The sad truth
is that divorce is happening at an ever-constant rate. We all wish it weren’t
true, especially the children who suffer at the apparent loss of love, but it
is a ruthlessly recurring reality.
Yes, we know:
everything happens for a reason, a reason we can’t always see, a reason we may
not want to face and a cause that we wish could have been avoided. At least you
know you aren’t alone. Maybe it would be good to have a guidebook on how to
breakup, as if a “how to” could somehow make it a wee bit less painful. And a
guy who offers us hope that there is life after the “D” word has written just
such a book.
Frank Love’s, How to Gracefully Exit a Relationship
offer that road map out of the emotional chaos of divorce. As you read his
book, he offers what appears to be often hard won experience in what not to do
as well as what to do. He encourages the reader to ask questions, to seek
answers to queries about the relationship and it’s foundation. He also offers
the reader a pathway through the often emotionally blinding maze of cruel
emotions that act has handmaiden to the word divorce. The irony of Frank’s book
is that if you read this before you get married, you may not end up in divorce
in the first place. Much of his point of view is how to have and maintain a
stable and long-lasting relationship.
The Lightworker’s Guide to Healing Grief
also offers a look at divorce through the eyes of grief, especially the grief
that children feel.
“Divorce is so common these days that it is the
unusual child who has “original” parents still married to each other. No matter
how many divorces there are, when it happens to a family, it usually causes a
profound sadness, and all parties will grieve it in their own unique way. Yet
it is even more than this.
Divorce is a shockwave that undermines
any individual’s concepts of love. For some, it is the end of family love—that
unique nucleus of safety, security, and happiness. Divorce creates a sense of
vulnerability that will always have to be grieved. The safe haven of your home
no longer exists. The love you trusted and the people you trusted have betrayed
you. Now you have to open an entirely new chapter of learning how to live and
to love again when the love that was your foundation in life is shattered. . .
The sense of security all parties used to have is gone now.
The couple made a commitment, and someone did not keep it. One of them becomes
an alcoholic or abusive, and changes have to be made. This situation may seem
like emotional abandonment. Another way to look at this is to realize that a
different path has been chosen, one away from hurt. Grieving this choice will
eventually move the family into a better place.
Sometimes you each have to realize that something has to end
before something else can begin in your life. Grief is part of this process.” (The Lightworker’s Guide to Healing Grief,
pages 6-7)
All relationships/marriages struggle to
make it work over time. Bright, blinding, new, romantic love is seldom
realistic. The romance will ultimately wear off and the realities of personal
habits, childhood traumas, and personality anomalies, which affect each of us,
will surface in any relationship. What determines whether or not your
relationship will survive is how true you are able to be to each other on a
day-to-day basis. It’s hard work.
Long marriages look like a lucky break,
but the luck is in the insight, loyalty and skill each person brings to the
table. A marriage that starts out off kilter will be instantly off course
unless both parties welcome compromise into their lives and begin to face the
realities of being an adult, of being a whole person.
Some personality problems are not
reparable. (I know it’s absolutely sacrilege to say this but it’s true.) Some
personalities will not be able to overcome severe sexual, physical or emotional
abuse. That person will try, may seek counseling, but sometimes, nothing can
change who and what they became because of what someone did to them. Some souls
can overcome staggering abuses and be amazing spouses. No one can know this
until the attempt is made to see it through at least for a while.
Everything happens for a reason. Frank
Love also addresses this quite well and most gently. Even though your heart is
breaking, sometimes ending something that is toxic will eventually free you to
have a better life. Everything happens for our greater good even if we cannot
see it at the time. The person who rejects being a ‘survivor’ and embraces
being a whole, functioning, happy person will ultimately live the happiest live
because he or she will have embraced the lesson at hand and moved forward with
that dauntingly acquired book of wisdom.
Frank Love’s, How to Gracefully Exit a Relationship is available on Amazon.com.
Tina Erwin's The Lightworker’s Guide to Healing Grief is available on in ebook and print-on-demand through Amazon and wherever ebooks are sold.
