I think I probably have mentioned it on and off on this site within the last few weeks, but me and Tamara have been taking a class together. This class, put on by support-to-single-parents, is all about self-esteem. Tamara is friends with the instructor and found out about the class and thought it might be good for us. Admittedly, I thought it was kind of something I didn?t need, but thought it can?t hurt. Man, I couldn?t have been more wrong about needing it. It wasn?t so much about self-esteem that I have learned, but just a lot of things about myself. The class is designed to teach you about who you are, what you need to do to be happy, and really being ok with the person you are. I know that for myself, I have become pretty content with the person I am, but some of the things that have happened in my past have really plagued me for awhile, so I was hoping a class like this might help me, and thanks to Debbie Melanson-Hebert?s ingenious class and teaching methodology, I gotta say, I?m a changed man.
I?ll be the first one to admit that, until now, I?ve had some major issues dealing with my divorce. It?s been over two years (as of this writing) and I still was having issues letting go of what happened. To me, all I saw was a lot of hurt that Jenn caused me. I blamed her for throwing me out like trash, treating me like shit, and God only knows what else. I kept having this sense of wanting to see her life in ruins so that she could feel how I felt when it was over. It felt like this wasn?t going to go away. Ever. Was I ever going to be able to just let it go, and enjoy what I have? Nope. I felt like I?d be haunted by it forever.
Then I started going to this class, and one of the things that came up was ?Owners vs. blamers?. I had sort of said to myself all along that yeah, ok, I could have gotten out of the relationship but didn?t, and just sort of glossed over that part, as if Jenn was the problem. Owners vs. blamers talks about how people are very quick to blame others for their problems. Blame your boss for your work being awful. Blaming your spouse for treating you badly. Blaming your friends for lying to you. Those are very easy. But, how hard is it to say that, it was my fault. For anything. It?s very hard. It?s much easier to let someone else take the blame.
The day in class lead me and Tamara into a very deep discussion where for me, it really came out that I was ultimately responsible for what happened with me and Jenn. No doubt she did a lot of hurtful, and stupid things, but I allowed it to happen, and I allowed myself to sit back and take it. Why would anyone continue to remain in a relationship, after knowing how the other person treats you? In the case of marriage, as silly as it may sound, ?for better or worse? can stick in your mind, and you think that, ?Hey, we?re married, we should make it work? instead of realizing how miserable you are, and just ending it, and moving on. Ultimately, that?s what happened, but I sat back and blamed Jenn for all of the things she did to me. Yeah, she did a lot, and yeah, I got hurt by it, but ultimately, I could have just walked away at anytime, or stood up for myself, or whatever. I lowered my self-esteem down to the point where I let someone else walk all over me. Everyone else around me saw it, but I didn?t.
That was the first step. Realizing that it was me who allowed things to happen. When that true realization hit, there was a major change inside of me. All of a sudden a bulk of that resentment towards Jenn, that had been haunting me, was floating away. It was like I finally clued in. Then another conversation with Tamara, spawned by a class, made me realize something else.
Tamara talked to me about how people can be very unhappy in the situation they are in, and the rest of the world not know it. Whether it?s in your job, your family, or in a relationship. You can feel very strongly one way, but in the eyes of your friends and family, they can think something else because you don?t want them to know how you really feel. She told me a story which made so much sense when it was done. I won?t share the exact story as it was told to me, but one of the defining things about my resentment towards Jenn was the fact that when we split up, it seemed almost as if she was celebrating. She hopped onto a new guy within days like I hadn?t mattered at all. At the time, I thought we were trying to fix our marriage, and from where I sat, she was going out partying, trying to pick up guys, and whatever. It made me feel like I had been tossed aside, and she was looking for something new. As if our marriage had not meant a thing. But this was just perception.
Tamara?s story about something very similar allowed me to see it from a totally different perspective. If Jenn was miserable in our marriage, just as I was, then when things finally came to an end, Jenn would have seen it as an opportunity to finally be happy. Not that she was mad at me, or didn?t care about me, but that she just wasn?t happy anymore. When the time came, and we split up, it was a chance to find that happiness that she didn?t have with me. I know she didn?t intend on hurting anyone, she just wanted to be happy, and now that the chance was there, she just dove after it. Her perception of things was very different than mine was, at the time. My perception was that the marriage wasn?t over, and we are trying to fix it, whereas it may have been with her, she wasn?t happy, and that now she?s got a chance at it. I even recall some conversation about her saying Rob made her happy. That said it all right there. But at the time, I was hurting, and was trying to do something else so I never saw what she was talking about.
I don?t think I ever would have saw it unless Tamara had told me her story. It told me a similar tale, but from the perspective of someone else, who would have been similar to Jenn. Not celebrating, just being happy. Other people?s perceptions are what cause the emotional distress, and in this case, I was the other person looking at Jenn.
Regardless, now that I see things in this different light, the resentment towards Jenn is pretty much gone. Things that were said and things that happened did hurt. That will remain with me for life as I?m not going to forget what I went through, but I now can see how things were really different than I originally thought.
The other thing that?s a little weird about this, is that I really have Jenn to thank for me finding Tamara, and finding myself. If I had never married Jenn, and never gone through all of that, I would never have discovered the things about myself that I have now. I would not have ended up with Tamara and understood what a healthy relationship is about. Same thing goes for her. Jenn would likely have never been able to appreciate her situation with Rob and although I think her situation is very different, in that she?s lead herself to believe things are different than they really are, for her, she?s happy, and in a better place and that?s really what?s important.
Everything happens for a reason, and even though my marriage to Jenn ended badly, and it hurt like a bitch to go through, my life is way better now because I have gone through that. I?m glad that, thanks to Tamara and the class we took together, I?m able to see all of these things now.
My advice to people that read my pages is that you truly control your own life, and every time you sit back and blame someone else, think about whether or not you could have done something to change it, or prevent it, or made a difference. I guarantee you could have. I know there are people who read these pages who do the blame game, and I know those same people have seen their lives turned upside down because of it. Own it. Don?t blame it.
So there, I?ve had my say.
