By: Nameless
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“You are getting a divorce”, words no husband or wife ever hopes to look in a mirror and say to themselves. The D word is a terrifying reality that hits so many people and it’s something that will forever change your life. So now the initial gut punch has happened, regardless of how it is presented to you, it is still something that will leave you not only emotional but also at a major intersection in your life that you most likely never planned on being at. I heard those words from my wife, and they are still the most painful words I could ever hear. The sad reality of a marriage ending is something that will typically send someone off on an emotional path of self-destruction, that’s not what this post is about. This is about searching deep inside you to find the strength to get through it and come out better at the end, so let’s talk…
When something like a marriage ends, it’s a traumatic event and something you are going to have to work through for a long time. You can look at the 5 Stages of Grief…. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Those have traditionally been the way people process an event that deals significant emotional loss. However, these steps aren’t a cookie cutter approach for everyone. I have always been a firm believer in everyone is unique and no one person deals with something the exact same way as another. That being said, the biggest thing I think anyone can understand is you are going to process and deal with a situation like this in your own way, there is no right or wrong way to get through something.
So for me, once I realized that this was happening, it shook me to my core. In recent months I had already started the process of self-improvement and this event has lit a fire in me that I never realized existed. Having my world turned upside down forced me to take a hard look at myself, not just how I acted during my marriage but how I have acted throughout my whole life…. And I didn’t like what I saw. I realized that since my teenage years I was constantly making excuses, blaming other people for my faults, not taking responsibility for the reactions to the actions I had taken. For the better part of 25 years I have been in this cycle of self-inflicted BullShit! But that had to stop, right now! For too long I had become the victim, the one who all this bad stuff always happened to, well it was time to stop being a victim, stop being blindsided by events that were set in motion by actions I did.
Another part of me that absolutely needed to go was my anger….
For much of my life I have always had this issue, I was always angry, and it got me NOWHERE! That has been the biggest breath of fresh air, I had to finally realize that I couldn’t live my life like that and it feels so great. For the first time that I can remember I am not walking around with this inner emotional struggle going on. For decades I would have this temper where on an instant I could go from zero to 100 in the snap of a finger. Making this change is something I can’t recommend enough for everyone, DO IT!
Now with any loss, whether it’s a marriage, death, or any other major emotional event, there is pain. There is going to be heartache, there will be times where you feel this pain in your heart, times when you are going to feel like a failure, times when you think that it will never get better, but guess what….. it will! Pain is important though, it reminds us of where we have been and what we have been through. I think it is important to embrace the pain. It’s only when we feel we have lost everything that we are free to gain everything. The pain is a constant, it will always be there and that’s okay. My pain is my motivation, it is my reminder of the path I had taken and where it got me. My pain is what makes me work harder than I ever have in my life and I am actually so thankful for it!
There is so much to talk about with something like this and I could write 10000 words in no time at all but we can save that for another time. The biggest thing I think I can say, to anyone going through something heartbreaking like this is to realize that bad things are going to happen. Things are going to try and tare you apart, it’s your choice whether or not you allow it to. You have the choice to accept defeat and crawl into a bottle, get angry, do something stupid…. Or you can choose to learn from it, to grow from it, and to make it the biggest motivating factor in your life! Having been recently challenged with this myself, I can whole heartedly say that I choose the latter and it has been the best decision of my life! I always like to reference movies and this particular scene is something that has always resonated with me and I think it is a perfect way to close this out. Talk Soon!
