It was all I could think about and I didn't know where to turn or what to do. It was so different from anything I had ever been through that I had no model of how to deal with it. Feeling crushed by the deep emotional pain, sense of isolation and confusion I had no clue how to deal with my life.
My soon to be ex didn't seem to be in the same depth of pain. I came to understand later that in the months prior to the divorce she had gone through her own painful times before deciding to end the relationship. We never talked about it. She just said she was leaving. When she let me know what she was doing she had already started to move past the pain and was busy setting things up to get on with her life. She did her suffering before I even knew what was going on leaving me on my own to make sense of things.
The depth of our pain is often compounded by a lack of understanding about why it happened and that can leave us really confused. After all, didn't we do the best we knew how? Didn't we follow the marriage model we learned from our parents? Oh, wait. Maybe there was some of the problem right there. We live what we learned. Trying to live up to someone else's example can lead us down a slippery path. How do we know if they are right or wrong?
How do we make sense out of it all? I would urge you to work with someone who can help you sort it out. As I've pointed out in earlier blogs Divorce Is a major dislocation of your life path. The rest of your life will be affected by how you handle your response and how well you heal from the aftermath. In our circle we call it a "marker" event because from this moment forward it will affect your thoughts, your emotions, your self-esteem and your future relationships. If you have children get that they will be profoundly impacted and that impact will become their example of how to conduct their live.
I was going through some of my old journal notes from many years ago and found a thought that is directly to the point. We may not be able to avoid what is happening but sometimes knowing that there is life beyond the pain and confusion can help. I know there were times I wondered if what I was feeling would ever end. In time it did. Sometimes we have to be with what is happening whether we like it or not. The question may be more about whether we learn something from what we are going through.
Sometimes the only way out is through.
Through the pain,
through the fear,
through the confusion,
through the changes.
Howard Williams '86
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Most of my working life has been involved in helping people in crisis and life transitions. I started as a street cop where I learned to deal calmly with difficult and explosive situations. After graduating from college I left the PD and went to the largest independent insurance adjusting company in the world. Along the way I spent 6 years as a shift supervisor with a large crisis center handling suicides, spousal abuse, drug and alcohol issues, rape, incest and people with codependency issues. In 1999 I completed a 2 year program to be a life coach and specialize in crisis issues like divorce.
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