Re: Our marriage is crumbling into devastation

Re: Our marriage is crumbling into devastation ----- From: Bernd - Date: 10 Nov 1997

Just a short little note....when we pray for something, we often do it with a "God, help me....but don't make it hurt too bad".

Here's a few guesses.

Because pain is my teacher of last resort (when I don't learn by choice), wanting the pain to go away - and wanting to get Lynda back - were actually 2 opposing wishes. The pain I felt after the affair was absolutely necessary, and the only teacher of value I had left. It held the answers I needed, to find a path that would give me the best possible chance of transforming Lynda's and my relationship. Why did God use pain? Because I WASN'T LISTENING to any other method he used of trying to reach me. And likke the pain I feel when I touch a hot stove with my hand, pain has a way of getting across the message "urgent! urgent! what you are doing is REALLY bad for you!"

I didn't know what things I had been doing, or was doing, that were bad for me. Sure I had some guesses, but a lot of those guesses were way off the mark. The ashes of our marriage were a pretty good indication of that.

Mzet has been on this path for close to a year and a half, and I want to give some perspective here. At a year and a half, I was still totally nuts! My efforts at recovery - while sprouting small shoots - hadn't given me anything yet that I felt I was able to bite on (although I realize I am always one of the worst judges of where I am in my recovery). It took 4 YEARS of hanging in there, working on my recovery, listening to that damn little voice inside that kept saying "hang in there, it will be worth it". Lynda and I slipped in and out of our marriage swamp constantly during those 4 years, having many days when we wanted to throw up our hands and walk away - permanently. Why didn't we?

I can't speak for Lynda, but the advantage I had was my chronic depression. Advantage?????? Yup, no matter how hard I tried to drown out the pain that was trying to teach me very important lessons, I couldn't. The depression wouldn't let me. I had little choice - it boiled down to basically "do, or die". If I didn't go THRU and into my pain and let it teach me, the only other way out was sucide (or hopefully, a fatal accident). God wasn't co-operating on the accident thing, and somewhere inside there was too much anger at losing out on life, to pick the self-extinction door. Like mzet said, anger is a damn healthy emotion, when we let it be.

So it may boil down to something as simple as this - if someone wants the results Lynda and I have found, then maybe the next step is to ask "do I want it bad enough to do the time?". If I want a university degree, 4 years is what it takes. I dunno if 4 years is what it would take anyone to find the same miracle that we did, but my hunch is that if we are willing to "do the time" it takes to learn what we REALLY need to, miracles aren't just a possibility - they are almost a downright certainty!:)

My guesses. Hope something here helps.