Before going through my divorce, I knew one absolute truth and that was we will all die. There’s no way to escape that. Everything else was really a big crap shoot.
As I approach my official one year anniversary of my divorce and my year of soul searching I have come to realize a few things I definitely know for sure about myself and relationships.
It’s been a rough and rocky road, but I can honestly say that even though I’m not exactly where I want to be emotionally, I am so much closer than I was a year ago. I can tell that the hard work I’ve been putting in is paying off. Improving yourself mentally is just as tough as preparing your body for a marathon. You must work at it and work hard every single day to see the rewards. I am finally starting to see those rewards.
During this last year I had to take a step back and take note about the men I had chosen throughout my life and I began to see a pattern.
Maya Angelou so wisely stated “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Looking back I always saw a few red flags in the beginning of all of my relationships but naively thought that either he would change once we got serious or I thought that those red flags wouldn’t bother me later on down the line. I thought that it was something I could deal with. No one’s perfect, right? Well, I was wrong on both accounts. When you see someone lying and stretching the truth to everyone else, but think he’s not going to lie to you, you’ll be sadly mistaken. When you marry someone who’s been married 2 other times and he tells you that both women left him, take note. There was a big reason why those women left him. Now I know. He is a cheating, micro managing, penny pinching douche bag. That’s why they left. That’s why I left. Lesson learned.
When your gut tells you something is not right then something is not right. This is something I would bet my life on. Not once in my 43 years have I gotten that gut feeling for no reason. I have ignored that feeling on more than one occasion and it bit me in the ass. My now ex-husband had a year and a half long affair. I started to get weird gut feelings a month or two after he started this affair. I ignored it because I never ever thought he was the type of person to do such a thing. I should have listened. Sometimes we know things before we want to believe we know things. I swear to God that I will never ever ignore that feeling again.
I also learned very recently that it is me and me alone that controls how I feel. Whether I’m happy, sad, mad, jealous, etc. it’s my reaction that will determine my emotion. I have wasted so much of my energy letting the negative behavior of my ex get to me. I finally realized that what he did and continues to do is his issue. He’s the one who has to lay his head on his pillow every night knowing what he did. I do the same knowing that I tried my best and continue to only focus on the good.
And there is so much good. I have learned that had I not started being grateful for what I do have even at my lowest of lows, I could never have made it as far as I have. Instead of wallowing in my pity and woes I make it a point each and every day to think of at least 5 things I’m grateful for. I usually start with the same two every day; I woke up and I have my health. Honestly, I don’t understand how the people who are always negative, bitching and complaining all the time can make it. Life is really hard at times, but you have to see the silver lining. You just have to in order to make it to the other side taking away some life lesson that it was supposed to teach you.
It’s been a long and winding road to get where I am today, but I have no doubt that I’m where I am supposed to be.
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