My ex-girlfriend won’t let go. We have been broken up for three years and had many conversations covering the reasons the relationship did not work. She continued to buy me clothes, make me food, send me cards, and try to see me for one last thing she needed to understand. I think I have been very patient but everything I say has to be broken down into precise meanings and explained to death. Here is the simple truth: I don’t want to be her boyfriend any longer and she doesn’t seem to get it. When I tell her I am free She won't let go....
Do not enter into any conversations in the attempt to explain yourself. You will not end viral activity (she is not a virus, being “locked on” to you is evidence of an emotional virus) if you continue to feed or facilitate the virus in any manner. Change your phone numbers and your email address. Accept no more gifts of any sort – and return, unopened, gifts that arrive.
She won’t let go…..
Ten, no 11, reminders for divorced “couples”:
This is someone you once loved....
2. Your former spouse has a family that was once also yours.
3. Your children will benefit from seeing that people who disagree are also able to work together.
4. It is possible to be cordial and cooperative even after a marriage has broken down, even after there has been infidelity, even after there have been cruel words spoken.
5. While the divorce is final and painful, the good memories remain good memories, the love once shared was once real.
6. Little is gained by speaking negatively of your former spouse or former in-laws.
7. Children will have a natural resistance to new partners, lovers, or spouses – to moving house or schools as a result of your decisions to divorce.
8. Using children as a means to getting what you need and want is hardly helpful to the well being of the children.
9. Having “adult” meetings – with all the adults present – to talk about co-parenting is probably a good idea.
10. It is possible to find joy and happiness even after divorce.
11. Sometimes (in response to trauma), life becomes a series of approximations, adaptations, of negotiated positions, which ultimately form into a renewed platform for a fulfilling life which, while within the immediate turmoil, no one can see or imagine.
Ten, no 12, things it has taken me years to learn:
Anxiety will drive you if you allow it....
2. Even an ant, when looked at under a microscope, can look like a monster (Rabbi Ed Friedman).
3. Anxiety is more contagious than the common cold (Rabbi Ed Friedman).
4. Worry teaches me nothing that’s really worth learning.
5. The busiest people often get the least done.
6. Burnout is not the result of working too hard, too much, or of holding an “important position” but it is the result of not minding my own business or taking on other people’s unresolved issues.
7. I get another shot at (almost) everything.
8. Forgiving others is a hallmark of the presence of good mental health.
9. Miracles are in the eye of the beholder.
10. Helping people find their strengths is more helpful than helping them identify their weaknesses.
11. Life is beautiful and life is brutal all at the same time.
12. God is not innocent (which does not mean that God is guilty).
Ritual dialogue for a healty couple….
“I will not get in your way. You may work where you choose, worship where you choose, and have all the friends you need and want. If you want to further your education I will do all I can to support you. You are absolutely free and do not require my permission for anything. I know the trust that we have developed between us gives me the confidence to know that you will always choose well and wisely, and when and if you do not choose well and wisely, I know your unwise choices do not arise out of an intentional desire to damage yourself, our relationship, or me.”
“I, in turn, will not get in your way. I will create space for our mutual benefit, work hard for our mutual enrichment, and honor the respect the trust we have built up over the years we have known each other. While I know I do not require your permission to enlarge my life through developing my career, and by developing many meaningful friendships, or enjoying a life of discipline and worship, I will willingly use the freedom that is inherently mine for our continued and mutual benefit.”
“Lighthouse” – friend, and reader, develops the theme —: “I will not (covertly) get in your way. I will collaborate with you prior to committing significant time, money, emotional resources and/or physical effort to ensure that our expectations are aligned with our mutually beneficial goals. I will do what I say so your trust in me is earned. When we have not explicitly agreed something, my actions will honor our relationship nonetheless. I will encourage you to uphold your agreements and thank you for your efforts every day regardless of the results. I will engage when reality doesn’t match our expectations so we may learn from the experience, forgive those that failed to keep their word and forget the situation. I dedicate the time to talk with you because it is the exchange of such emotional intimacies that differentiates our deepening love from that of my love for family and friends.” (Thanks, “Lighthouse,” for your valuable and beautiful contribution)
She’s going away for four months….
Use the time to grow....
Here are three of many options. I hope you take the third:
1. Think and talk about her all the time but keep very busy. Talk as much as possible about how she could possibly have done this to you. Measure your love by the degree to which you miss her and how much she says she misses you. Exhaust yourself (and her) by trying to contact her everyday. Bind yourself to your email and to your phone so you don’t miss any of her attempts to contact you.
2. Go into a cave for four months and don’t talk to anyone, so everyone can see how much you “love” and miss her. Do whatever you can to get people to feel sorry for you. Exhaust others. Appear neglected.
3. Before she leaves offer her a loving and free passage to contact you or to NOT contact you. Tell her that while you will miss her, you will not be pre-occupied with where she is and what she is doing. Use the time to grow: accept that part of love involves some separation and go diligently about your life.
My children manipulate their stepmother….
“My son (12) and my daughter (14) don’t like their stepmother but when they play their cards right for her she buys them stuff. I don’t like to see my children manipulating to get things from her. Should I step in and say something? We are not really on good terms with each other.”
Let then be...
Do all you can to get on good terms with the other woman who is co-parenting your children. I am not suggesting you become bosom pals but “cordial adults” would be a helpful arrangement for all concerned.
Avoid stepping into the mix with your children and their stepmother. All three have a lot to teach each other. Approaches from you will hinder the process. While no parent wants to see his or her children develop manipulative habits, this is a matter for you to directly address with your children. Your children will manipulate if it works, and will not, if it doesn’t. Take care of how they treat you, and allow their stepmother to discover her own unique relationship with her stepchildren.
Guidlines for step-parenting….
Enemies don't co-parent very well
2. Meet and talk about a unified approach to parenting that all the adults in your child’s life will agree to – BEFORE and after the wedding. Of course you will not agree on everything but that doesn’t mean you should not meet and talk.
3. Don’t make the new person into the enemy. When enemies co-parent children get wounded by crossfire.
4. When issues arise go to the source – try to avoid telling your former spouse what you really want to say directly to his her new partner. You are an adult. Don’t walk on eggshells when it comes to your children.
5. Mind your own business. How “they” spend their money or where they go on holidays is none of your business. Your business begins and ends with your children.
6. Don’t recruit in-laws or grandparents to side with you. You are “enough” on your own.
7. Give your children room to form a relationship with the “new” person.
A woman offers appreciaiton…
“I wish to extend my sincere thanks to you for helping me turn my life around. I have been reading your column every day since I wrote you months back when I was a jittering useless person unable to make decisions and take that next step for myself. Your response to me regarding the abuse I have been subject to for nearly 30 years was a real wake up call, not that certain things you set out for me had not been said to me before or thought by me before, it was just the way you said it that was the cherry on the cake! I was too afraid to listen. I am still living with my son – 17 months since my husband kicked me out of our home. I do plan to get my own little home in the not too distant future. We are divorced. I have bought myself a decent car. I have actually made contact with the human race, even with men who are able to hold a decent conversation without my being told I am stupid or incompetent. All of this, and more, in the space of about 7 months. My sons are delighted with my transformation!” (Letter shortened)
Are the suggestions, challenges, relevant to all cultures?
No culture is perfect....
While of course, I acknowledge the beauty, the power, and significance of unique cultures within all of their many forms – there are some aspects or things about most cultures should be challenged* and changed.
Here are a few:
1. When the voices of some are ignored or silenced because it is “cultural” (as in come caste systems).
2. When violence is par for the course because that’s our culture. (“He beats me, but that is how men are in these parts.”)
3. When boundaries are violated and one person or group is constantly the victim. (“Children get no privacy in our – insert place, race, religion, or language – families.”)
4. When thoughts and actions are monitored and suppressed in order to perpetuate the power of one group or person over another group or person. (“In our religion we are not allowed to think such things!”)
5. When the powerless are victimized and silence is the expected response. (“That’s just the way it is in the south – this county, this neighborhood, whatever!”)
The Differentiation of Self is applicable across all cultures and to consider it not so, is to misunderstand the concept at its core.
* I cannot prance around the world uttering racial slurs and then claim that, as a white South African reared under Apartheid, I am expressing my culture. Some things about my culture are despicable and ought to be harshly rejected. The same is true when a culture (or church, or family, or boss, or significant other) robs people of their voices for any reason (gender, race, age, economic status, or religion). Domination, manipulation, so-called co-dependence is not good for anyone, no matter where he or she is born, what language he or she speaks, or what faith he or she claims or proclaims.
By the way, one of my first Egyptian students wrote in response to a week of exposure to my lectures: “You are welcome to visit Egypt but do not say anything.”
Mother won’t let daughter move on…
“I’m 35 and have been divorced for 5 years. I met a woman whose husband passed away two years ago. We are in love. I can’t stay away. We spend hours on the phone. The problem is that she wants to move on but is discouraged by her family. Her mum doesn’t want her to move on. She told her daughter not to communicate with me. The mum feels if I take the daughter away there’s no one to take the mum shopping. The mum says to the daughter the reason the mom left work was because of her and to look after the two children. They make the daughter feel guilty in every way possible. I told the daughter she must take control of it but she doesn’t want to disrespect her parents.” (Edited)
Mother is not the enemy...
Do not push. Invite. Challenge. But do not push. Try not to make the mother the enemy.
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