While divorce may feel like a desired resolution and a new life beginning, it is often not the end to a relationship. There are rare ones with no tears, no regrets, no anger, no bitterness, no children suffering, no blended family issues… More often we see people carrying those negative emotions toward the ex for a number of years. When we sit down and talk with either a man or a woman, at the core, we often see wounded souls that haven’t had the time to heal after the break-up, separation, or divorce.
Understanding of the heart or soul in our society is polarized. Some say it does not exist, some adamantly try to prove. We’ll simply describe the soul as the feelings that dwell inside of you. When those feelings get hurt, men’s or woman’s, repeatedly, knowingly or not knowingly, over time, sooner or later, it creates a rift between both loving hearts.
Causes of the Divorce/ Break-up
According to a research, the most commonly reported major contributors to divorce are:
The most common “final straw” reasons were: infidelity, domestic violence, and substance use. More participants blamed their partners than blamed themselves for the divorce.
Here are the results of another research
WomansDIvorce.com survey results
| Answers | Percentage | Responses |
|---|---|---|
| Infidelity | 26.6% | 813 |
| Violence | 9.8% | 299 |
| Money | 6.6% | 201 |
| Children | 1.4% | 44 |
| Incompatibility | 16.7% | 512 |
| Grown Apart | 17.7% | 542 |
| Other | 21.1% | 646 |
Incompatibility/Irreconcilable differences: religious, career goals, cultural, communication issues, intellectual, problems with parents/ in-laws, money management styles, sexual needs, financial goals.
Children: decision to have children, fighting over discipline, difference in parenting styles, parenting duty inequity, step-children issues.
Grown apart: married too young, constant fighting, lack of commitment, midlife crisis, leading separate lives, immaturity, no respect to a partner.
Other causes: abusive behavior, controlling behaviour, major life changes (job loss, major illness of the spouse of family member), mental issues, criminal behavior, sexual dysfunction, addictions (alcohol, drugs, gambling, porn), desertion, child abuse.
According to David Schnarch, author of the book “Passionate Marriage”, there are 2 periods in marriage when people break apart the most:
The first break-up point (5.6 years) is often connected with 4 main causes (though these may affect relationship at any stage):
1. Contempt
Contempt means not accepting, not respecting or not valuing an individual the way he/she is. Contempt is usually subtle.
Examples:
A spouse constantly points out flaws to the other or is verbally abusive.
A spouse is disinterested/ disrespectful to the other spouse’s opinion.
A spouse feels “ashamed” for the other one in social situations.
2. Complaints
A reason why spouses frequently complain about each other is because they subconsciously see a “potential” in another individual to “get better at” and hope to help the person to grow to that potential. However, this rarely works.
Examples:
A spouse is unhappy with the house they live in, not having enough clothes to wear, food that is prepared, how she looks, “good cop/bad cop” parenting etc.
A spouse does not like how the other one does chores, or is not happy the way he/she does a number of things (it irritates him/her).
A spouse complains about the other spouse’s tendency to complain.
3. Competition
Competitive relationship vigilantly keeps scores. While both partners should contribute to the relationship with eagerness, the reality is that people significantly differ in personalities, upbringing, standards, priorities, skills and working hours. At times one spouse may go through emotional or physical health challenges. Without compassion and patience, the scoring system may lead to mutual bitterness and resentment.
Examples:
A spouse ensures a “fair” distribution of every single chore, including number of changed diapers, prepared meals and done dishes.
A spouse uses sex as a reward and punishment (with scores count in the background).
One spouse gets better at something, the other one starts envying.
4. Compromise
We do not mean a positive aspect of compromise when two parties find the most suitable decision to meet one another’s needs. David Schnarch uses this term to describe a situation when both partners are settling for less than ideal, trying keeping another person happy, while compromising who they are inside, not knowing how to communicate, or how to find a way explain their need through resistance or self-defence of another spouse.
Examples:
A spouse feels lack of self-actualization. He/she feels undervalued by a more dominant spouse, withdraws and becomes emotionally unavailable.
A spouse’s emotional or sexual needs are not met. As a result, he/she becomes mean or withdraws, yet not able to express the needs openly.
A spouse is exaggerating or lying. The other spouse avoids bringing it up, being afraid of not being understood or not able to change things.
5. Communication (this point is added by us).
The matter is not that couples do not talk. They discuss daily news, kid’s school and what to buy. But at times they may not be able to express their inner feelings and desires out of fear of not being understood, judged, ridiculed, or hurting another partner’s feelings. They may also have difficulty explaining or getting through to each other, or shut down after a negative reaction. Yet, in essence, it is mostly about different perspectives.
Example: Letter from a Spouse
“From the very start of our relationship, my husband was very controlling and had a very serious anger problem… I’m just tired and I have a strong desire to move forward into my latter years without feeling like I have to walk on eggshells around him. I have bent over backwards to make sure my husband feels respected, cared for and loved. I encourage him, I always speak very highly of him and I am always available for him intimately. I feel like I need to divorce this man because he still has not learned to respect me. When my daughter was younger, he was always impatient, verbally and physically abusive, bullied me and was very arrogant and selfish. Although he is no longer physically abusive, he is still very verbally abusive.”
Response from a man (not from the same couple):
The eggshells? I never heard this before, I did not know. I have never been physically abusive but looking back I was verbally. About once a month I would blow up about something stupid and turn an issue or small argument into a giant fight always trying to prove I was right. I have always been faithful and to me we had a good marriage. But I never knew.
Vowed to tell my wife how much I love and adore her every day, many times a day. I send her every morning a “Love text” telling her how I appreciate her. I call her, I ask her about her day, I do something nice for her every day.
I connect with her each day; drinks out of the house, just talking at night, in bed.
I am seeing a counselor to help with the anxiety and help me forgive the infidelity knowing the bigger picture, the marriage is more important.
I am getting out of my comfort zone so I don’t slip back – I switched sides in the bed so I wake up every morning reminding myself that things must be different. I hated to dance but she loves it, so I dumped $2k into dancing lessons for me.
I carry in a small container of eggshells in my pocket so I never forget.
I WOULD HAVE done all of this without the declaration of divorce if I only knew. We men are dumb creatures; if you want the marriage to work find a way to get through to him. Have a friend help, anything, but you need to tell him how you feel.
Tell him!”
Not nurturing a particular area of a marriage or not nurturing the relationship in general for a period of time.
Unresolved constant financial issues, ignoring or not resolving sex need differences, issues with in-laws, not spending time for heart-to-heart conversations, etc.
Life takes over, we get busy, we feel overwhelmed, we do not get our hands on, we do not consider important, we do not know what to do with it…
“Breakthrough follows a break-with, break-apart, a break-up, or a break-down.” – author unknown
You may want to finally close that page, to get distracted or to start a new relationship. However, trying to simply move on with life while leaving your emotional centre unrecovered is not enough.
Partnerships are like glue, like a smoking addiction – they contain a lot of small “threads,” consisting of good and bad memories, strong emotional experiences, other friends and families that became part of the lives of both of you. Those threads bond and hold. Trying to cut them all at once may feel like cutting your heart without an anesthetic.
Healing your broken soul is a process. You need to give it space and time, and though you may want to do it on your own, you need help on that journey.
No one wants to hurt another person. Everyone wants to have a great relationship when they start. But the main reason why this intention is at times not fruitful is that most of us come to a relationship with luggage. We hope that that luggage somehow will diminish with the presence of love and care in our life. But the opposite starts happening. Two luggage bags combine and create a worse concoction than one.
It is impossible to resolve by a relationship the dysfunction we come with. However, we can do that through internal work with a coach, counsellor and learning from our past. Someone said that someone who came from 3 failed relationships is better off than the one who has lived on an uninhabited island all his/her life. Because through those 3 relationships, one got feedback.
Do not be afraid if you got feedback or that you have made a mistake. What is important is that you start healing the pain, releasing the past and using it to create your desired future.
Healing is your right… and the risk you can’t afford not to take.
Only those guests were able to start transforming their life and health.
We can help only those who have had enough of the past and are ready to look for help and to move forward. Otherwise, the entire time you’re at Fresh Start, you’d be thinking about how to vindicate, and this would keep you in a place where healing is not possible.
Anger is like poison, which one drinks and hopes that someone else will die of it. Are you done with drinking the poison of regrets and desire to vindicate or to be right and the suffering that comes from those? If the answer is yes, there is hope and help for you. And there is a future.
Please read the story of Melissa, who has participated in the Fresh Start Emotional Wellness program and was able to come out of deep depression brought about by personal trauma and improve her self-esteem and self-worth.
At first, I was the saddest I’ve ever been. I let myself feel it, where before I would put a pretty smile on my face and tried to push down that sadness… It was a safe place to let it out and just to be sad. Because people here know what they are doing, and they are able to help you to understand your feelings and emotions that you are going through. There were the things I didn’t ever realize were deep down there that got up to the surface. Once I released those feelings, it almost felt like that weight was lifted off my shoulders… I felt that the food has really helped, too. Just not drinking caffeine, eating fresh food, just nourishing my body…
I don’t think I felt this good in a long time. It’s this feeling of wellbeing. I just have this love for myself and am excited for the future…
I am gonna be more mindful of everything, my nutrition, my thoughts. I want to be more physical, like I used to be. Just because I am on the road, it does not mean that I cannot go for a walk, for a run, just to do stretching…Things that are good for myself. We deserve to feel good, to treat ourselves well…
I knew I was gonna heal here. I knew it was a beginning. I knew that it was a journey. This is the start of something great. My journey across Canada was wonderful, but this is going to be wonderful in a whole new way.
Though we have professional staff with advanced health expertise and most of our guests receive deep health results, the Fresh Start cannot guarantee health recovery from any specific disease or symptom, as the healing process is individual, gradual and depends on many factors. Please be realistic in expectations as there is no such thing as quick fixes when it comes to healing.
