Breakup - a Cue to Wake Up

My breakup was a harsh wake-up call, so for a long time I was reluctant to heed it. Going through an unwanted divorce after twenty years of marriage, with three children, appeared to possess all the attributes of hell, with no redeeming features.

The collapse of our relationship caught me off guard. I grew up thinking that marriage was forever and naturally I expected my marriage to last forever. For many years it seemed we were going to live out my vision of marriage and family life as I had grown up to believe we would. In fact, we lived pretty harmoniously for about fifteen years before tensions arose, which we failed to address. As a result my wife and I gradually drifted apart, to the point where we were like two strangers. It was a dark period for me generally.

My solution to my mid-life crisis was to seek therapy for myself. By contrast, my wife's response to our predicament was to have an affair. When I found out, about two months later, it hit me like a thunderbolt. I felt like I had been slit down my middle with a knife. The pain just seared through me. What I felt was an agonizing mix of betrayal, abandonment, hopelessness and impotence. My world had collapsed! In the early stages I was completely swamped by a sense of my own inadequacy, as a man and as a husband. Later these feelings turned into anger and rage as the enormity of my loss hit home.

 We did not separate immediately and for almost three years we endured the misery of being in a situation where neither of us could 'leave the marriage'. Finally, left with no choice, I initiated divorce proceedings. Within months we had split up and were legally divorced.

Throughout this whole period I continued with my therapy, where I dealt mainly with the muddle in my heart and the shambles at home. It was not easy facing the fact that I was acting the victim instead of taking control of my life.  I struggled to break the emotional patterns that led me to be so out of touch with my feelings. Overall, the process was long and hard but I persisted and gradually made progress.

Somehow I managed to turn the situation around. The therapy helped me to rebuild my confidence, to start believing in myself and to put myself center-stage. I shed a lot of my emotional armor and began to develop an awareness of my feelings. This fundamentally changed the way I functioned, shifting me from being 'in my head' to being 'in my heart' more; from looking out to looking inward. I gradually came to the realization that "it's all in me", that we see the world as we are, not as it is.

As I lifted the lid on my emotions and got in touch with my anger and my grief, so I found it easier to deal with my situation, particularly vis-à-vis my 'wife'. I moved from a position of feeling weak and powerless to one in which I felt passionate, powerful and spunky. In addition, I got the whiff of freedom in my nostrils; colors suddenly seemed brighter, smells sharper. My kingdom was smaller but at least it was mine; I was in charge of my own life. I learned to enjoy my unmediated contact with my children and not having to consult another person constantly.

For too long my breakup definitely felt like hell. However, in conjunction with the help I received it ultimately served as a catalyst, launching me into my present and best phase of my life. It proved to be a wake-up call that shook me out of my slumber and enabled me to step out of my self-imposed prison into the light.