Although Jenni has been divorced for less than a year, her healing began some years earlier when she was in rehab for drug and a possible sex addiction. She’s continue with therapy off and on over the years and that has helped her to develop what I think is pretty healthy perspective on her past. Here’s Jenni:
The counseling I’ve done over the years has helped me understand why I made the choices I did and my part in those choices. You always have a part somewhere in whatever situation you’re in. I hate to hold that mirror up to my own face but I have to do it because it helps to me understand the process of life.
I have struggled with depression and at times felt seriously suicidal. I’ve never acted on it. It was more the thinking about it and the escape. My kids probably keep me more grounded than anything because instead of
“What would Jesus do?” I ask myself
“What would the kids think?”
That would be pretty horrible for them.
In the past few months, I’ve started to feel human again. I feel that people want to be around me again and they haven’t for a long time because I wasn’t being a good person. I was being pretty shitty not only to my husband but to my kids, thinking mostly about myself. I don’t have family here and I didn’t have any girlfriends to hold my hand or tell me it would be OK or to cheer me up when I was down. I went through all of this alone.
I’m not in touch with my old friends. I’ve moved on. Why beat a dead horse? If that person has showed their true colors at a time of my distress, then that tells you what kind of friend they really were. I also try to think of the bigger picture – some people are brought into your life for certain periods of time and meant to be a friend during that period. I’m not diminishing the friendship but maybe it was only meant to be for that short time.
I just have to trust that that’s what that was. I can make myself crazy thinking what the hell went wrong or I can think what’s done is done.
I can’t change the past. I can’t take back what I did and if those people want to judge me, then that’s a thing they have to do and I can’t change that. I can’t change their opinion of me and I can’t change their minds.
I’m a lot happier being away from my ex and being able to make my own choices, whether they’re wrong or not. I’ve definitely made some mistakes. Some of them are horrifying and I will take them to my grave. Some of them are “I won’t do that again” and some are just learning to pay my bills on time.
I feel like I grew up with him. I spent almost as much time with him as I did with my parents. You learn to walk and talk and communicate and all the things you learn as a child. Then you have this second phase of development which I went through with him.
Now I feel I’m in this third phase of my life that’s kind of exciting. Not everything is going the way I want it but the possibilities are endless. That’s what’s really cool about knowing I made it through. There is a light at the end and I just have to keep moving towards it.
The Divorce Coach Says
Wow – I love this reflection of Jenni’s! She’s so right that you always have a part in any situation and it is healthy and necessary to examine that, even if it is painful and uncomfortable. It’s owning that which helps us grow and avoid repeating past mistakes.
And yes, people come and people go. Friendships, like everything else in life change and evolve and don’t always last forever. I think it could eat you up if you allowed yourself to constantly wonder why you no longer hear from certain people and what you did to lose their friendship. Or why they won’t call you back. I don’t think it’s a cop out to accept that there is a reason why we connect with people at a certain time and I think it’s a very healthy perspective. A number of women have spoken about this same philosophy with regard to their marriage – a marriage that ends isn’t a failure
This is the last post in Jenni’s series – I’d like to thank her for sharing her story. It wasn’t easy for her to talk to me, a stranger, and own up to her poor choices but I think doing so is part of her acceptance of her past, freeing her to be excited about the future.
Thank you also to everyone who entered the Talalay pillow giveaway – it was my most successful giveaway yet so maybe I’m getting the hang of this 🙂
Coming next …. before I start a new series, I want to share with you my own exciting realization … what I regard as my most significant accomplishment since my divorce …. 🙂