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| The Long Grey Divorce Walk |
There is always room for help to those in the throes of Grey Divorce where shock abounds. As you're slogging about, numbed by the disruption of a life that was supposed to be forever… until 'death do us part'… it looks grim. Twenty, thirty years of marriage investment, even longer for some, gone in the firey puff of one decision. And, you weren't prepared.
They say that a person's placement in life is their own doing; that they put themselves right in the midst of the divorce… the breakup… or any other malformed occurrence in one's life. If life is a struggle, it's their own fault. If life is glorious, that's their own doing, too - they say. For a long while, I disagreed with this. It made no sense to me. I figured this conclusion came from mere over-zealous self-help stuff. I was stuck on blaming my outward forces; my introspection was limited.
"Nope. Sorry! Tell that to someone who doesn't know better," I argued.
"I was thrown into divorce. I didn't ask for it," I sadly sang.
"I'm displaced because of him," I had cried.
"I'm poor because of him!" I shouted.
"My life's calling has been disrupted because he threw me away to struggle on my own,"I cried some more.
"I didn't do this to myself, he did!" I complained.
"I'm without a home because of him," I thought.
"I live at rock bottom all because of his decision. He put me here!"
"I was thrown into divorce. I didn't ask for it," I sadly sang.
"I'm displaced because of him," I had cried.
"I'm poor because of him!" I shouted.
"My life's calling has been disrupted because he threw me away to struggle on my own,"I cried some more.
"I didn't do this to myself, he did!" I complained.
"I'm without a home because of him," I thought.
"I live at rock bottom all because of his decision. He put me here!"
That was my mantra. Period. Then one day I woke up.
Wow! How mentally ill I'd become because my attention had turned towards me, my and mine. I'd been thrusted into a maze and didn't know which direction to try first to escape. But, while standing there, confused, sulking, I was forced inward and found my own faulty gremlins rejoicing inside my belly because they'd won! After further self-observation it occurred to me that they couldn't claim total victory because I was, after all, still standing.
When any of us find ourselves at an impasse, the very first thing we MUST do, is find how we contributed.
It's an imperative that we cannot circumvent. If we do, we are subject to die like a dog for no good reason in the midst of an already gross disruption in life. It's likely that we will not have to search that deep or wide to find ourselves at the core of the problem!
Your spouse can be 80% at fault, but it's probably your 20% that tipped it over.
No fair? It doesn't really matter, unfortunately. In the struggle against death (which is what divorce mimics), fairness flies away as present reality demands all of our attention. In this case, kill pride, face yourself, bow down and heal slowly and thoroughly. If you don't, your unhealed thought life, or decision making, will impede your progress. Up ahead there lies the new person you'll become, so be deliberate.
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What you do today…
How you handle the real truth about your fault in your marital demise…
The words that leave your mouth…
These fill your new world, affects your future, and how well it goes for you. Who you will become rides on these!
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Grey Divorce can feel like the end of the world, but it isn't. It's just the end of the world YOU had grown accustomed to. I tell you, once I was out here - in Single Land - I found it to be massive, cold and nearly impossible to navigate through. Too many women lose their way there and are never found whole again. Their view becomes misted with fear and all else that is wrong with this new world. The easiest thing for a grey divorcee to do, after being tossed out on her bum, is to spin out of control, dizzy, because she doesn't know what's right anymore.
She likely doesn't know that the first thing she must do is protect herself and keep the rest of her life from being ill-judged and toppled over.
How in the world does a new "grey head" do that? Here's how: Read, pray and listen… A LOT (for starters!). Counseling, too? Of course!
On this journey from marriage and co-dependency, to first-time singleness, I've done just that. After a few years living divorced, I even wrote a book [that I hadn't seen in bookstores; one that would serve as a handbook of sort to get other over-forty first-time divorcees through the maze], entitled: Single For The First Time. I'm happy to report that the book has become an invaluable key to enlighten women spiritually, emotionally - for starters - after the death of their long-term marriages.
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| Nhat Crawford |
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| nhatsbooks.com |
Here's a quote from one of Wallace D. Wattles' books that blew me away, then brought me back!:
"You have nothing to keep right but yourself; if you keep yourself right, nothing can possibly go wrong with you and you have nothing to fear. No business or other disaster can come upon you if your personal attitude is right, for you are a part of that which is increasing and advancing and you must increase and advance with it…. If you see the world as a lost and ruined thing you will see yourself as a part of it, and as partaking of its sins and weaknesses. If your outlook for the world as a whole is hopeless, your outlook for yourself cannot be hopeful."
Next, I read:
"If you see the world as declining toward it's end, you cannot see yourself as advancing. Unless you think well of all the works of God you cannot really think well of yourself, and unless you think well of yourself you can never become great."
The point is, women who have been discarded, or have felt as if they have been, must think well of themselves regardless, all the while remaining humble, in order to reach the greatness that is still theirs. Realizing her errors is a victory, not an encumbrance to offend her, or weigh her down. Humility, not anger, will open up this new world to share its wonders and welcome her aboard.
Yes, people are talking and bringing up your past - your calamity. But, hey, deal with it. They've seen you fall so what else do you expect them to do? They will talk! Perhaps, they've seen you living poorly in your time of transition. Your mistakes and patting to find your way in the dark was done before their eyes and became gossip material for them. Now, make it a point to live well, too, right before their eyes. And, if at all possible, don't stay down too long after you've searched yourself and found hidden peccadillo gremlins within! That was all in the past. You made wrong decisions and it costed you. Own them, first. Discard them next. Be better and move on. If the past wasn't meant to be gotten over, the world would hang motionless in the universe. But, instead, it is an ever revolving mass of life and reproduction. So must you be, too. Just keep walking with your sights toward the light up ahead!
Nhat Crawford, writer,
author, Single For The First Time, 2014
Single For The First Time is an invaluable key that will enlighten the reader to what the imperative first steps are after the death of a long-term marriage. Using examples from personal experience and those of others, even personal revelation, the author exposes the wounds of the mind, person, and spirit of the woman, in the prime of her life, experiencing divorce - a wound spawned from being plucked from co-dependency without any preparation at all.
It has been proven repeatedly that when a woman has been "kept" in a marriage by a spouse to whom she has given power over her life, that woman cripples her own economical, social, emotional development and maturity. No man wants a dependent partner. No mature woman should lean on someone else for quality of life because that arrangement doesn't always end well. Now that it has ended, what's next?
nhatsbooks.com
Feel free to contact me: nhatcrawford@gmail.com
Twitter: @nhattheghost
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