Divorce, Guilt and Allowing Happiness
The decision to separate and divorce is never an easy choice to make, especially when there are children to be considered. There are usually many factors that go into making that kind of decision but it usually boils down to one of two ideas--"What will bring me the most love?" or "What will bring me the least amount of pain?"
Here's a question from a reader who has been in a relationship with a married man and is trying to understand why he is choosing to stay in an unhappy marriage--
"I have never gotten over the love of my life who chose to stay in a marriage for a child. but we travel in the same circle of friends and the story is always the same. they are still unhappy. so, when? when do we accept that we are allowed mistakes in life and are allowed to be happy? why is so much quilt present even after you have really tried?"
This woman is certainly in a painful and not too uncommon situation where she finds that she frequently interacts with someone she secretly loves and there doesn't seem to be any hope that the two of them will ever be together.
Here are a few of our thoughts about this...
Although we don't know the particulars of this specific situation, we'd be willing to bet that the man she loves has taken the less painful course of action which is to stay in his marriage. While we don't know if this man is as much in love with this woman as she is with him and we don't know if he truly is unhappy with his life with his wife, this much is clear--he is making a choice. Whether this choice is based more on his fearing the pain that separating from his child (or even his wife) would bring or something else, he is making a choice about the direction he wants his life to take.
Guilt can certainly play a big part in this type of decision, especially when children are involved, and there can be so many factors from the past that play into keeping guilt alive in this type of situation. We've discovered that a person has to want to deal and heal his/her guilt that usually goes beyond this current situation. Many people would rather hang on to guilt because it's a familiar feeling, it serves a purpose, they feel like they don't deserve happiness or they are more afraid of expanding and making changes in their life than they are of staying in the situation.
While we in no way are saying that this man needs to leave his child and his marriage, we are saying that staying because of guilt--if that's truly what's going on--can be and usually is unhealthy and usually painful for everyone involved.
Our advice to the woman (or anyone else in a similar situation) who asked these questions is this...
Take stock of why you are hanging on to this relationship and start shifting your perceptions. While we know how sometimes the feeling is that true love only comes around once and we'd better hang onto it--it's better to look at a situation that is going no where and be grateful for it, while looking at and learning from the lessons that you learned. It may be that you learned what true love looks like for you and now you can hold that feeling in your heart while letting go that this person has to be the one that gives it to you.
Look to what you want in a relationship and know that you can find that with someone else when you open to that possibility.
Begin moving in different circles where you do not have to keep interacting with this man and his wife and keep this unhealthy relationship dance going. Tough medicine but in order to move on, that's our best advice.
