“I am so angry with my daughter’s ex: they split because he refused to have kids with her.”
“I won’t let him meet our kids whenever he wants, he has hurt me too much.”
“I’ll never love again. I loved my wife. But what she did is unforgettable. It has killed all my hope in any relationship with a woman”.
During my consultations — individual or with couples — we speak regularly of situations when a person, or both in a couple, insist that the other one should apologise, admit a mistake, take their words back. Until then they are unable to continue to live their lives fully: either get back together, discuss things through and get stronger as a team, or get divorced and start a good and happy life with someone else.
We need to stop this illusion of justice, according to which we sentence ourselves (and sometimes our children, too) to suffering because the other one did us harm. Let us look at our real options: do I really want to stay stuck in this story? Do I want to sacrifice my life just because I had to go through this? Don’t I want to learn from it and move on?
If I am able to admit to have contributed somehow to the situation I am in currently, I can also start looking at it in a constructive way and search for my way out of this experience. The point is not to suffer but to look at my options which I have if I stay in this state and which I get if I am willing to review my experience and learn from it.
Once I’ll be grateful to myself not to have given up, to have overcome my temptation to stay angry/hurt/disappointed forever and to have continued creating myself a much better life.