“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
Winston Churchill
Divorced people often get stuck trying to understand history.
Unfortunately the history they are trying to understand is the behavior of their ex spouse. Don’t let your progress in recovery depend on trying to understand why your former spouse behaved as he/she did. He or she may never tell you and may not even know the answer. Marriage is complex and its demise can be equally complex.
Accept that you will never fully understand the big questions such as:
-why did my marriage fail?
-why did my ex have an affair?
-why did my ex leave me?
-why did we drift apart?
-why couldn’t we make it work?
-why did he/she quit trying?
If your ex left you, it could be because of some problems he or she had that had little to do with you and there was nothing you could have done about it. Mid-life crises, boredom, sexual vulnerability and other similar issues can lead to divorce. Marriage requires two people to make a decision, divorce only takes one.
However, it is important for you to learn something about your role in the divorce (even if it was just making a bad choice of mates) so that you don’t repeat the mistakes. When all of us are first divorced, we blame our ex and claim no role for ourselves. But over time as anger and bitterness subside; we begin to see our role more clearly. So if your divorce is recent and still painful, what can you learn about your role?
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Clues
In spite of the difficulty in explaining the reasons for divorce, there are usually clues. Try answering these questions (honestly) and see if you can learn some things to help you avoid future mistakes.
Question:
Suppose your ex is in a divorce recovery workshop reading this book.
When he is asked: “Why did you get a divorce?” what would he or she give as answers?
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Question:
During your marriage, especially the last months or years, what did your ex complain about? What did you do or not do that upset him/her and vice versa?
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Question:
Men are wired to need respect and women are wired to need love. How would you say you performed in providing that to your ex and vice versa?
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Some reasons why marriages fail
Marrying with fatal flaws
Many marriages fail because of a fatal flaw in one of the spouses – drinking, drugs, sexual addictions, overeating, overspending, etc.
Question:
Were there any such fatal flaws in you or your ex? What did you try to do about it? What have you learned from that experience?
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Marrying too young
If you marry at a very young age, you will likely not know who you are and your spouse doesn’t know who he/she is either. It is only good luck that as you mature, you grow together and are a good fit.
Question:
Did you marry when you were too young to make a good choice of mate? Did you grow apart over time as you both matured? What have you learned from that experience?
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Marrying too quickly
Many people say they found “love at first sight” and they didn’t wait to truly get to know each other – the good, the bad and the ugly. This often leads to nasty “surprises” which can be marriage-ending.
Question:
Did you marry before you dated your ex for at least two years? If you did, why did you feel the need to marry so quickly? What have you learned from that experience?
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Marrying knowing there are problems
Many marriages are doomed to fail on the day of the wedding.
People in divorce recovery mention a variety of problems in their marriage that led to its demise. But they also confess that they saw these problems in their fiancé or in the relationship before the wedding, but chose to get married anyway. If you saw some problems during the dating phase and decided to marry anyway, then you must take that responsibility for the marriage failure.
Question:
Before the wedding, did you see any flaws in your ex that caused the failure of your marriage? What were they? Were there warning signs or
‘red flags’ that you chose to ignore? Were there things you saw that you told yourself “That will change after we are married”? List any of these things you saw prior to the marriage. What have you learned from this experience?
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Marrying on the rebound
If your divorce was from a remarriage, all of the above issues apply.
But in addition, you may have remarried for the wrong reasons such as trying to escape the problems from your previous divorce. If you had not grown through your divorce and fully healed, you may have married on the rebound and chosen poorly.
Question:
If this is a repeat divorce, did you grow through your previous divorce and fully heal? In hindsight, did you marry the wrong person on the rebound? Did you marry because you had problems that you wanted your new spouse to solve for you? Did you marry because you needed to be needed? Did you marry someone who was not ready to remarry because they had a host of problems or where still recovering from their divorce? What have you learned from that experience?
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Questions for Step 4: How to Learn from Your Divorce
Q. Are you stuck trying to understand why your ex did what he/she did?
Or why your marriage failed?
Q. If your ex were doing this divorce recovery workbook instead of you, what would he/she say were the reasons he/she got a divorce?
Q. Even if you believe your role is quite small, can you identify things that you did that led to the ending of your marriage?
Q. Were there issues prior to the marriage that were red flags that the marriage may not work out? Did you see major flaws (or did you have such flaws) that existed before the wedding took place?
Q. Did you marry when you were too young to know who you were?
Did you marry too soon without really getting to know your ex? Did you marry on the rebound from a prior divorce?
Q. If you wrote a book about what you learned from your divorce, what would be the title of the book? What would be the two or three key points you would include in the book?
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Step 5: How to Take Responsibility for Yourself and Your Children