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HEALING THROUGH THE PAIN
We have now discussed how to embrace pain with mindful awareness and compassion. It has opened up the gateway to this vessel of compassion and understanding which allows the communication channels to broaden. Not only are we able to hear but our awareness allows us to listen with a presence. We are able to leave our guarded posts to stand alongside the child or co-parent and empathize with their view point. As wonderful as the elements of embracing pain, mindful awareness, and compassion are for all involved with the divorce, it is not the total makeup for completion in healing.
When it comes to the healing process, I presume that I am no different than most. I become quite impatient and tend to rush the healing process. I witness this phenomenon on a constant basis in my practice. It is not a rarity to treat a patient with an infection so severe that the tooth requires for me to extract it. Accompanying the pain is the impetuous desire for instant healing to occur. This request for such haste in healing violates the biological and physiological order of life. It is impossible to remove a tooth, dislodging ligaments and passing a tooth through bone and gum tissue, and expect that complete healing to occur at the end of the appointment. And so it is with raising children through a divorce. It would be unfair, blatantly egregious to expect the children to be ok or simply get over it after being made aware that the parents are splitting up and living in separate households. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to feel that way.
There would be nail-biting moments such as when I felt that the thousandth time I had to console my preschooler because I would not be staying the night would be the last time. There are legal ramifications for spending the night during a period of separation. After all, separation comes with the process of divorce. I would enter a moment of judgement thinking, why can’t we all just get over it and accept it and shut up about it. But it does not work that way. Both the toddler and elementary child would require something greater of me … patience and understanding. Simply put, healing takes time.
In order for my sons to heal, I would have to be patient enough to allow the healing process to be complete. Even as adults we do not always get over painful situations quickly. We easily ruminate over the circumstances just as children do in their own way. Patience is a necessity for healing.
Too often when something fails we are quick to point blame. It temporarily reduces the pain and suffering when we can locate a cause. It is equally just as challenging to look within ourselves to take accountability for what is wrong or broken. When raising children, the years are delicate and pass us by so swiftly. In a blink those years are gone and the child has become a young adult. All the blaming, angst, and fretting during or even after a divorce becomes so trivial.
I listened to a young patient of mine openly discuss how sad she was that her divorced parents did not get along. She went further to say every major decision that affects her results in her suffering because the co-parents are still blaming each other for what went wrong in the marriage and they have been divorced over ten years now. The co-parents attempt to punish each other by withholding cooperation, but in the end, she admitted to being the one that is hurt. She desired a certain cosmetic treatment that was costly and would have meant the world to her esteem. The patient concluded that the years drug on without a single treatment being rendered because the parents kept the pain going long after the divorce was final.
It is not easy by any means as I reflect on my own misfortune through divorce. But healing through the pain certainly is doable. I invite you to think on three practices to pursue:
- •Assign responsibility appropriately
- •When in need don’t wimp out on seeking Therapy
- •Always apply Intuitive thinking in order to receive the healing that is necessary to raise children appropriately during this distressing transition
Assigning responsibility appropriately lends us the opportunity to utilize what was discussed in the previous chapters. It is without a doubt that tempers are quick to flare during divorce. Just the slightest of offenses can set one if not both parties off. It was so in my case. Just when calmness would seem visible, out of nowhere a phone call from the attorney or another bill in the mail or another challenge for custody with another court date would rear its ugly face. This would trigger all the emotions and sometimes it occurred in the presence of children. Like it or not, they are watching.
Finger pointing comes and we don’t want to be wrong in front of the children. As a parent, I never want to let my children down, let alone be the cause of their pain and suffering. But I found that just taking accountability for what I was responsible for made the healing a lot easier. Even further, apologizing for the role I played would certainly go a long way.
My ex-husband and I were in the kitchen with my sons sitting at the breakfast bar eating, all the while listening in on our conversation. He and I were discussing the sale of the home mingled with me attempting to reach an agreement to keep the home. He casually emoted that if it were not for me causing the divorce I would not have to be in the position to bargain to keep the home. In that moment, I could feel the heat rising just beneath my collar deep into my flesh. But, my sons were watching and listening. They were looking and listening to see if I would apply that lesson I so etched in their minds via a poem by Rudyard Kipling. “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.” I had made it a necessity that they memorized that poem, especially being males. Within every verse this powerful poem provides the guidance and the path to becoming a man, just as the poem’s ending declares. So, I entered a state of mindful awareness and compassion for my soon-to-be ex and responded accordingly.
You are correct, I am to blame for the dissolution of the marriage but only partly. I am to blame because I entered willingly into this marriage where I was still broken from the first marriage. I offered you a fractured woman who could not receive nor give what was needed for the marriage to survive. And now it leads me to a position to advocate on behalf of the children to surrender to some resolution to keep the home. I further stated that despite what percentage of the responsibility I can assume, it would not do any good for me to begin calculating where the remainder of the blame should fall. The home fell into the hands of a realtor who placed it on the market. But this moment would not be my defining moment of my deepest truth. I cannot hide the nature of my pain over the loss of the family home. The pain that already entered and saturated my heart and mind like a toxic gas was now taking root and spewing other emotions. In a conversation with a relative, who patiently listened as I ranted about the loss of my first purchased home, there was the truth surfacing. My regret in that instant was that I lacked the power to be faster than sound. For if I had possessed such ability, I would have snatched back those four words before she heard them.
The words spoken would lead to a deep moment of veracity that would expose the true source of my pain. From my lips the four words burst through as I gasped trying to inhale them back. “I hate being married.” My relative said, “Aha, there it is.” She was right. Truth and blame reared its face beneath all the pain and loss. Upon her inquiry as to why I “hated being married,” I answered with a clear assignment of blame that I viewed marriage as a thief that robbed me of my voice, my identity, leaving me without a clue as to who I was. The next question she asked me was profound, evoking self-analysis. “Did marriage take your voice and identity, or did you give it away?”
My truth revealed in its entirety would lend a deeper understanding that the loss of the home was not the root of my pain. Upon discovery of my truth and assigning the responsibility I played in the downfall of my marriage, I could more easily accept the consequences of divorce. One consequence was the loss of the family home.
I had accepted my responsibility. Once that occurs finding fault in someone else is pointless. The compassion I would continue to show my ex-husband despite many olive branches returned to me that were broken would soften everyone’s resolve and healing would be able to penetrate. This in no way is to be interpreted that guilt should be a companion to anyone during the healing process. There is a marked difference between guilt and accountability. Guilt during a divorce is absolutely pointless. Life happens and it is not always good. Life contains within its realm beginnings and endings. The ending of a marriage with children does not dictate how the children evolve. For I have witnessed multiple accounts where a two-parent household yields damaged and broken children/adults just as easily as a single parent household.
While guilt implies bad or wrongdoing, accountability is taking ownership of one’s actions. By being accountable, I was able to heal rather than taking on guilt that the marriage did not work. I was able to help my children to a pathway of healing through this pragmatic approach. I would explain to them that life does not always operate perfectly. There will be hardships, disappointments, and sadness just as there is happiness, success, and good fortune. In explaining this to my sons one day, they reflected on that very poem I encouraged them to commit to memory. Is it like the poem says, if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same…? I smiled knowing that they were getting it. They were healing through the pain, this great mediator of life bridging life experiences with the lessons of life. It is not enough to just throw blame, take accountability for what you can and let go of the rest. The children will take a silent yet deep appreciation for this.
The children can hold guilt beyond measure. It is reasonable to expect the children to internalize suffering because they make up one half of the person being discarded as a soulmate via the divorce. When disgust is felt about a behavior trait of the co-parent, the children can easily hold themselves with fault and blame the tension in the home on themselves. I would pay careful attention to this by praising them in all their God given attributes. I would often remind them how fortunate I was to have carried and birthed them. As a reminder, I would never end these moments of praise without stating that I willingly had them and I willingly chose their father because of such fine characteristics he possessed. I would list them and identify those characteristics in them.
We must always project truth. We entered into the marriage with complete autonomy. No one forced us. It was not a prearranged marriage. I would stand before my sons with complete accountability that I chose this marriage with your father as I chose to have you. As part of healing, I relied heavily upon table talk with my sons. I would say: Please forgive my disapproval of him at this moment because I am cross with sadness, disappointment, and anger. However, as you may be cross with me one day ov...
