I was lucky to have the support of my friends and family when I went through my divorce.  While I’m grateful, I also recognize how those closest to us can hold us back and prevent healthy closure.

Upon hearing the news of my cheating husband and pending separation, a co-worker advised, “You’ll want alimony.  You’re lucky that you can get it these days.  It hasn’t always been so easy.”  When I told her that I was looking forward to financial independence, she was shocked.  “You never know,” she warned.  “It would be nice to have some extra money.”

“Make him pay,” a friend told me as she handed over the phone number for her attorney.

Yet another pal educated me about fault divorces and suggested that I expose my husband’s infidelity through the court system.  I was instructed to slash his tires, take his business and smear his name all over town.

I obeyed only a few of those suggestions.  I made threats and held on to some petty treasures.  Ultimately, that behavior benefitted nobody.  It proved only to stall the process, thus delaying my decree of liberation.

My friends meant well and did exactly as they thought they should.  They stuck by my side and defended me.  They wanted to protect me from the perceived enemy.  The problem was that I didn’t want to fight against my ex to obtain a divorce.  I intended to work with him to reach our common goal of dissolving the marriage.  That’s really what divorce is all about, isn’t it?

The truth is that our well-meaning friends and family can retard our healing.  While it’s often true that we need support in the beginning, the time will come when we can again stand on our own.  Unfortunately, we might not realize it if we are surrounded by loved ones who remain depressed, angry, confused, bitter or vengeful on our behalf.

Attitudes and emotions are contagious.  It’s impossible to move on when Mom is still coddling us.  It’s hard to forgive and let go if our best friend reminds us every day that the ex is a piece of trash.  How can we find compassion in our hearts while our co-workers are coaching us to exact revenge?  Remember that old saying about sleeping with dogs?  You get the idea…

Remaining angry and re-enforcing negative aspects of the relationship or separation will not propel you closer to freedom.  Rather, it will ensure that you remain a prisoner of your pain.  The opposite of love is indifference.  If you’re hating, you’re not healing.  And if others are helping you hate, they’re hurting your game.

For maximum mental health, pay attention to the attitudes of those around you.  Focus on the present and ask your friends for their encouragement toward your new and improved life.  Learn from the past and then let it go.  Your future will thank you.

Author Bio:

Tara Eisenhard is a pro-divorce enthusiast.  She believes that a marriage should not survive at the expense of its participants and that families evolve, not dissolve, as a result of divorce.  She loves dogs, drives a Saturn and happily cohabitates with a divorced dad.  Tara is the author of the blog “Relative Evolutions” located at thedivorceencouragist.wordpress.com.  She tweets @dvrcncouragist and welcomes feedback via divorce.encouragist@gmail.com.

I never believed my miserable marriage would actually last forever.  I also couldn’t imagine how it would end.  That is, until it did…

It was May 24, 2006.  I spent the evening with old friends.  My husband worked late and then had dinner at a coworker’s house (or so he said).  When 11 pm rolled around and there was no sign of him, I worried and called to see where he was.  He told me he couldn’t talk.  He said he was on his way, and his mother was on the other line.  Feeling relieved, I hung up the phone and got in bed.

When he arrived, he came into our room and firmly said those words, “I think we should separate.”

My initial reaction was confusion, immediately accompanied by anger.  He told me that he had discussed our situation with his parents.  He said his mom thought it was a good idea.

Quickly, my emotion gauge rocketed from angry to livid.  “You discussed our separation with your mother before you talked to me about it?!?!”

How could I have been left so far out of the loop regarding my own marriage? I stomped across the room to my dresser, pulled off my rings and put them in my jewelry box.  It was an act I’d never performed, despite years of screaming matches that ended with me driving away in the middle of the night.

I continued to rage while my husband remained perfectly calm.  When I could no longer stand the sight of him, I stormed out of the bedroom and down the hall to our office.  He followed me.

“Isn’t this what you want?” he asked from the doorway.  “Don’t you hate me anyway?”

It was then that the light bulb went off in my head and I knew that what I was facing was a glorious opportunity.

Yes, this is what I want.  I am going to file for divorce.

Slowly, I found the words to tell him he was correct.  I wasn’t happy in the marriage. I did want to separate.  In that moment, the chains that had bound me to such a depressed existence began to melt away.

Two weeks later I met the Other Woman.  Indeed, she was the person on the phone that night.  She was the one who pushed for our separation.  I’m proud to say that I maintained my composure long enough to shake her hand.  I didn’t fall apart until I was a half-mile away.  After twenty minutes of crying and a half-hour long make out session with an old fling, I overcame the shock of betrayal and trudged ahead on the path to Freedom.

In the four years since my divorce, I’ve shortened my commute to work, completed my bachelor’s degree and started writing again. These days, I cook and clean on my own schedule.  I no longer concoct excuses to avoid sex.  In hindsight, it’s tough to feel anything but gratitude for my ex-husband and his mistress.  If not for them, I wouldn’t be who I am now.  And I am, without a doubt, loving my divorced life.

No shame.  No regrets.  No apologies.

Author Bio:

Tara Eisenhard is a pro-divorce enthusiast.  She believes that a marriage should not survive at the expense of its participants and that families evolve, not dissolve, as a result of divorce.  She loves dogs, drives a Saturn and happily cohabitates with a divorced dad.  Tara is the author of the blog “Relative Evolutions” located at thedivorceencouragist.wordpress.com and welcomes comments at divorce.encouragist@gmail.com.

Women who have been left for another woman describe the experience in extreme terms:  Stella, sixty-two, whose husband left her for someone else after thirty-three years of marriage was typical:  “ I cried every day for two months.  I still cry two years later.  And railed and screamed in the car and burned his suit in effigy in the backyard, every witchy, crazy, demented thing you can think of.

I drove by their house and hid in the bushes.  I could be at work, get overwhelmed and go into the mini gym and cry and walk on the treadmill as fast as I could until it passed.  I lost thirty pounds but gained ten back.  Jangled nerves, twitching eyes, hyper alert. So sad like you wouldn’t believe.  This is the guy I’d been with since age twenty-three, the only guy for more than half my life and all my adult life.  It was depressing that he was pulling away into alcoholism anyway but this was the coup de gras.”

Carol Taylor, fifty-two, who unknowingly moved her whole family to a different state because her husband had a girlfriend there, says, “I was blindsided, every emotion you can imagine.  Furious, sad, terrified, overwhelmed, guilty because I hadn’t been able to protect my children.

I don’t know why I didn’t see the warning signs, he moved because his girlfriend was in Florida.  The move really hurt the kids.  I cried for two years every day so loud you could hear me in the neighborhood.   I found Al-Anon, they got me through.  It’s a godsend and it’s free—you can go fifty times a week if you need to. “

Romantic rejection actually triggers changes in our brains according to anthropologist Helen Fisher, who has studied the chemistry of romantic love.  Her research was an eye opener for me.  It answered many questions about my own reactions to being cheated on, rejected, and will probably shine some light on yours.

In Cut Loose she describes how brain scans of rejected people suggest that they secrete excess dopamine and cortisol during the initial phase of being rejected.  That’s why rejected lovers get frantic and tend to relentlessly pursue the beloved.  They may also take humiliating measures to reconnect with him, anything from writing letters to storming into the other woman’s home to begging him to change his mind.

Paradoxically, along with the stress and the impulse to protest, abandoned lovers also feel renewed passion.  This has a biological basis.  Dopamine is the chemical in the brain that produces romantic love.  But when love is thwarted, dopamine-producing neurons in the brain’s reward system prolong their activities.  As the beloved slips away, the very chemical that contributes to feelings of romantic love becomes even more potent, creating protest and romantic passion, which impels the abandoned wife to go to extremes to get him back.

I certainly sprang into action as soon as my husband told me he was leaving and tried desperately to hang on to him.  All of a sudden, I felt intense love and attraction for him when previously I’d felt mostly indifference.

If you ever wondered, like I did, where the intense rage that we jilted wives experience comes from, brain chemistry goes a long way to explain it. .  It seems that love and hate/rage are connected in the brain.   The primary rage system is closely linked to centers in the prefrontal cortex that anticipate rewards.   The common response to unfulfilled expectations is known as ‘frustration-aggression.’

In short, when people and other animals begin to realize that an expected reward is in jeopardy, even unattainable, these centers in the prefrontal cortex trigger fury.   Both love and hate produce excessive energy, drive you to focus obsessively on the beloved and cause intense yearning.  They can exist simultaneously, which is why we vacillate wildly between love and hate when in the throes of being rejected.

“You can be terribly angry at a rejecting sweetheart,” says Fisher, “but still very much in love.”  This reaction explains why jilted lovers stalk and sometimes kill their exes, or even resort to suicide.  Men commit the majority of homicides while women may attempt suicide.

Luckily, many suicidal women fail to kill themselves because they’re probably making the attempt to manipulate the rejecting husband into returning.  However, many do succeed even if they didn’t really intend to die.  Even though our strongest drive is survival, the drive to love can triumph even over the will to live.

Eventually these feelings wane and you must deal with another form of torture, hopelessness and despair.  In a study of 114 men and women who had been rejected within the past eight weeks, some forty percent experienced ‘clinically measurable depression..  The expression, dying of a broken heart, is not just hyperbole.  People do actually die of a broken heart.

They expire from heart attacks or strokes caused by their depression.  These statistics probably come from a study of rejection in college students where most psychologists do their studies.  If clinical depression is that common after rejection when you’re just dating, imagine how severe it is after twenty years of marriage.  Fisher compares the process to the infant mammal when separated from its mother.  When you isolate a  puppy in the kitchen at first it protests.  Eventually, however, it curls up in a corner in a despondent heap.

It’s amazing so many of us survive, and actually bounce back to find a better life.  As severe as our response is to grief, for almost all of us the will to survive is stronger.  We’re programmed to forget and go on.  I often think of what it must have been like in earlier days when women lost so many children before age five.  Their grief was just as intense as ours would be at such a loss, but they got over it and bore more children or the human race wouldn’t have survived.  We have inherited this ability to grieve and go on.   The expression “time heals” is very accurate.

Of course, not all of us suffer equally.  How we react depends on many things, including our upbringing.  The same women who deal best with loneliness because they had secure attachments as children, have the self-esteem and resilience  to overcome a romantic setback relatively quickly.

Those of us who grew up in tense, loveless homes where we constantly had to deal with chaos or rejection, are often left with few defenses after being dumped.  Biology plays a part as well. We all know women with sunny dispositions, who always see the glass as half full.  They take everything, including being left for another woman, with more equanimity and bounce back more quickly.

Erica Manfred is the author of He’s History You’re Not, Surviving Divorce After 40.  She has written for Cosmopolitan, New York Times Magazine, Ms., Parenting, Women’s Day, and Bottom Line/Personal.  She currently runs a women’s divorce support group in her hometown of Woodstock, New York.

Eight Signs Your Husband is Cheating

Change is Sexual Habits:

If he’s getting it from another source, he probably wants less sex at home. A decrease in sex signals serious issues in the relationship.

Strange Cell Phone Habits:

All of a sudden he is no longer open and honest about who is is texting with and talking to on his cell phone. If you notice him being more protective of his phone, leaving the room to keep from being heard on the phone or hiding his phone, this could be a sign of trouble.

He Has a New “Friend”:

Michele’s husband starting talking about a woman from work…non-stop admiration. He just thought she was great. Before long he was having lunch with his new work “friend” and soon after he had filed for divorce and was leaving for his “soul mate” who, at one time had only been a “friend.” Be careful if he comes up with a new friend because there is a danger that this friend is more than a “friend.”

Withdrawal:

Even though relationships ebb and flow naturally, if you’re sensing that he’s withdrawing from you, then there may be someone else. Emotional distance should be investigated regardless of whether it’s caused by cheating. There’s a problem if he’s not laughing or seems less passionate as usual. It’s hard to spread love/passion between two people, so the person who used to have it will feel it slipping away if it’s being given to someone else.

He is Unavailable:

Suddenly he has to travel for work; maybe he has taken up a new sport and spends every Saturday after engaged in playing.  I knew a woman whose husband joined a book club that met every Thursday night. Very strange for a man who wasn’t often seen reading.  If he becomes unavailable to the point you are wondering what is up, then something is probably up.

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire:

Does he have a slippery relationship with the truth? If he consistently breaches your trust, it’s establishing a pattern of behavior that is indicative to cheating. Do yourself a favor: If he keeps lying, whether these lies are big or small, get out while you can and don’t let him talk his way back in.

Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater:

If he’s cheated  before, he’s definitely capable of doing it again. It has nothing to do with you, which is why you can’t say that he cheated on his previous lover because she didn’t keep him happy. Cheating is a self-serving act in which the cheater doesn’t take his significant other into consideration. If he has admitted to cheating on an ex then don’t be surprised when he cheats on you.

You Feel it in Your Gut:

Don’t ignore your sixth sense. Women are gifted at sensing when something doesn’t feel right. Whether there are red flags in your relationship that are clueing you in or not, if something feels off, don’t ignore the feeling. Usually that feeling is right, and something indefinable may have led to you figuring it all out.

Do you have any signs to add to the list? Have I missed anything you have personal experience with? What sorts of behaviors do you think are characteristic of someone who could be a cheater?

Question:

Dear Shelley,

A few years ago I found out my husband was talking to women online, meeting up with them in hotel rooms at night, and getting drunk. I have been a very good mom and wife and have tried to live a Christian life in spite of him lying to our children and his secretive plans to divorce me and avoid paying child support.

Our divorce has been final for four months now and I can’t understand why my children keep running to him after what he did to all of us.  If it had been me who’d met up with men, etc…I guarantee that  they wouldn’t even speak to me again! I think it’s because he has made our children believe their mom is “crazy”.   He knew I wouldn’t tell them of his goings-on and he took full advantage of that. And yet, when their backs were turned, he would pretend he had a weapon in his hand, give me a scary look, and act like he was going to kill me. Then he would immediately turn it off and act like a “normal” father.

It’s so frustrating that my kids still don’t ‘get it.’  How should I handle this with them? My mistake is that I was not more vocal and I guess it was because I was scared of him.

Thank you.

Caron

Answer:

Dear Caron,

Love your children more than you resent your ex.  Kids love their parents and although you don’t think it is fair that they cannot see the truth about him, they really don’t need to see that at this point in their lives.  Kids need to feel loved and supported and we have to let go of our negative feelings regarding our ex when it comes to our kids.

Notice that you might not have ever stood up to him over the course of your marriage, that you were scared of him. If that is true, what can you do now to address that issue? Set boundaries that keep you safe and secure.  Decide on what you will accept and won’t accept as it pertains to his behavior towards you.  If he mistreats you whenever he is around then set specific limits to your exposure to him. If he upsets when you talk to him, don’t talk to him directly unless it is absolutely necessary.  Let him know that you will not accept certain behaviors anymore.

Shelley

Shelley Stile is an ACC certified Divorce Recovery Life Coach and author who guides her clients to let go the pain of their divorce and move on to create new and vibrant lives after divorce. Shelley has been through her own divorce so she knows first-hand about the journey of divorce recovery. Receive her free, powerful e-book, The 10 Secrets to Coping with Divorce’, and her monthly ‘Take Back Your Life After Divorce’ Newsletter by going to: http://www.freedivorcesupport.com.

Question:

Dear Shelley,

I broke up with a man five months ago whom I was with for six years. Two months after we broke up he was engaged to another woman and didn’t even bother telling me. It became apparent to me that he was with this woman when we were together but I didn’t see it then.

My problem isn’t wanting him back because I think he is unsuited to me –  it’s how he has conducted himself with no respect or sensitivity toward me (I didn’t do anything to upset him). Do men like this end up with bad karma? I just need to know that there is some kind of balance to these events, and sometimes I feel like I’m the one being punished as I haven’t met another man, yet he is being rewarded. Please help!

Thank you for listening.

Sarah

Answer:

Dear Sarah,

In life we hold core beliefs about how things should be.  We believe that people should treat each other with integrity, empathy and respect.  We believe they should be sensitive to one another’s feelings. These are good beliefs and life would be a whole lot better in general if everyone lived according to those beliefs BUT life does not always conform to our way of thinking.  Oftentimes people are not kind to one another.  Oftentimes, people act in an insensitive manner.  That’s just the way it is. Just because I may hold a belief about how things should be does not mean that others operate in the same way. That’s just the nature of life.  Life is not always fair and to expect it to be will only lead to disappointment, resentment, anger and sadness.

We cannot allow our personal beliefs create expectations of others that are not under our control.  It seems that is where you are at right now.  Yes, it is hurtful to think that someone may have lied to us, that they seem to move on without a trace of empathy but that’s just the way some people operate.  It’s a matter of accepting ‘what is’ versus what you think ‘should be’ or ‘could be’ or what you think is ‘supposed to be’.

You don’t know that he is being rewarded and you don’t know what lies ahead for you in your future.  Being human means living with a sense of uncertainty. That too is just life.  

You must learn to let go of the things that you cannot control.  You must learn to differentiate between what you can and cannot control in life. If you feel like you are having a hard time with this concept then get some support to move you forward as you have one precious life to live.

Regards,

Shelley

Often a wife is as vulnerable and dependent as the victim of repeated beatings. The behavior patterns of ongoing infidelity often parallel the well-documented stages in the cycle of domestic abuse.

In coaching women who are going through divorce due to a husband’s infidelity, I’ve found they common characteristics with victims of domestic abuse:

• Infidelity and domestic abuse can both become an ongoing aspect of marriage. There is a recurring cycle in which the abusive or cheating husband is repentant and the marital relationship functions well. Then there is another episode of abuse or infidelity.
• The cheating husband may show brief periods of guilt or remorse, but usually seem insensitive to the pain they have caused. And will not accept responsibility for the suffering they cause.
• The wife suffers from low self-esteem, a sense of worthlessness, a lack of control over her life, a dependency on her husband, and a distorted sense of reality in which she believes that what happens is her fault.
• Women who stay for significant periods of time with partners who are unfaithful, often display the same psychological and social symptoms exhibited by victims of systematic abuse.

If you have become an unwitting victim of domestic abuse due to your husband’s infidelity isn’t it time to break the cycle? Instead of driving yourself to distraction why not face the simple fact that your husband’s infidelity is his choice and that choice was abusive in nature. His choices may leave you with no choice but to end the marriage.

If your husband is cheating, take action. Tell him that his behavior is unacceptable. Set boundaries and stand by those boundaries. Don’t allow dependence on an unhealthy marriage to tear down your ability to live life on your own terms and free of abuse.

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Question:

Hi Shelley,
About 2 1/2 years ago my husband of 16 years told me he didn’t love me anymore.  I immediately started vomiting and became hysterical. I was a stay-at-home mom to three kids, had worshiped the ground he walked on, and thought he was my best friend.

I later found out that he had been cheating on me and had most likely cheated before. Our marriage had not been perfect and I had put up with quite a bit, but I took my vows seriously and would never have expected them to be compromised. On top of that, I would have done ANYTHING to bring him back; I would have changed anything, done anything, been whomever he wanted. He never communicated any unhappiness and I was never given an opportunity to rectify the situation. He just left and wanted to see me ruined, especially financially. He harbored, and still does harbor, quite a bit of hatred toward me.

So, fast-forward to now and I still feel as raw as I did back then. This has been the hardest thing I have ever been through. The divorce was horrible – he continued to lie his way through the process, he hardly sees the kids, and hasn’t talked to one of them on over two years.

I can’t determine whether it is my ego, or just true pain of loss. I still miss him daily, even though he was extremely cruel to me and my children. Meanwhile, he is sill living with the whore he cheated on me with and now wants to introduce her to my children. I feel like I am going out of control because I do not want this to happen. I believe I was/am co-dependent and don’t really need a diagnosis but rather just some tools to make it through.

I would love some advice…

Wilma  

Answer:

Wilma -

There is a whole lot of emotional baggage going on here.  You mentioned that you had put up with quite a bit during your marriage, that you would have become anyone to please him and to save your marriage, that he wanted to see you ruined, that he was extremely cruel to you, and you call his girlfriend a whore.  What does all that mean to you?

The big question I have is why would you accept the abuse that you received for so long?  Why would you try to be someone other than who you are to please him, and exactly who are you anyway?  It seems to me that you have lost touch with who and what you are.  It is more about you right now than him. It is about you using this experience as an opportunity to do a big-time self analysis and work on letting go of the emotional baggage that may have gotten you into this in the first place.

I am not condoning what he did whatsoever….bad behavior is bad behavior.  What I am saying is that use this divorce as a means to heal, grow and move on into a better life. Know that a marriage is a 50/50 deal and we must take responsibility for our part.  It seems to me that you might have been an enabler by accepting far too much abuse from him.  Perhaps, I don’t know you well enough.

The reality of the situation is that your ex has a girlfriend and whether you like it or not, she will be in your kid’s lives.  Accept that fact and then decide how you want to handle it so your kid’s interests and well-being are put first. Love your kids more than you might resent him and her.  Your pain and resentment are hurting you, not him.  You suffer, not him.  You waste your precious time, not him. See?

Reality is reality. If you choose to fight the facts of your life then you will be stuck and will not be able to move forward.  What you think should or could be doesn’t matter…those are fantasies.  Learn what you can and cannot control in life and then let go of the things you have no control over.  It isn’t so much what life hands you that is as important as your choice in how to handle life’s challenges.

Regards,

Shelley

Shelley Stile is an ACC certified Divorce Recovery Life Coach and author who guides her clients to let go the pain of their divorce and move on to create new and vibrant lives after divorce. Shelley has been through her own divorce so she knows first-hand about the journey of divorce recovery. Receive her free, powerful e-book, The 10 Secrets to Coping with Divorce’, and her monthly ‘Take Back Your Life After Divorce’ Newsletter by going to: http://www.freedivorcesupport.com.

Other Articles:

The Emotional Stages of Divorce Recovery:  How Will You Manage Yours?

Important Considerations: What Would Happen To Your Kids IF…?

Self-Help: Helpful To Some, Offensive To Others

Three weeks ago,unknown and unsigned singer Christina Perri was working as a waitress in a Philadelphia cafe.  But by chance – or perhaps grand design  - a song she wrote called Jar of Hearts,  landed in the hands of  Stacey Tookey, a choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance.  Virtually overnight, Christina’s life has become a whirlwind of incredible change as record labels race to sign her and Jar of Hearts climbs into the top 5 on I-Tunes.

So what’s so special about Christina’s song?  One word:  everything.  The lyrics, the melody, and her raspy voice are beautifully haunting.  There’s no denying the ‘rawness’ too - Christina wrote it only six months ago to help cleanse herself of a man who dumped her, then suddenly decided he wanted her “one more time.”   

And so I’m sharing it with you today – for it speaks to all of us who feel “half-alive”, who have loved and lost, and who struggle to be courageous in the face of relationships that are no good for us.  

Here she is, live, in a recording studio.  I like this version even more.

Amelia – www.iamdivorcednotdead.com

Other Articles:

May There Be Angels Beneath The Support Beams of my Life

Turning The Kids Against The Ex

When An Ex Won’t Let Go

Dear Shelley:

My husband moved out to “find himself” and decide if he wants to work on our marriage of 22 years or if he wants to be single.

He had an affair and I lived with this knowledge and his sadness after the other woman dumped him for fear that her husband would find out.  Nonethethless I was still willing to work on our marriage.  This is ruining our family economy and we are trying to put a son through college.

I feel stuck since I can’t move on.  I can’t afford a divorce or legal separation.  I feel that this could go on forever or at least until he finds his next bimbo.

I’m so depressed knowing I face an uncertain future and he seems to hold all of the cards. I’m 61, I left my career for his career, and raised our kids..now I’m basically jobless, kids are on their journies, no husband and facing a life of being single.

S.

Dear S.