Tonight we had our second meeting of Hearts & Minds (my eight session online therapy group) and we talked about so many amazing things, I wanted to share some of them with you. The focus was on how to stop letting your ex-husband control you. He can say whatever he wants but if you can recognize that it is coming from a destructive place, you can turn it around and say, “I get to define myself - I’m not letting him define me any more!”
So often women feel like failures that the marriage ended and part of the reason you feel that way is because your ex had told you that you were a failure. Sometimes he even presents his wife with a list of all her deficits and being nice girls, we believe the garbage he’s saying. We let him remain in the position he was in throughout the marriage - the arbiter of what’s right or wrong. So when he outlines for you all the ways he thinks you’ve failed, It makes you second guess yourself - maybe he’s right!
One of the participants in Hearts & Minds tonight told us what to do when we feel like a failure - flip it! Rather than saying, “I must be a failure because I couldn’t keep my marriage together”, say, “I’m amazing because I kept a marriage going with such a deeply flawed person! If I didn’t take such good care of him, this marriage would have fallen apart years ago!”
Another participant came up with another way to flip it. Rather than to say, “I feel so badly that he sees me as such a controlling bitch”, say, “I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t appreciate who I am after all these years and instead sees me as a controlling bitch!”
Another participant suggested that we put his message to the test. Rather than swallow whole whatever he says about you, ask yourself, “Is it true?” Just because he says it doesn’t make it true. You know who you are. You know your value. He doesn’t get to define you - no more, no way! Instead, flip it and say, “He’s a broken man that makes him behave in this disrespectful, cold and selfish way and I don’t want that in my life.” You don’t have to be subject to his distorted assessment of you. So the next time he puts you down, flip it and remember that you don’t want to be with someone who is so blind that he doesn’t know you by now.
One way that I’ve suggested to women to flip it is the following. Instead of feeling so sad that you don’t get to spend your future together with your aging ex, just realize, “I had the best years of his life. It’s fine with me if she (the other woman) takes over as nursemaid in his dotage!”
Alice Sommer, who was the oldest Holocaust survivor before her death at the age of 110 said about her approach to life, “There’s good and bad in everything. I choose to look at the good.” So when you’re focusing too much on the bad, just flip it! There’s some good tucked away in there somewhere!
Hey, what are your thoughts on this? Let us know below in the comments.
