Your divorce is a journey of self-renewal, a second chance for an improved life, once you learn the meanings of your "negative" emotions.<P>1. Accept these uncomfortable emotions as part of yourself. They have always been part of you, but are only overwhelmingly evident in extreme crises, such as divorce or the death of a loved one.<P>2. Recognize that experiencing these emotions is part of the healing process of mourning the death of your marriage in the initial stage of your divorce, but can be self-destructive if you continue to be attached to them after that initial stage is experienced.<P>3. Consider these emotions as neither good nor bad in and of themselves. They are a part of yourself that must be understood, rather than wallowed in or feared.<P>4. Recognize the time for letting go of these emotions; you own them and therefore have the power to dispense with them. The time for letting go is when they no longer serve the appropriate function of mourning the death of your marriage. That typically will occur sometime within the first twelve months of your breakup.<P>5. Apply the W. C. Fields principle: "If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then stop. No sense making a damn fool of yourself." When you become aware that acting toward your ex-spouse continuously with anger, hostility, fear, or a desire for vengeance doesn't get the positive results you may want, or make you happy, you have allowed such emotions to seize control of your life far beyond the mourning stage of your breakup.<P>6. Focus on whether you would rather be "right" than happy, because you cannot have both. Feeling permanently self-righteous will cancel out your possibility of leading a happier life as a single person. Self-righteousness affords you the same kind of temporary fix that cocaine or alcohol does, with the lethal day-after consequences for your life.<P>7. Seek outside help from a good divorce counselor when you find yourself unable to break the grip of any of the Seven Deadly Emotions by yourself. It is the strong man or woman who seeks out counseling, rather than the weak one.

Do you want a D?<P>The way I see it , my WH is mentally ill right now and needs help from his family to get him back on the right track in life. I know his A won't last forever. Maybe I have to swallow my pride but I hope I'll still have my M in the end. <P>I believe that our M will be better than ever if we get through this.<BR>Do you think your H is in MLC?<BR>I see you are about my age (44) and have been with your H about the same length of time(26 years).

My D is inevitable. I tried to slow it down, get counseling - he refuses.<P>I didn't know about any of his A's until he announced he wanted a D, and no, I wasn't clueless. EVERYONE thought we had the best marriage around.<P>All those other A's didn't hurt - until I found out about them, of course - because I didn't know about them at the time they were going on. This weekend he's out of town with the one he left me for - and we're still married, technically. I really think that sucks. <P>I didn't sleep worth a flip last night, which means the brain was racing again - and think now it's possible that he was wandering before we even got married. Then why marry me??!! Because I was so gullible he could get away with all the other? Or because, as he once said, he liked the way I loved him.<P>I spend most of my time on the D/D board. I just found this in a book and thought it was kind of helpful.<P>Actually, my newest favorite saying is:<BR>"Character is what you are when no one is looking." I've set it up as my email "signature" - and the only way I can deal with him right now is via email.