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Divorcing
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If you're like most spouses when seeking a divorce you may think of your choice to end your marriage as the easiest way "out" of a crappy marriage. 

You may envision your anticipated journey on the road to divorce as a quest for independence and renewed identity as a single person.   But, are you really getting "out" or are you actually about to get "in"? 

During the initial stages of divorce, for many , the answer is neither. 

Often, couples are so exhausted following marital hardship that when they begin determining if divorce is the right choice they aren't fully aware that the road to independence is going to make life pretty difficult before it gets better. 

Not out yet

Neither spouse immediately relinquishes all of the problems his/her current marriage has caused.  Worse yet, those problems are about to get up close and personal as their marriage begins to conclude. 

Not in yet

They won't actually get a glimpse of the potentially treacherous journey until they begin to negotiate a settlement or put their disputed terms of divorce before a judge.   It's then that many realize what they singed up for isn't an easy way out of a bad marriage, but it may be the only way to achieve personal and familial happiness.

Why does everything have to be so difficult? 

Like so many things in life we seek as a means to an end, a significant downturn is often lurking fast behind.  It's like a cruel joke life plays on us, seemingly a punishment for possessing the courage to discontinue a detrimental path in an effort to find a better one.  

Some common examples of difficult choices we make are:

The hardest step is the first, but the path to betterment is often clouded, hindered and, at times, even barricaded by harder times ahead.  

You may ask, "How could this be?" 

After all, we just stated in this article the hardest part is initiating the change in one's present direction.  How could harder times still be ahead of us?

Your on a south bound train and your happiness is headed west

While the statement is accurate, it is confusing.   When living in a situation where you feel like sh*t much of the time, the difficult choice to make changes to improve your life is like changing your direction from south to west while on a freight train on a track running north to south.  Not easy.   But, not impossible.

The track obstacle is enough for many people to completely exclude the initiation of such a change.   And while it may be difficult to always realize simple answers to similar riddles in your life, the lesson here is that most obstacles (such as the "existing track and trains direction" in our scenario) that seem impossible to overcome are often quite simple to solve. You may need to think outside the box, or in this case, outside the train and past the track. But, once you remove those tethers you commonly misconstrue as your only vehicles to happiness, you'll find unbounded paths to all that you seek. (Hint) 

Consider the below questions:

Why ask yourself these questions?

Fear of the unknown and/or knowledge of significant challenges to achieve betterment may cloak your ability to admit something must be done if you are to live the life you should be living.   

Since you are the only one who takes responsibility for your individual happiness, you are the only one who knows if you are satisfied with the actions and choices you have made to hold steady your course and when the time is right to see past the obstacles and make the decision to make an individual course correction. 

It's not an easy step to make and the feeling of uncertainty may be initially worse than your current unhappiness. 

In fact, for many, choosing to end a marriage is absolutely the hardest decision they ever made up to and sometimes well after they decided to do so.  So, know that you aren't alone. 

But it bears repeating, your individual happiness is every bit your personal responsibility.  Only you can make the tough decisions needed to ensure it.  

Why knowing what lies ahead can actually hinder your decision making

As mentioned above, you may have the wisdom to know that your trek will be difficult before it gets better and following difficult marriage problems you may not feel you have the certitude to see it through.

However, despite greater challenges ahead, the ability to take full control of your life and end destructive forces within it will continue to increase your strength, courage and conviction, later providing a greater sense of purpose, prospective and ability to persevere.   

In other words, every obstacle you encounter, regardless of its individual outcome, provides steps towards greater wisdom and the ability to emotionally manage anything new that comes your way.  

However, knowing there may be more difficult times ahead at the time you realize a divorce is your best option may seriously discourage your weaker self from taking much needed steps to improve your life and level of happiness.

Is Divorce your own Independence Day?

Many of us may initially say yes.  But much like America itself, the choice to sail to the new world was just a beginning of much hardship for many.  Yet these colonists saw a greater opportunity to find something in the unknown.   

In their hearts, we can only suspect the quest to find something more, something better, was worth the risk.  Despite knowing difficult times would lie ahead, it's reasonable to assume many did not expect the immense opposition they would face, not only in their voyage, but in their ongoing pursuit for settlement, independence, freedom, security, ownership and rights. 

Bravery to pursue a better life provides us the rights to do the same

This pursuit is much as it is today for every U.S. citizen, recognized in both federal and state laws used to maintain and/or improve upon certain accomplishments achieved by brave pioneers and our founding fathers.  -laws that provide us, among other rights, the opportunity to liberate ourselves from an unhappy marriage in any state across our fine nation.

And in these laws and rights of our citizenship, may we never forget that in one man's quest for victory is often another's failure and defeat. And in both, they will suffer much and lose many.

Would our own laws have prevented the British colonization of North America?

It could be easily surmised that if the same laws our fine nation established to protect us, our land and our rights, were in place to protect Americans considered native to the land, at the time of the British colonization of the America's, North America today could still be predominately ensconced by Native Americans rather than citizens with descendants from England, Spain, France, etc.

May such acknowledgement remind us that in the spoils of victory we often find less impropriety than in the irretrievable delves of defeat.   This simply means, that we are often more focused on the injustices of what we lose rather than what we keep, maintain and/or are awarded. 

A grey line from east to west

This same reasoning could be applied to divorce in that each spouse places a great deal of emotional value on what they give up rather than what they keep or are given a right to attain. 

Many of us also may find a very grey line regarding the fairness of our divorce judgement.  This because we may immediately benefit or suffer it's detriment more than we fully and accurately regard the judgement's potential to affect the lives of both parties.

It's not always easy to recognize anything good following a detrimental outcome

Most of us would agree that the ends do not justify the means, but every U.S. citizen has benefited from them.  Though it's fair to say Native Americans may disagree with their benefit of the overall outcome.

In looking back at United States Government v. Native Americans, most of us can easily celebrate the freedoms and goodness our nation provides us because we are lucky enough to reap great benefit from the actions of the victors rather than because we value the benevolent process used to forcibly remove Native Americans from land that, in their spiritual beliefs, belonged to no one.  

While we may always look back at the atrocities occurring during and immediately following the establishment of our country with regret, we should also find pride and thanks to be citizens of the greatest country in the world, that still in it's youth today, compared to countries for whom it's citizens also descended, has matured to become a most leading nation in humanitarian aid, world technologies, protection, freedom and peace. 

Wisdom of country and citizen

Despite certain terrible actions or behaviors of the past, our maturity and willingness to acknowledge and learn from our wrongdoings is but one step of many in a continued evolution of both country, man and woman. 

May we act with similar wisdom and forethought when seeking what we believe is ours to take based on our ability and power to do so, knowing that one day we may look back at our actions during spouse v. spouse and realize the means unjustified despite our benefits of the result. 

In our pursuit for the best outcome may we discover more than one course of action to attain a different, but mutually beneficial result. 

It's easier to recognize the mistakes we made in the past than to avoid making such mistakes today

While, in a perfect world, we would like to think our wisdom would supersede our emotions and pursuit for certain victories, something can certainly be said for the power of regret over the power of said forethought. 

In divorce, this simply means, mistakes will happen, regrets will form regardless of the righteousness of each side's actions.  The goal then is not to expect a perfect outcome achieved by flawless behavior and actions, rather strive to settle the dissolution with as few regrets as possible.

Divorce and mistakes are common

Owning and learning from your mistakes, much harder

As American's, we realize our own, individual quest, beyond the extrication from a bad marriage, but for our reaffirmation of our independent rights of happiness and a life fulfilled. 

These rights include an opportunity to acknowledge, own and learn from our individual past behaviors and actions, that in time we will be able to forgive and accept forgiveness as yet another step on our own personal path to life fulfillment.

In a divorce, one or both spouses seek independence, but both will endure much loss before either begin to truly realize individual victory.  We will easily find great fault in the opposing side since divorce does not create two whole parts from one.  Instead, it splits.  It divides one part into two smaller parts.

Divorce certainly hurts before it helps.

Both sides lose in a divorce but gain in the freedom to pursue a better life, lasting love and success

First you must survive

When divorcing, both sides will lose the same or more than they keep or are awarded. This means both spouses will feel defeated before fully realizing the divorce itself, the division of their lives together was not one to be won. 

It was one to survive in order to have the opportunity to celebrate the freedom to pursue personal happiness, life betterment and lasting love.   And in that pursuit may you celebrate your own Independence Day, one where you find benefit in the good, learn from the bad and continue to provide the world more than you deem you deserve to take.  

God Bless the United States of America!


Riddle:  How do you change your direction from south to west while on a hell bound freight train currently on a track running north to south?

You can't change the direction of the track so get off the train and walk.  One step in the right direction is worth more than millions in the wrong.

OurDMK.com


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