Breaking Up is Hard to Do #2

I have written about breaking up, I have written about being rich over right, I have even written about being your best self no matter what people are trying to do to you, you know, taking the high road. I feel like I need to write further on these subjects but maybe in a harsher way.

Why when all is said and done, when you want out, when the fat lady has sang and sang to the point that she has lost her voice do we allow ourselves to react to some emotional blow from someone that we cannot stand any longer? Why fight? Why?

Stop the fighting. First and foremost get the whole “eye for an eye” concept out of your mind. To quote a great “An eye for an eye make the whole world blind”- Gandhi. That being said, this includes you. Payback is a bitch and no one ever wins, but if you choose to payback someone let it be at least something that benefits you remotely. Try this… Make your life happier than the other persons by learning to react positively to their negative behaviors. THIS IS NOT EASY. Completely doable when given the attention being positive deserves, but not easy.

I have a few friends that are going through break-ups, some reflect the famous “War of the Roses” movie that reminds us all that marriage can be very scary when not handled with maturity, or more importantly, getting out of the marriage with some grace and with self respect, and some are less passionate, but the thing I notice about these break-ups are the same, someone wants out.

Lately, maybe because of my age now, there are children involved in these relationships or break-ups, what ever you want to call them. Me, coming from a “broken home” (thankful for it) has some insight for you parents out there. 1) Children are better off in two happy homes rather than one stressful unloving home. Please believe that children may not know how to drive, they may not know how to balance their check books yet (I really can’t do that either), and they may not know how to do all the things that “adults” do, but they know at birth what happy feels like, and you are doing an injustice to a child’s soul by making them feel uneasy, unhappy, and like their parents hate each other. For what? So they can see these unhappy people 24 hours a day. I’ll say it, since they don’t know how yet “No thanks Mommy and Daddy, if your sticking around for the kiddies, admit right now that it is for your own selfish reasons, not for them”. 2) I do not care if you caught your husband or wife sleeping with your best friend on your grandmothers embroidered linens that you got from her estate that she especially willed to you because you were her favorite out of all the grandchildren, this is no reason for you ever to put down your ex (or soon to be) in front of your children. My mother refused to talk about my father in front of me as a child, my dad however ran my mother down, guess whose side I was on? Don’t make your children defend their mother or their father, hell, it is your fault that they have them as a parent to begin with, not theirs. What you are truly saying in  their eyes is that the only reason that you are stuck talking to this monster is because of them. It is immature and you look like the asshole. 3) No matter what you both have a job to do and I know this is going to be hard to swallow, it has nothing to do with your happiness, your job is to be good parents to this little person that you chose to bring to the world, if that is not a valid reason to put down the guns, I cannot imagine what is. The Roses had one thing over you guys, their children were off on their own. If you have these kids, you have a common purpose, it is to be good parents, this does not mean you have to be good parents that reside in the same home. Period.

Divorce can be expensive, exhausting, and ego smashing, and that is just the surface, it can be heart breaking and failure gathering, it can make you think of doing things that just a few years ago you couldn’t imagine yourself doing, but the one thing (unless you are a Rose or a Peterson) it won’t do is kill you. You will live on, the sooner that you can look to the future the better, start living today, don’t wait until it is over, hell you never know what is going to happen tomorrow. Laugh a little, laugh at the fact that you failed at your marriage, you are not the first, you are not the last, but you did it, at least made the choice to marry the wrong one, or you can look at it the way I do, a learning experience, a good learning experience. Your children may not be thrilled at the fact that Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to sleep in the same bed, but sometimes you know what is best, and happiness is the only thing that we seek that separates us from the animals. You do not want to set the standard for your children that they stay in something that they are miserable in. Do you? If you answer yes to that, it is more than this “blog” that you need, like counseling. Which is the last thing I will say… Get some counseling, or at least have a weekly coffee with someone that has been through this, talk about it, a lot, and then talk about it some more. You will find that once you start talking, you start to feel better.

My Heart is With You on Your Journey,

Lizzy