Marriage, Separation, Divorce? What Shall I Do?

You have been married for twenty years and you describe your marriage and yourself as unhappy. You are considering separation and possibly divorce. You have decided to see a therapist. If you were coming to see me, I would want to know what kinds of losses and transitions you have experienced in these past several years. I would ask that question because statistics indicate that most mid-life separations and divorces are often related to losses and transitions that have not been internally processed. Transitions cause some degree of trauma and more transitions = more traumas. Transition traumas take a heavy cost of which most folks are unaware. Transitions costs are often evidenced: physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, sexually, financially, spiritually, etc. Transition traumas are no ‘small matter.’ Unfortunately, we often don’t think of transitions as traumas. One response to trauma is flight. It is the attitude of, “I have to get away because I am unhappy. I want to get away from anything and everyone that reminds me of my situation.” Unfortunately trying to run from our transition traumas doesn’t work because we take the trauma with us—internally. All of us have our transition traumas—they are a part of life. They need to be acknowledged, faced, explored, and ultimately made peace with. They have a lot to teach us. This internal work is much more difficult than adjustment work. Unfortunately, many folks refuse to do this internal work. They remain outwardly ‘okay’ but inwardly they are unhappy, never satisfied, have low-grade anger, and quick to blame others or situations. In a marriage there is no innocent (translated ‘victim’) party. A healthy relationship is a mutual relationship in which (1) we both have internal work to do as well as (2) work on the relationship. When folks refuse to do the internal work, there is usually not much chance of working on the relationship and reconciliation. First, I must be reconciled with myself, which includes all of my life’s history and experiences. Personal reconciliation is always a prerequisite to reconciliation with another.

Happiness = Me and My Shadow

In my work as a psychotherapist I usually hear folks say they are seeking happiness. Usually those folks are looking for a different spouse, job, house, car, etc. in the journey to find happiness. They often blame one of these realities for the fact that they don’t feel happy. I think happiness is an inside job. By inside job, I mean that happiness is to be found within myself. Nobody else and no external things such as a job, house, car, etc. can make me happy. Those things are not unimportant but neither are they as significant as we sometimes want to believe. I suspect there are parts of ourselves and our particular history that we haven’t accepted and with which we haven’t made peace that could be causing us to think we are not happy. Many therapists call those things our “shadows.” I agree. My journey into deeper happiness, and I’ll add the words contentment and peace will involve my acknowledging, accepting, befriending and learning from my shadows.

Advent, Open Heart and Eyes

We begin advent. I wonder if I’ve so romanticized and sanitized that first Christmas that I’ve missed the truth. If the Christ-child were around Lexington today, would I notice? The reality of that first Christmas was less than pleasant. Mary was an unwed mother. She and Joseph were forced to travel for reasons of obligatory census which had to do with taxation. Their travel was at a most difficult time as it was Mary’s late term pregnancy. Their accommodations in Bethlehem were less than the best. I even wonder why some of Joseph’s extended family didn’t provide them hospitality since it was his ancestor’s home. Who helped Mary with the birth? Was it Joseph? Perhaps it was some of the Shepherds as they would have known something about birthing lambs. A couple of years after the first Christmas, the family became refugees fleeing the violence of a ruler. That first Christmas and those couple of years that followed were not pleasant times. Near our Counseling Center is a home for unwed mothers. These young women and their infants often walk around our neighborhood. I sometimes wonder if this is what Mary experienced with her newborn infant. Around the corner from the Center is a ministry helping to settle immigrants and refugees in the Lexington area. Could there be a “Holy Family” among them? When it is a rainy night, there is a man and woman who would sleep on the Center’s porch because the local shelter for the homeless won’t let them stay the night together. Did Joseph and Mary experience something similar? Perhaps what I really need this Christmas is some nudging from the angels, who nudged the shepherds, so I can better recognize what God is doing on Christmas. Whatever else Christmas may mean, the truth of Christmas or the incarnation is that “The Lord is near” (Philippians 4:5b). If that is still true then the Lord is near even in my little corner of Lexington, Kentucky; and Christmas, the incarnation, is still happening, only not necessarily as I think, expect, imagine, or want it to happen. Lord, in order to open my eyes to your prenence, my heart must be opened first.

Letting go

Somewhere I happened across a prayer, which I paraphrase as I can’t find it again. “Lord, help us to turn loose of whatever we hold to so that we’ll have room to accept the new gifts You are seeking to give us.” Letting go of things which we think are somehow ‘mine’ or ‘ours’ is difficult enough, but to let go of attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, past events, etc. are even more difficult. Letting go of an attitude of prejudice toward those who are of a different in skin color or sexual orientation or religious belief, for example, is difficult. Letting go of a past event involves forgiveness. Genuine letting go is an attitude or experience of realizing this thing/attitude no longer reflects our growing and maturing values. God’s invitation is to a journey, i.e.,” come follow me”, rather than to settle down and hold on.

Sometimes I Just Need To Do It

This morning I went to the office and painted a small baseboard in the restroom. That baseboard had somehow gotten wet and the paint was peeling. I have noticed it often over the past several months and thought someone or, perhaps I ought to paint that baseboard. This morning it took me about an hour to scrape and paint the baseboard. I have spent much more time than one hour thinking about that baseboard and its need for paint. All this make me wonder why I spend more time thinking about doing a project than just doing it.

Slower

I am fond of the African proverb (or at least I was told it is African), “There is such urgency that we had better slow down.” It seems to me that everyone is in a hurry for some reason. Cars drive too fast. Shoppers are in such a hurry that grocery carts become dangerous. I can’t even walk the neighborhood without some runner or fast walker motivating me to step off the sidewalk. What is the hurry? My Dad would have said, “Son looks like that person needed to leave home earlier.” I am an advocate of slower or at least leave home in plenty of time.

Who do you want to become?

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice asked the cat, “Which Way?” The cat answered that the way would depend a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice’s answer was that she didn’t much care. The cat answered, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” It seems to me that many folks want some direction in their life but they are not really certain what the goal of their life is to be. It is a good question, “Who do you want to have become with your life?”