To break free of the pain of divorce we must be willing to see the facts versus our interpretations of the facts. What is versus what we think is. In order to do that we must be willing to set our egos aside as well as our past. Facing the truth instead of what we want to believe is the truth is what we have to do to be able to make the changes we want in life. That is not necessarily an easy task but it is a necessary one if we are to move forward in our lives. You cannot begin a new life until you end the old one.

Here’s an exercise you can do to start on the road to recovery. Take a piece of paper with two columns: one listing the facts of your marriage’s demise and the other your interpretations of why things went south. For instance, the fact might have been that you and your husband had different ideas on money. Your interpretation of that fact might be that your ex was incredibly cheap. Separate fact from interpretation by being as objective as possible without allowing your personal opinions to cloud the issue.

A good marriage counselor will tell you that a marriage does not fail because of just one partner. Although it may not look like it to you, it is the truth. Even if your ex had an affair, there were reasons for his infidelity other than his lapse in moral judgment. If you are really honest with yourself, you will see the real reasons for why thing happened the way they did.

I had a conversation with a woman whose husband left her and her kids unexpectedly… or so she thought. In reality, he had been taking solo vacations/adventure for the past year. She went along with his absences, assuming full responsibility for their home and children. She had always taken care of everyone and everything, which enabled him to be totally self-absorbed and yet initially she could not understand what had happened, why he left. She gave him all the rope he needed to hang himself or rather, to hang their marriage. When she was honest, she saw that the signs were there all along and that she had a good deal of responsibility for the marriage’s failure. She had been an enabler of bad behavior on his part.

Another old adage states that the truth will set you free. Knowing the difference between the truth and our own personal view of reality will indeed set you free. Grounded in reality, in the truth, we can become the person we want to be and live the life we want to live because we are no longer living in a world of our own making, a fantasyland.

It is how we choose to handle life’s circumstances that matter in the end. We can choose to be truthful with ourselves or we can choose to continue living a convenient interpretation. Al Gore has described facing a harsh reality as an inconvenient truth. I like that idea. Anything worthwhile takes effort. With effort come rewards. If we choose to accept the inconvenient truth, we are choosing a life filled with abundant rewards. The choice is ours to make.

Page 2 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next