Ok, I had a really hard time dealing with my WW/STBXW's A. As a result my hurt took over and I turned to anger to deal with it. That obviously didn't work as I found I was pushing my WW/STBXW toward her OM and us toward a D. I came across a website just recently
http://www.divorceasfriends.com and have gleaned some information that I wanted to provide to the rest of you. Some of you may benefit from it and if I can help one person, then I feel I have done something positive at least. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
To summarize:
Bill Ferguson </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Taken from
How to Divorce as Friends webstiteNotice what happens when you get upset. You close down inside. You get tunnel vision and lose your ability to see clearly. All you can do is to fight, resist, hang on, or withdraw.
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Almost any action you take in this state destroys love, fuels conflict and makes your situation worse. If you could somehow be free of the fear and upset, the tunnel vision would disappear.
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To handle a situation, you need action, not resisting.
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Fear is created by avoiding and resisting a future possible event. For example, let's say that you are married and that you are resisting the possibility of your spouse leaving. The more you resist this future possible event, the greater your fear.
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As your fear increases, so does the chance of your fear coming true. You become threatened and hang on even more. This in turn pushes your spouse further and further away. By avoiding and resisting this future possible event, you create a state of fear and upset that tends to bring you the very event that you are avoiding. This is the nature of fear.
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For example, in your heart, be willing to lose your spouse. But in your actions, do everything you can to create an environment where he or she would never want to leave. (Plan A) The moment you become willing to lose your spouse, fear and upset lose their power.
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The first step is trusting. Trust that no matter what happens, you will be okay. Now this doesn't mean that life will turn out the way that you want it to. Life often doesn't. Trust is knowing that however life turns out, you will be fine.
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The second and most important step in the process of letting go is to be willing to feel your hurt. This is important because it's the automatic avoidance of this hurt that forces us to resist.
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There are two steps in the healing process. The first step is to be willing to feel your hurt like a child. This releases the emotion. The second step is to find and dismantle the inner mechanism that creates your hurt in the first place.
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So feel your hurt willingly like a child. Keep telling yourself, "It's okay to feel the hurt. It's okay." Let the hurt come and let it go. Cry as hard as you can. Crying is the most powerful tool for releasing hurt.
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You may notice certain thoughts as you cry: "Why did she do this?" "Why can't she love me." Let the thoughts guide your crying. Cry each thought. Then move to the next one. Let the hurt take over. Feel the hurt of your circumstances and the deeper hurt of feeling worthless, not worth loving, a failure, and not good enough.
It's not the truth that you are this way, it's just a hurt, but it's a hurt that we'll do almost anything to avoid feeling. "If I really am worthless, I might as well die." Notice how painful it would be if you really were this way. Notice how much you have avoided this hurt. This is the hurt that runs your life.
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To heal this hurt and to be free inside, you need to do the opposite of fighting it. Find the specific hurt that you've been avoiding and make peace with it. Get to the place where you can say, "Yes, I'm worthless. So What? I'm also worthy." As you do this, the hurt loses power and disappears.
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If you want a relationship to work, you need to accept your 100 %. You need to make sure the other person feels loved, accepted and appreciated. When you are reacting, this becomes impossible.
Usually, it's just a matter of time until someone gets hurt and upset. That person then puts up his or her walls of protection and either resists, attacks or withdraws. Then the other person gets upset and does the same thing in return. Then the first person gets more upset and reacts more forcefully toward the other.
Without knowing, you create a cycle of conflict, a cycle of resisting, attacking and withdrawing from each other. This cycle then goes on and on without either person ever noticing his or her role in the conflict.
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It is physically impossible to have a cycle of conflict with only one person. Each person is 100% responsible.
Once you discover your role in the conflict, you can do something about it. You can stop the non-accepting. You can end the cycle of conflict and restore the love.
Take a moment and look at your relationship. Find your 100 % responsibility for the loss of love. Notice how non-accepting and critical you have been. Notice how you have hurt the other person and how that person has gotten upset and given it back to you.
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Releasing GuiltThe key to releasing guilt is to recognize that we all go through life doing the very best we can with the extremely limited skills and awareness that we have at the time.
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Making mistakes is part of the human process. This is how we learn. Every time you make a mistake you learn a little more about life. You then become wiser and more aware.
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Are you willing to forgive yourself for not knowing? Are you willing to forgive yourself for not being wiser and more aware? You might as well. If you look, you did the very best you could with where you were at the time.
Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for not being wiser and more aware. Forgive yourself for acting consistent with your limited awareness and forgive yourself for the damage that you caused as a result of your not knowing. Allow yourself to be human.
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ResentmentWhen you have a resentment, a major part of you closes down. You become bitter and less able to express your love. You lose your aliveness and your joy for life. You put up walls of protection and you make your life more difficult.
Letting go of a resentment is not for the benefit of the other person. It's for you.
When you resent someone, you are saying very forcefully, that the other person is the problem, the cause and the fault. Not you. You forcefully blame the other person so you don't have to look at yourself.
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The next step is to notice that the person you resent has a very particular state of mind and a very particular way of seeing life. Notice that this person has a very limited awareness and acts totally consistent with his or her limited skills and ability.
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Remember that forgiveness is for you, not the other person. Forgiveness is a choice. Let go of your resentment and get on with your life.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">So to summarize even further I have begun to call this my "Cry Therapy". Now as a man I have always been one of those "real men don't cry" kinda guys, but I tell ya I have been doing this the past 3 days and I feel better. I sit down and force myself to cry and get this stuff out. I don't harbor the anger I did before. My WW/STBXW had an IC appointment the other day and they talked about me. Her IC told her that when something is broken you go to your tool box to look for the tool to fix it. He then said that I only have anger in that toolbox and that is how he I am reacting. It's funny because I realized this myself the same day as my WW/STBXW was told this by her counsellor.
Wow, this is long, but I hope someone can benefit from it. I know had I known this sooner my Plan A would have been better and I *might* not be in the situation I am currently in.
MIF?
