I sat with a single mother the other day as she expressed her anger and frustration regarding her ex-husband and a looming custody fight. As she recounted various woundings, I listened with understanding and empathy. I was about to ask how many months they had been apart when she gave an indication that they had been divorced for 10 years. That caught me by surprise because she spoke of her heartache with a rawness that felt current, when, in actuality, the distant hurts had never left her present.
Most of us want to believe that we have “gotten over” or “moved past” old offenses. Yet, for many of us, we may remain stuck in the past. We only get an indication of this when something triggers those old feelings. It might be a song on the radio that takes us back 20 years and dredges up a longing to “right a wrong.” Or perhaps a familiar location that reignites old feelings of betrayal. I have seen couples who have struggled with the mistrust caused by infidelities. It sometimes seems that no matter what the offending party does or says to correct behaviors and make things right, the victim of the betrayal is unable to move forward. Fifteen years later they are still living with an open wound that is as raw as it was at the discovery of the affair.
Many of us have asked ourselves in these situations things such as: “Will I always have to feel this way?” “Will I ever get over this?” “This is awful. Is this as good as it gets?” “Do I just have to learn to live with this?” And many other similar questions. I want to clearly answer these questions with thoughts of – “No, you will not always have to feel this way. Things can be much better and you can actually learn to move forward into much healthier places.” How? Next week I will lay out specific steps that you can take to grow through such difficult and stuck places.