respond a little better.

How can I turn this into a gift?

When I look at my life now, I am profoundly grateful for what happened years ago. I’m thankful for the shock. For the pain. For the confusion. And even for the anger. Because all of that has led to a much better place – a much happier place – than I could have ever imagined.

This is a hard question. Perhaps the hardest.

It seems impossible when you’re choking on the pain that it can actually help you learn to breathe. But it can.

Be patient. And be persistent.

Because finding the gifts hidden beneath is the best gift you can give yourself.

So that one day, instead of saying, “How could you do this to me?” you can say –

Thank you for doing this to me.

And mean it.

 

Compartmentilization: When to Build the Walls and When to Tear Them Down

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I ran over a turtle the other day.

God, even typing those words makes me feel ill. It was an accident, the turtle mixed in among the leaves on my driveway. As soon as I heard the terrible crunch, I knew what had to have happened. I said a blessing for the animal and expressed my sorrow as I dealt with the aftermath.

And it’s still haunting me. Even now, writing this, I’m crying.

This is a time where I wish that I was better at compartmentalizing. At building a closed-off drawer in my mind and safely tucking this incident in it.

There are times when it is necessary to wall off emotions or even entire situations. When you’re in a crisis that demands action, whether it be soldiers on a mission or a bystander administering the Heimlich, feelings and extraneous facts are a luxury that cannot be afforded. And even for longer-term mental health, there is often some “putting away” of thoughts and memories that needs to occur to avoid rumination and fixation.

And there are times when compartmentalizing is dangerous, when it is used as a denial tactic, allowing complacency in the face of wrong-doing. Addicts, sociopaths, narcissists and politicians (okay, so maybe that’s redundant:) )are all experts at creating uncrossable lines in their minds that permit them to behave egregiously without having to face much of the internal consequences. When building a mental barricade is effectively walling off the human side of a person.

So how can we tell when it’s healthy to compartmentalize and when it’s healthier to open the gates and face the facts or feelings?

It’s Time to Face It If…

  • You’re in denial because you’re afraid to face the reality. This would have characterized me during the end of my marriage; there were some things that felt wrong, but I pushed them away because I was afraid to face them. Here’s the thing with fear – the more you try to silence it, the louder it gets. If you confront it, you take away its power.
  • Your walling off of certain things is causing harm to self or others. An example of this would be addict who doesn’t want to hear about their actions while drunk or high because then they can pretend they didn’t happen. Even as their loved ones deal with the consequences.
  • The situation is ongoing and needs attention. If you pretend that it’s not occurring, you’re either shifting all of the responsibility to somebody else or allowing it to grow untethered. I see this sometimes with the parents of my students. The child is struggling in school and the parent is in denial of the issue and so isn’t on board with interventions to help.
  • You are avoiding thinking about it only because it makes you uncomfortable. Maybe it reveals an aspect of yourself that you would rather deny or highlights a mistake you made. But discomfort (different from pain) is often a sign that there’s something there that needs to be explored.

It’s Time to Compartmentalize If…

  • It’s a situation that demands immediate action and clarity of thought. This is the compartmentalization of first responders everywhere. When there is a crisis, tunnel vision is an asset and everything else can be pushed aside to deal with later. Do you want the person performing CPR on you to be busy processing the circumstances that caused your respiratory failure or do you want them focused only on giving you breath?
  • The circumstances are not your circus. This doesn’t mean that you cannot have empathy for others, but that you do not take on their burden as your own. I first learned this one while working in a pediatric oncology ward. And that was only one of the lessons those precious children taught me.
  • The difficult reality has been faced and the necessary lessons have been extracted. In that case, the leftovers are just a rotting shell that  can cause unneeded infection. Divorce often falls into this category. After you’ve dissected what went wrong, assumed responsibility for your role and found acceptance if not forgiveness, there is little benefit to be found in reliving the most painful parts. Put them away.
  • It’s old news that you cannot change. If it’s major enough to be of concern, it was probably major enough to change you somehow. And that’s okay. We are influenced by what happens to us, yet we don’t always need to hold onto what happens to us. This is child that faced abuse that now is an experienced marital artist. The abuse is over and done with. The coping strategies realized. There’s no reason to allow the abuse to occupy prime mental territory.

Unhealthy compartmentalizing is avoiding. Denial. It’s being weak and letting yourself be controlled.

Healthy compartmentalizing is prioritizing. Letting go. It’s being strong and deciding who and what you will allow to occupy your thoughts.

As for me, I’ve already laid that poor little turtle’s body to rest. I’m now trying to do the same with my thoughts. And I’ve made a vow to be extra careful surveying the driveway before driving in.

 

 

 

I Wonder

Posted on by stilllearning2b
wonder

My ex had a birthday recently. His 39th.

I wonder if he’s still alive. At the end of it all, he seemed to be on a collision course with an early death.

I wonder if any wrinkles or grey hairs have started to appear. I used to look forward to growing old with him.

I wonder if he still lives in the area. I hope not. In fact, I would like it if he took a job at the research station in Greenland. Or maybe started growing potatoes on the moon.

I wonder if he’s lonely. Or scared. Or still addicted.

I wonder what he thinks about our past. His actions. My reactions.

I wonder if he’s living an honest life now. Or if he’s still playing hide and go seek. Only without the seeking.

I wonder if he’s happy. I hope he is. I had years of wishing him ill. I’m past that now.

It’s such a strange feeling having somebody go from being your every-thing and your constant to suddenly being a no-thing and a gaping absence. I don’t love him. I don’t hate him. I don’t even miss him. But after so many years, it’s hard not to wonder about him.

And I wonder if he ever wonders about me too.

 

And here’s what I really, really, really wish I could tell him.

 

For the entire story, see Lessons From the End of a Marriage.