Who Is This Person I Married?
There’s a statement I’m hearing a lot lately from the mamas in our coaching program...
“I just don’t even recognize this person. Who is this man I married? I can’t believe how he is behaving. How could he be treating me, the mother of his children, like this?”
Welcome to divorce!
Women are often surprised how their spouses behave during divorce; how nasty and cruel they can be when they feel like they are on the defensive, how they can hide behind their attorneys and how low they can go.
The divorce process is where people show their true colors.
Have you ever heard the saying that you don’t really know someone until you travel with them, and you run into some glitches and roadblocks along the way?
Lost luggage and cancelled flights aside, how you navigate adversity is how you navigate life...divorce included.
And as I always like to say, two truths can co-exist.
When someone shows us who they are, we need to trust them. Contrary to the widely ascribed to narrative, it isn’t our job as women to fix, people-please and conform to suit the needs and desires of others — particularly when they are in direct conflict with our own. That’s a recipe for ultimate disaster.
When a woman tells me she doesn’t recognize her spouse, I respond by saying, “Good.” You know why?
It actually has nothing to do with her spouse and everything to do with her. It’s because what she actually doesn’t recognize is her own reflection — the one that can no longer tolerate what she sees, feels and knows. She can’t recognize the person who made peace with that — and that is tremendous progress.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy or that it won’t try to take you for a ride on the emotional rollercoaster.
It doesn’t mean that this new version of herself isn’t feeling all the feels — getting tossed up, down and all around. Of course she is feeling sadness, grief, anger, upset, vulnerability. She stands before the divorce buffet and her plate is full and in this tender state, she is expected to make big decisions for her future and that of her kids.
She knows this. She’s more than capable of handling this even though she’s scared. She knows she wants out. She knows what she can no longer tolerate, but she keeps getting derailed by how much it hurts. And she quickly gets sucked back in — derailed and lost in the weeds of how and why questions that aren’t hers to answer.
What is hers to answer is, “what now.”
What is mine to control?
What does this mean for me?
What can I learn from this?
How do I break this cycle and heal wounds of the past that foolishly let me believe I could change this person I was married to?
What do I do with this all now...how can I make meaning from this and move forward?
Unfortunately, before a woman usually gets to these questions, she beats herself up first with self-deflating thoughts like...
How did I ever marry this person?
How could I have not seen this before?
What took me so long?
What’s wrong with me?
Nothing is ‘wrong’ with you, you just weren’t ready to see what you see now. What if everything is actually right — and you are right where you are supposed to be?
We could focus on all the wrong turns we’ve made in life or instead, we could celebrate how far we’ve come, the women we’ve become, the intuition we have nurtured, the heart we have allowed to beat far and wide, and the curiosity we’ve embraced and allowed to guide us into becoming the women, the human beings, the mothers we’ve always dreamed of being.
That’s our job...the only one we can control, create and caress. We are our own fulltime jobs. Who your spouse becomes and how he/she chooses to behave in your marriage and divorce is on them.
Sometimes people don’t change...we’re the ones who do.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. They know themselves much better than you do.”
~ Maya Angelou
Are you seeing your soon-to-be-ex in a new light? That’s evolution…becoming…and I’d love to hear your take on this in the comments below!