Community Bulletin Board | Media and Events | Contact
I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at: divorcestudy@videotron.ca
Recipe for Recovery
1. Recognize that the chaos will not last forever
2. Accept that it is really over
3. Integrate the fact that your husband has changed irrevocably and is beyond caring for your welfare
4. Understand why he needs to justify his actions in any way possible including rewriting history, lying or attacking you
5. Give up trying to get the acknowledgement and apology that you deserve
6. Turn your focus from the past to the future
7. Celebrate your freedom as a single person
Give Your Overworked Mind a Rest!
Every woman who is subjected to Wife Abandonment Syndrome becomes deeply destabilized for some period of time. Many are tormented by relentless thoughts as they struggle to make sense of what happened. Those thoughts are of several varieties:
1. Obsessing about how this happened what you did wrong in the marriage, whether your husband said anything in the past to hint about the devastation to come, where he really was that time he said he was on a business trip, etc.
2. Obsessing about how to hurt him back fantasies of revenge, the perfect withering remark you would like to say to him or his girlfriend, ways to hurt him in court, etc.
3. Obsessing about insecurities in the future how to afford to stay in the house, what if he doesn't contribute to a child's medical bills, how to face old age when you'd always expected to finance it through his future inheritance, etc.
These obsessive thoughts can steal away nights and nights of sleep and torment you every waking moment. Try as you might, in the early days you can't escape them. Here are some ways to sweep your mind clean of those disturbing thoughts:
- Keep your mind occupied with other things as much as possible. Talk on the phone, keep the radio on, drag yourself out to a movie, fill up long lonely Saturday nights doing a jigsaw puzzle (you'll spend hours looking for the man with the blue hat!). You just need to survive until the passage of time can heal.
- Schedule a dedicated worry-time every day. This will take some discipline but it works for some people. Decide that you will do intensive worrying from 6pm to 9pm every day (or any other time slot that works for you) and try to limit your obsessing to those times. You need to give your mind a rest after 9pm anyhow.
- Sweep your mind clean literally! Imagine that your mind is a dusty room, but you've just hired a perky tiny cleaning lady who is armed with a miniature broom. When you realize that you are obsessing, close your eyes and tell her, "Sweep, sweep, sweep!" and imagine her hopping up from her stool and getting to work, sweeping your mind clean of those debilitating thoughts. Throw those thoughts out with the trash you don't need them!
You need to recognize that there are plusses and minuses in everything, even something as devastating as the unanticipated loss of your marriage and all that went with it. Many women who participated in the SWAP report that, after they moved beyond the pain, they realized that there were benefits to being out of the marriage and good things about being single. Here's what a couple of them had to say:
From Tiffany in Houston
I had always fantasized about being independent and not have to compromise about everything I did. Learned to enjoy just taking off and doing things alone. I found scheduled things to do once a week to be with others and did things I had never done to feel accomplished cut firewood, fixed my car, did carpentry on my house.
From Abigail in Calgary
I am much stronger than I have ever been in my life, much more independent. I dont know if I could be at this place if I hadnt gone through the fire of my divorce.
©2007 - 2008 RUNAWAY HUSBANDS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED