When you are under excessive stress of deadlines and unknowns and trying to pin down moving parts there are a few step you can take to slow the world down and to release or lower your levels of understandable anxiety: 

Always look for the big picture. Asking yourself questions and being brutally honest with your answers can help: How do I fit into what is going on? What is my role in this? How did I get myself here and what may it take to get myself unraveled or untangled from the quagmire I am facing?  

Always be determined to take a position of learning and humility. This means giving up the idea of having all the answers and of having to solve all the problems. If you were that good at solving all the problems and having all the answers you may not be in the position you are in. 

Be easy on yourself. You are not alone. The circumstances facing you need not define who you are now or in the future. While there is life and breath there is always hope. Share your issues carefully and cautiously with men and women who have experience in the matters you face and not with those who are likely to enjoy your dilemma for the mere intrigue.

It is easy to sit in judgment of men and women who do dumb and hurtful things within their families. It is easy to jump to trite and self-righteous explanations as to why he left her, or why she found another lover, why he resorts to pornography.

One or two line clichés seldom explain complex human behaviors and misbehaviors.

Everybody is living a complex story, a story born out of his or her own family complexities which often span several generations.

I do not know, after many years of consulting with families, a single family that I would consider free of family complexities, no matter how idyllic things look on the surface.

Conflicts and breakups and abandonments escape logical explanations because they come from confused and painful and illogical histories. This is not an attempt to excuse hurtful behaviors but rather an attempt to promote patience and understanding, mercy and love.

Dig deeper, always dig deeper. Listen closely, very closely. People are always leaving clues about the unsolved or unresolved issues of their family of origin.

Men and women don’t wake up one morning and make a decision to abandon a spouse and children. The person who does this has been living on a volcano for years and might not even know it.