Have You Really Left?
You left because you had to. There was a voice inside, a feeling that couldn’t be ignored, at first a whisper but then, became a shout: I am not being seen. I am not being heard. My needs are not being met. I am being mistreated. Even, perhaps, all of them.
But even once you’ve left, somehow the difficulties continue. You still find yourself fighting with your ex in the same old ways. You feel yourself getting activated, triggered, just like you did when you were married. You’re still plugged in; you’re connected by negative intimacy.
There are specific behaviors that can destroy a marriage. Relationship scientists and psychologists Drs. John and Julie Gottman of The Gottman Institute found that couples who repeatedly exhibited four qualities in their marriages were much more likely to become unhappy and eventually divorce.
Did, or do you or your partner engage in:
1. Criticism: attacking each other’s character or personality instead of expressing a specific ask about behavior?
2. Contempt: insulting, mocking, or showing disgust or superiority towards one another (contempt was identified as the most damaging).
3. Defensiveness: responding to complaints by making excuses, denying responsibility, or making counter attacks?
4. Stonewalling: withdrawing from interaction, emotionally or physically shutting down by giving the “silent treatment.”
Here’s the thing: just because you’ve left the marriage, doesn’t mean you’ve left the relationship. My ex and I continued—for years—to engage in these behaviors. They were so familiar; we naturally stayed enmeshed in the same old patterns. First, I had to recognize it was happening, then, I had to learn to do it different.
Our thoughts and feelings create how we perceive everything. If we continue to play the old tape, we will continue to see our relationship with our ex in the same old way. But if we want peace and freedom and a new life, what we need is to perceive the situation in a way that doesn’t continue to make us suffer. When we stop the habit of mind to think in the same old ways, something amazing happens—regardless of how our ex behaves, the dynamic between us starts to shift. It’s like Dr. Wayne Dyer said: “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
The path to starting a new life, one that’s free from conflict, doesn’t start when our ex begins to change, it starts in our own minds.
The easiest place to work with it is to see whether you’re engaging in any of these four behaviors with your ex. Reflect on these four qualities. It’s often easy to see where your ex is doing it, but are you willing to see where you are, in some ways, doing it too—even if it’s just in your own head? Be honest with yourself about it (without shaming yourself of course) and make a pact with your well-being that when you catch yourself thinking or acting out in these ways—criticizing in an email, thinking how worthless or damaged your ex is, engaging in an argument with more blame and counter-attacks—that you will just…stop.
Habits of mind die hard, but your peace and happiness are worth it, so stay with it. Remember why you wanted a divorce and cultivate those things for yourself—be kind to yourself, listen to your feelings and needs, and leave the negativity of the relationship behind for good.
