Recovering from Divorce: Honoring the Truth

Do you remember the old adage that states there’s your side, there’s
my side and then there’s the truth? If we were totally honest with
ourselves, we too could see the truth of any situation. Once we accept
that truth, we have the new found freedom to gain clarity, discover our
options and make real choices that are based in reality and not a
subjective interpretation of what is. The past no longer runs the show.
A world of possibilities opens that we might otherwise have missed. To
recover from divorce one must face the truth.

The gist of the adage is that we don’t really see reality for what it is
Rather we see things through our interpretive abilities and we
interpret things based on our past experiences. Reality gets fine tuned
through our own personal filters. We live in a world based on the past,
a world that no longer exists.

Here’s an example:
Recently I was coaching a woman and we were discussing how she had
interpreted her Mom’s behavior to mean that she wasn’t lovable. She had
a brother and a sister who grew up in the same home and they did not
feel unlovable. How? The truth was that the Mother was a non-emotional,
logical and somewhat distant person. Those were the facts. It had
nothing to do with my client and yet she had interpreted her Mom’s
behavior as meaning that something is wrong with her. If she had been
lovable, her Mom would have been the nurturing and loving Mother she
needed. The clients belief that she is unlovable has colored her
entire life’s experience. Only it wasn’t true.

Facts versus interpretations
Now look at your divorce. What are the real facts and what are your
interpretations of those facts? Perhaps your marriage broke down
because you felt your husband was never happy with you and you were the
target of his constant criticism. Your husbands story is that you were
never truly loving and nurturing and he was desperately attempting to
fix that situation. The marriage counselor sees something different.
She sees that you interpreted his attempts to receive more love as
constant criticism. That is indeed how it felt to you. She also sees
that he had been somewhat needy and his approach only pushed you
farther away.

Our inability to see the truth without our personal interpretations makes it impossible to resolve the conflict
In truth, you may have had an experience from your past where a
parent constantly criticized you and you have become extremely
sensitive to anything about your behavior. In truth, your husband may
have been raised by parents who were not loving towards him and so he
craves attention. Whatever. The truth is that we allow our past to
serve as a filter for our present and thereby create reactions that are
not based in reality. The operative word is reactions: we are only
reacting to life and not being the master of our fate.

It could be that your marriage broke down because the two of you
married for the wrong reasons and you simply cannot make it work. But
most people will not admit to that truth and will heap all sorts of
blame on one another based on their own personal interpretations of who
is at fault.

To break free of the pain of divorce we must be willing to see the facts versus our interpretations of the facts
Look at what is versus what we think is. In order to do that we must
be willing to set our egos aside as well as our past. Facing the truth
instead of what we want to believe is the truth is what we have to do
to be able to make the changes we want in life. That is not necessarily
an easy task but it is a necessary one if we are to move forward in our
lives. You cannot begin a new life until you end the old one.

Here’s an exercise you can do to start on the road to recovery
Take a piece of paper with two columns: one listing the facts of
your marriage’s demise and the other your interpretations of why things
went south. For instance, the fact might have been that you and your
husband had different ideas on money. Your interpretation of that fact
might be that your ex was incredibly cheap. Separate fact from
interpretation by being as objective as possible without allowing your
personal opinions to cloud the issue.

A good marriage counselor will tell you that a marriage does not fail because of just one partner
Although it may not look like it to you, it is the truth. Even if
your ex had an affair, there were reasons for his infidelity other than
his lapse in moral judgment. If you are really honest with yourself,
you will see the real reasons for why things happened the way they did.