by: Rossana Condoleo
Parting from the ex-loved one is sometimes a real tragedy, especially if you are the weaker party, the one who earns less, who takes care of the children, who comes from a foreign country, etc.
If you are reading my article, the simplest, most obvious reason is that your marriage does not work! Whether it is your partner´s fault, yours, or the circumstances´, your relationship has suffered so much that perhaps it can no longer be healed.
This turns out to be particularly true if you have already taken all the necessary steps to save your holy union, but any and all have failed miserably (for example, family counseling, vacations and activities meant to regain togetherness, and so on). Acceptance is a very soothing feeling. It releases long-lasting tensions and sets energies free for managing the psychological and physical demands of coping with divorce. Accepting the end of your marriage implies abandoning a lot of recurrent (not to say obsessive) thoughts, etc. “Why does he/she behave this way and not in the other, right way?” “With whom is he/she now instead of being at work as he/she said?” “What can I do to change this situation for the better?” Please count how many times you have indulged in these sorts of thoughts! And now…?
Now you have a lot of other beautiful, positive thoughts, possibilities to explore for your future!The character, the psychological problems, the social background, the mentality, the lack of family principles, and so on of your ex-partner are no longer your business. Full stop! The life of your ex-partner is no longer your business. Full stop! Notwithstanding any positive effort to change the picture, your marriage is lacking essential elements that make it a happy one. Full stop!It is relieving, isn't it? It is like a breeze inside your head, refreshing your brain and allowing more space and power to convert your future plans into action. You cannot imagine how time-, health-, and mind-consuming are those thoughts about how sick your marriage is, how sick your partner is, how sick your situation is. The situation is not sick at all! You are just divorcing, not falling down from a cliff.
You are divorcing, something almost 40 percent of the people around you have already experienced. You are divorcing and losing a partner who was not the best for you. Whether you are the active or the passive party (in terms of who asked for the divorce), the game is now over. And it is over because something very important in any long-lasting relationship is no longer there. This something can be respect, love, dedication, engagement, or all of the above. You know better than any other person on earth why it happened, what that missing something was. Without its essential elements, you get an imperfect surrogate—not a real marriage! And frankly speaking, you cannot and you do not want to live to the end of your days with less than you deserve. You deserve to be happy, like most people out there. Please believe me, there are a lot of happily married couples whose sex is great after twenty years together and who care for each other.
Do not believe that your marriage was a “good marriage” just because apparently (again) your everyday routine worked. Do not argue that no marriage is perfect! That is the soup some parents have served to their children, mostly daughters, for centuries in order to lower their expectations while hunting high and low for a spouse. A bad marriage was once a lot better than no marriage at all, and I believe that still today, surely in many cultures and subcultures, this concept continues to produce people who are resigned to being unhappy for a lifetime. What happened behind the curtains at your place? Or what did not happen behind the curtains at your place? What about your real wants, your need for closeness and time together?
My experience, and that of many divorced people, is that the first thing lacking when a marriage shipwrecks is closeness. Body and soul intimacy. An entanglement that brings two to become a single unit. And it is visible! I can tell you by observing couples at parties (which is the best milieu to rate relationship behaviors) whether they will resist wear and tear or not. Human beings respond at present to more natural rhythms than they did under the rigid and archaic mentality of past times; like falling leaves, dead partner-ships must be replaced. If you find the concept is unacceptable and perhaps also a bit immoral (I feel uncomfortable too with this statement should be forever, think of how everything in nature is regulated by and follows cycles in order to ensure the continuation of life. These can be different from organism to organism, but it always happens that when something is no longer meaningful for the existence of the others, it simply ceases to exist.
We are warm-blooded animals, and lack of closeness makes us depressed and unhappy. We need love and the warmth we receive from it. In most cases the descent to the bottom of a marriage has been going on for such a long time that nobody noticed it, in that changes for the worse were minimal but steady and continuous. Some literally lose control over their lives because, while suffering in silence (not to bother family and children with marital problems) and trying hard to adjust themselves to every new upcoming unpleasant situation created by the partner, they forget they have a life too and the right to be happy.
Others pursue together a rescue plan (mostly for their children´s sake, although this may be totally against their own sake!); in so doing, they might succeed in keeping their lives together but may be still unhappy and may be overwhelmed by too many compromises—up to the point at which they feel annihilated, so deprived of their energies and interests and motivation that they simply die inside…day by day!
I still remember my grandma´s hazel eyes as she glanced at the ice-blue eyes of my eighty-five-year-old grandpa across the table during big family gatherings. They were naughty, playful, and timid at the same time, like those of a fourteen-year-old girl. There was pride inside, love, and the picture of the handsome young man (now a 105 year-old grandfather) who gave her six children and cared for her late diabetes wounds up to her last breath. I really missed this kind of glance between my ex and me, and I waited too long for it to come back. I had to come to the bitter conclusion that when love disappears from one´s lover’s eyes, it is the same as when life abandons a body and its eyes. This is not a nice connection, but it really conveys the idea of no return!
Accepting it is the best favor you can do for yourself and for your children, if any. You must archive your marriage. What was sick or dead has been cut away. I am here to remind you what you are worthy of and how much power gurgles inside you, just waiting to be unleashed. You are beautiful, interesting, and just—and you are going to take the biscuit of life, not the crumbs. There is a whole world of possibilities out there.
THE SIMPLE RULE: Accept the end. Do not fight against it! Let a healing calmness flow inside you.
Rossana Condoleo, http://www.rossanacondoleo.com is an Eclectic Forward Thinker, an International Writer and a Life-Coach dedicated to Help People live a Happy and more Fulfilled Life. She is a contributing expert forHopeAfterDivorce.org, FamilyShare.com, CupidsPulse.com, and LAFamily.com. Rossana authored “HAPPY DIVORCE: How to turn your divorce into the most brilliant and rewarding opportunity of your life!” on Amazon http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Famzn.to%2F134L1bz&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHsEUQmCQ3DS5jssfX3lv94Wlly3Q">amazon.com/dp/148181897X& Amazon worldwideviewBook.at/B00BH3IVQE. On GoodReads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17444267-happy-divorce, FB Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/happydivorce.hdp, Twitter https://twitter.com/RossanaCondoleo @rossanacondoleo. Rossana Condoleo’s Life-Coaching Challenges at InvivoPlay http://invivoplay.com/rossana.condoleo/challenges.