REBOUND
I never thought about sharing this significant time in my life. Its been over seven years and my life has changed dramatically since. I hardly ever share that I remarried a second time after my divorce as I regarded it as just a bad experience and not worthy of counting as a marriage. It was like a really bad dream. However, it was probably the most significant and critical aspect of my life. Was it was not for this second short union, I would not have received the blessings I have now and I may not have healed from my initial first heartbreak of a first divorce. Perhaps I felt that it was important to share now, since I’ve observed my past through a clients experience and seeing how break ups and being vulnerable could highlight our ‘Incompletions’ (unresolved issues).
After my divorce approximately ten years ago, I was shattered. I was angry, bitter and I had completely lost my sense of self. I felt broken, unseen, unloved, unworthy and thought that no one would ever want to be with someone like me. I was wrong. Someone actually came along as early as three months after my divorce. He wanted to love and take care of me and THAT was exactly what I was looking for. Seven weeks after we met, we tied the knot. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world who could find love so quickly! My partner painted a future that I simply could not resist….a future I was desperately seeking. It however was not long after our honeymoon when our challenges began and quickly spiraled into disaster. I was unable to recognize myself or my beliefs as it was dictated by my partner. He questioned my values and had a need to prescribe my beliefs. Well, at that point in my life, having completely lost who I thought I was, it was probably easy to change me into someone else. All I wanted was for someone to love and accept me. And he did…he loved me with all that he had but that was not what I truly needed. So many things were wrong in our relationship. My constant compromising, our regular arguing, distrust and lots of tears. In the end it had become clear to me that we were just too different.
What was needed, was for me to find the love and acceptance that I was seeking within myself. I needed to heal all of my broken parts. I realized this more than a year into our union and decided to end things. I needed to take responsibility for the situation in which I found myself and my life. So I decided to let go by making it about me and my ‘stuff’ and not the toxic marriage or his contribution. All I could share was that I needed to find myself, to find out who I am. I don’t however think that he truly understood how wrong we were for each other and so figured it best that he rather shares the story, ‘She left because she doesn’t know who she is’ rather than him walking away with feeling like a failure and incomplete as I did the day that I moved out. I knew that we would only hurt one another and our families even further had we stayed together. It was the most difficult step I had to take and had to eventually mourn not one but two divorces.
In all of the madness of feeling like a quitter and failure, I was desperate to heal, to be a good mother….to be happy. I needed to be the most courageous I had ever been to pick myself up and do what was needed to find my own truth…my bliss. But I needed to be at my most vulnerable for healing to take place. And I was….I was even more broken than before but with time and with the desire to heal, victory of my own beliefs, my mind and my heart was the sweetest reward.
[I’d like to believe that we choose our experiences before we arrive on this planet as well as our companions who serve our experiences while we are here. With that idea in mind, I wish to extend my gratitude to all of my chosen companions…a very deep and profound space in me remembers you as promised before we came] – RJ
You are truly an example for women. Your experiences have made you who you are today and that is,Ray! We are all so unique,if only we could embrace and nurture that.Keep on shining
I am in awe of this brutally honest account of a once broken woman. My process of SERIOUS introspection has begun. Why? Because if I don’t I will continue living as a shadow of a man. Ray, this education resonates with me so powerfully. I have been trough a similar set of circumstances and have peeked into my “doggy bag” much too seldom. I’m getting the stench now! Thank you for your appealing to the MORE in us all.