I listened on the phone to a woman who was sobbing as she expressed her fear and pain. I’m an empath, so I could feel the pain in my chest as she tried to settle down long enough to even talk. Her life had fallen apart in one instant. Little did she know, it had been falling apart for some time. She was just not informed of it. When it all finally hit the fan, her husband she had been married to all of her adult life had told her he was leaving her for another woman. In fact, he had been seeing the woman for awhile.
They had been together through raising children, buying a home, planning for retirement, and family vacations. They fought battles when the kids rebelled against them, prayed while they were sick, held one another through unexpected funerals and celebrated every joyous event. Now all of that became a blur as she vented her feelings to me with tears rolling down her cheeks. I had invited her out for breakfast the following day; her heart was so broken she could hardly fix herself meals.
I wondered how someone went from being involved in the life they built with another, to starting all over later in life. It was mentioned he stayed for the sake of the children. I think its a very noble reason to stay, don’t you? Giving children a good life is wonderful and they deserve the best from both parents. The only part the husband had left out was he was planning to leave without his wife’s knowledge. She was hit like a ton of bricks with the news.
Her children were all off living their adult lives, and her husband was packing his bags. On top of it all, the house would have to be sold during the divorce so she was going to have to leave the home she spent over 25 years putting together. She kept asking me why he could possibly do such a thing? I can’t say how this happened but what blurted out was, “If he truly loved you as a husband loves his wife, he never would leave.”
They had many years together, building and creating a family. I can’t completely believe he had no love for her at all. What I can say is someone who truly loves another might have moments of reconsideration during arguments or hard issues, but the idea of living without the other never really enters into the mind of one who loves without conditions. The woman continued to sob and tell her story. I realized it was himself he was not loving. His actions had very little to do with her or lack of love for her. It was a lack of love for himself that guided his decisions at that time.
It’s hard to understand this, but we reflect in our lives the feelings we have within ourselves. We display our inadequate feelings and wounds by the decisions we make a long the way. When our lives go unhealed, and wounds unattended to, we create a mixed up mess.
She made it through her ordeal. In fact, she did better than she ever imagined, just taking one step at a time. He, on the other hand was stuck in yet one more relationship he wanted out of, not realizing the person he had left was himself.
We do ourselves a great disservice by leaving our inner wounds unattended. This does mean we need to dig a bit into the past and let our voices express the pain and sorrow created through our interactions with others. We owe it to ourselves and others to heal from the inside out. Otherwise we make decisions out of the lens of the holes in our hearts instead of making them how of wholeness. Make a decision today to heal the hurts from the inside out. Your life and those around you will thank you!
Loving you from here,
Dr. Rev. Jenine Marie Howry, Ph. D
Life Lessons by Jenine Marie 