Was Your Divorce A Means To Heal Old Baggage?
April 6, 2010 by Cathy Meyer
Filed under Evolution, Healing, Identity
Submitted by Divorce Coach Shelley Stile
Here’s a fascinating take on divorce that I find more true than not: We choose our spouses, usually subconsciously, as a means to healing old emotional wounds we have been carrying around our entire life.
Our divorce then becomes the wakeup call to clean up that mental baggage we have been lugging around once and for all which in turn allows us to become the person we were always meant to be!
That theory would go a long way to answering the questions we often ask ourselves: How is it I married my Father/Mother? Why do I over-react to certain things my ex did or said? Why do I continue making the same mistakes over and over again?
Old emotional baggage has a tendency to run us and limit our freedom of choice
It is revealed in the endless mind chatter that seeks to sabotage us and keep us stuck in the pain of our past. It is seen to our extreme sensitivity to those things that push an emotional button based in our baggage. It creates a huge obstacle to us being our personal best and having the things we so desperately want from life.
Let’s take a couple of specific example of this theory in action so you can get a better idea of it’s implications as it might pertain to you and your divorce:
A woman marries a man who, as it turns out, doesn’t make her feel good about herself or to put it more aptly, she allows herself to feel bad about herself due to her choice of a spouse.
He is highly critical of her every move and nothing she does seems to measure up to his standards. She suffers and her sense of self is demeaned. She begins to think about why she would have chosen someone who is so much like her own Father?
The pain she is undergoing is a reminder of how her own Dad treated her as kid. He too was highly negative and critical. As a child, she could not separate the facts (a negative father) from the meanings she created about herself, i.e. I am not good enough, I am less than and I am not worthy.
This woman never healed the old emotional scars from her past
She carried a belief around with her that she was not good enough, a belief that she and she alone created. Keep in mind that this would a logical deduction for a child.
As an adult, we have the ability to see more clearly and realize that we are good enough and our childhood response is no longer valid, not to mention effective. Perhaps, just perhaps, she chose her husband because it would literally force her to come to grips with this old ‘stuff’, the mind chatter and baggage, that she had to heal and rid herself of if she was going to live a happy and fulfilling life.
Her healing might come in the form of recognizing the fact that her Dad was a negative guy and his treatment of her was no different than his treatment of everyone in his life although perhaps more so with his own child. Unfortunately, not out of the ordinary.
That was just who he was and Lord knows he had his own ‘stuff’ too. She begins to see that the core belief she holds about herself is extremely limiting and self-destructive. She sees how it has been running her and how she has enabled this behaviour in her ex and undoubtedly others. She knows she must learn to say no to the things that do not serve her. She is on the way to a new life that reflects her newfound self-respect and confidence. Hallelujah!
Here’s another example of choosing someone who will push you into self examination and renewal:
A man chooses a wife who is a control freak in that she must make all the decisions for the family because she knows best
We can only begin to imagine where that ‘stuff’ came from! Ultimately, he feels bad about himself and loses his sense of self and power. Why would he choose such a spouse? Perhaps his own Mother was an over-riding force in his own life and was controlling and manipulative of him.
Perhaps there was some sense of security in that relationship. Perhaps he came to believe that he could not trust himself to make his own decisions, that he was incapable. As a result, he chose a woman who would ‘mother’ him in the ways that he came to define as mothering.
Of course, it didn’t work and only served to exacerbate his inner feelings of inadequacy. All the old emotional triggers got activated when his wife bossed him around and didn’t respect his opinion. Even little things became huge triggers for him because of his old emotional baggage.
His divorce became his call to arms to clean it up. He also came to understand how he enabled his ex’s behaviour and also came to know what kind of a relationship would work for him in the future if he was to be happy and the man he was meant to be.
In my own divorce I found a major lesson that I had failed to learn over the years: that I could not control everything in life and that I did not know best all of the time.
I also learned that there is a high price to pay in being right. It was both a humbling and liberating experience. I don’t have to control everything because I cannot control everything. Being right is based on my own old emotional stuff and I get that now. That is what I had to learn and my choice in a spouse was the perfect choice to teach me these lessons and gift me this wisdom.
Take a long hard look at your own divorce and see if there just might be any truth to this theory in your own story
Remember, your divorce can serve as an opportunity to rid yourself of any demons that have had control over your life. Your divorce offers you much wisdom that you can apply in order to live the life that you deserve. Every experience in life has something to give us. Do not waste this experience.
Well, I can understand all of this, it is true for every person alive. We are for the most part creatures of our upbringing, our childhood.
But, This article also gives an easy out for those looking for an excuse to divorse or cheat. “Its my parents falt therefore I will leave my spouse or cheat, I will or have created an atmosphere where they become that parent.”
The problem is when a spouse begins treating their spouse bad they become different from the person they once knew. How about stop making excuses and treating the other person with respect, treating them like you care.
In my marriage I cared for my wife,why? because when we began our relationship she treated me good, cared for me and allowed me to treat her the same. But as time went by I became someone she could show no respect… bitching at me, correcting me, comparing me, degrading me the list goes on. Gifts could not be given, seperate sleeping followed by no physical contact, feelings of rejection, no sex,no touching,no tenderness. distance,distance,distance,walls,walls,walls. Get the point. Hey girls don’t get mad but don’t most marriages fail because a mans wife starts rejecting him. We think logically fo the most part am I right. If your wife is bitching or nagging at you daily what do expect. I would give my wife the world but after years of being “roommates”. Affairs and deception enentually became the knew interest instead of creating a careing, loving environment.
I really don’t know anymore sometimes, do I have my head in my ass or is it just imposible to find a decent non pysco no head trip person to enjoy your life with. Why is there so much bullshit involved with your spouse once you get married. They where not like that when you met them or before you married them.
Then again maybe there is something lagitimate about this article. Don’t get married because your spouse has been programed to dislike you in the end.
I’ve had a day to think about this article and at times I think this writer may have a valid point that should be considered. My wife and I both may have married our parents in a way and we may both be carrying on in our marriage the way both of our parents lived their own marriages.
In away we are programed by our parents and the way they lived their own marriages. The important point is being able to recognize how our parents own marriage was lived and being able to make a decision.– Do I want to have a marriage like my parents did. Can I find the strength to stop the cycle of bad marriage and raise our children in a loving and caring invironment.
I don’t think many people make this decision, thats why there is generation after generation of divorce, deception and children raised in disfunctional family environments.
My children will most likely endure the pain and loss that I am feeling now. I am sorry for this, I would never want my inocent babies to marry some day only to have their hearts broken.
I see and work with people who after many years of marriage are still bonded and love and care for their wives and I see others who are unhappy.
I wonder if I am doomed to a life of loss. I wish I could change my wife but I can’t can I?
She may never except me as a husband who cares for her because I think her parents stopped caring and she was raised with that marriage as a role model.
Maybe I’m trying to find answers out of dispare or confusion. But the sense of failure just doesn’t seem to fade.
One thing I’m certain of: the same lesson will replay itself over and over and over again until we FINALLY get it. Moreover, we’ll continue to be tested on it even when we think we’re safe and clear!!!
Joe, you can’t change your wife but you can change yourself. Consider the paragraph below from the article.
“His divorce became his call to arms to clean it up. He also came to understand how he enabled his ex’s behaviour and also came to know what kind of a relationship would work for him in the future if he was to be happy and the man he was meant to be.”
The problems you are experiencing in your marriage is your “call to arms.” You need to view this as an article about you, not about your wife.
It is up to you to break the cycle…for your children’s sake. What did you do to enable your wife’s behavior. What can you do differently to keep you from attracting someone who will treat you badly.
When in pain most of us want to look externally for a reason and a solution to the pain. What is needed is more internal insight because the only person we can fix is ourself. I hope you are soon able to focus less time on how you’ve been hurt by your wife and more time on doing what needs to be done to keep from being hurt again.
I am still amazed when people claim to have no baggage affecting them. Everybody has ‘old baggage’, and marriage is a big arena for it to show up in. What I have noticed is that sometimes it’s inter-generational too, what my parents didn’t work out in their live, I unconsciously pick up.
I think the important thing to realize is you may work out your baggage in one area of your life, but it’s probably unrealistic to think you’ll ever be 100% free of its’ affects. If you think otherwise, you probably suffer from symptoms of Ophrahfication distraction:) If I am compassionate with myself about this, not only will I enjoy my life more, but I’ll be more accepting of other people’s foibles too.
I agree with you Francine – that it’s unrealistic to think we’ll ever be 100% of it’s affects. The important thing is to ensure that it doesn’t have control over us or that it’s not harming us by our supressind it.
Over the course of that past three years since divorcing, I’ve taken some of the despairing emotions I’ve experienced and followed them back on the timeline of my life (through hypnosis) to my childhood. I was absoutely shocked when this happened. Bottom line, I WAS,using my marriage to work through old baggage – it was simply unconscious.