Your Happiness is Your Responsibility

Your Happiness is Your Responsibility

We can choose how we handle divorce

Posted to by Cathy Meyer on Fri, 02/03/2012 - 8:30am

It is an easy concept, but some have a hard time coming to terms with it. It is pretty basic — when we find ourselves in a bad place, the quickest way to change our situation is to look at our actions and what role our actions played in bringing about our problems.

Your life is your responsibility. You have no control over what happens to you or what someone else does to you, but you do have control over the way you respond. When faced with the end of a marriage, you have a choice. You can get bogged down in blame and bitterness, or you can take an honest inventory of your own shortcomings and mistakes during the marriage.

You can choose to be angry with a husband who leaves you for another woman, or you can look at what kind of wife you were. Let's face it, we are none perfect. You aren't responsible for your husband's choice to leave, but you may have played a role in his feeling he had no choice but to leave. It truly does take two to destroy a marriage. A happy husband doesn't leave for another woman. Before you get all red in the face and spew venom at me, let me qualify what I'm saying.

An unhappy husband is just as responsible for his actions and his happiness as his left-behind wife. If he was unhappy during the marriage, it was his responsibility to take inventory, identify the behaviors and beliefs that he had that kept him from being happy. Leaving for another woman doesn't show integrity, it shows cowardice and an unwillingness to take responsibility for his own happiness.

Both parties to the divorce played a role in the demise of the marriage. Both need to own and take responsibility for the role they played in the demise. You can both point fingers or you can take responsibility. Until you are willing to take responsibility for the mistakes you made and the role you played, you will take the same behaviors into your next relationship.

You are the architect of your own adversity; we all are. If you find that your life is full of adversity, then you are failing to take responsibility. Taking responsibility allows you the space to acknowledge your part in the adversity, learn from the experience, and move forward with more confidence.

I met a woman who was full of rage at an ex-husband who had physically abused her for over 20 years. In her mind, he had destroyed her life because he had been a bad husband and, in the end, had given her no choice but to leave. She told me that she had tried for years to make the marriage work and that she would never be able to move on with her life because of all the wasted years with her ex-husband.

She couldn't understand that she had chosen, for over 20 years, to stay in a marriage with a man who beat her. She refused to see her role in where she had ended up because doing so would mean letting go of the blame. She had to have someone to blame for where she was in life. That blame kept her stuck and kept her from moving on from a bad marriage to a more fulfilling life.

Physically abusing a spouse is unacceptable. Choosing to stay with a spouse who physically abuses you is just as unacceptable. It is unacceptable because it keeps you from living your best possible life. As I've said before, your life is your responsibility, so please take responsibility for your own happiness.
 

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Comments

What is Wrong with you???!!!!

Ughhh! It is bad enough that these immature and selfish men try and manipilulate their wives into taking accountability for their unfaithfullness, abuse, drinking, drugs etc. but I HATE it when another woman does it! I What about the Wife who is unhappy in her Marriage due to the husbands "half" (ha!) of it? How is is that more often than not SHE manages to overcome whatever HE is doing to make the marriage unhappy and continues to try and be loving, work, cook, clean, nurture the kids, nurture him, have sex (while being treated like a second class citizen by her "Oh so entitled Husband"), read books on how to improve her marriage, go to counseling( alone,) because he won't go, asks for advice from her Mother, Friends, and internet, tries to be more patient, tries harder not to argue, WITHOUT- Cheating, Drinking, Staying Out, Abandoning, Drugs? I'll tell you how; BECAUSE of articles and attitudes like this; BECAUSE society as a whole puts most of the shame, humiliation, embarassment, and stigma ON THE WOMAN. The majority of the blame as to why the husband is leaving the marriage for other women or bad behaviors is on THE WOMAN. Making sure the children are okay and coping- ON THE WOMAN. Even the responsibility for initiating fixing the marriage, more often than not is ON THE WOMAN. So the men in society who are weak of character are never forced to take accountability for their actions and behaviors. They continue on with their belief in their entitlement and pass it on to their sons; generation after generation. With every generation the percentage of entitled men who see themselves as somehow more deserving of the respect, fidelity, commitment, empathy and even love, that they withhold from their wives increases. Men show their mistresses off and often brag about them to their male friends. They take them out in public- THEY are not ashamed- WE are! How backward is that? WE don't want any one to know- look how many times you were assured you that you would be "anonymous" when you became a member of this site. WE hide it. Some of us know our husband is at the bar or restaurant, or even worse HOTEL on his golf/fishing trip. Yet, WE are too embarassed to go there and confront these two adulterers. Why are we embarassed? Because if we did that- people would talk, some one would say that WE are "psycho". WHAT?? Some of us won't call the other woman's number or answer her call because WE are ashamed. WE feel like it is inappropriate, or that we might be called "psycho". WHAT??? This backwards attitude is wrong, wrong, wrong. Articles and attitudes like that of the woman above further this horrible imbalance. I REFUSE to be ashamed if my husband is acting immoral. As his WIFE- I am not "psycho" if I exercise my right to question him , her, or show up wherever. And I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE for my Husband's bad or immoral behavior when he is unhappy- HE IS. I am not responsible because my husband who is not giving 100% to his marriage is unhappy. HE is unhappy because of the RESULT that HE created by not giving 100% in his marriage, and not treating his wife as a cherished human being equal to him. I, his wife, am having a natural HUMAN reaction to his behavior when I do not respond to him as I once did . I am tired! I REFUSE to be made to feel guilty, and so should every woman out there who has given 100% for years to her marriage when her partner has not. Sadly more often than not, that is the case. The above author has clearly either been very fortunate in her marriage, or has not had her vows tested as so many women have. Either way her narrow opinion continues to further a horrible social injustice and should be discounted for what it is.

I sincerely hope all the

I sincerely hope all the women that have read this do NOT believe a word of this!!! No woman should ever question their hand in the failure of their marriage. This article makes me so mad - how many wives had fought for so long to save their marriages?! It is so easy for the man to walk away without glancing back and the wives are left with the tears and broken images of love and marriage!! Your statement in paragraph one "look at our actions and what role our actions played in bringing about our problems" is ridiculous!! Wives, mothers and women sacrifice EVERYTHING for our family and husbands, the only role our actions played was to try and keep our marriage and family together. Does the author REALLY take time and read what women are posting on this website? Does any of their hurt and pain register with this author??!!! I really need to stop re-reading this article.

questions

In one sentence you say that leaving someone " shows cowardice and an unwillingness to take responsibility for his own happiness." Yet in another sentence you say that another person should have left. How do we know when we should stay around or leave when there's so many gray areas? How much of another person not co operating is "our responsibility?"

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