AFTER A SPIRITUAL DIVORCE

Mending a Broken Heart

by Dr. Glenn R. Williston

Are you in a relationship that doesn't work any more, if it ever did?

• Do you feel sad down deep? Bored? Empty?
  

• Do you over-eat, over-spend, or watch too much TV?
  
• Stay away from home as much as possible?
  
• Fantasize about having a different intimate relationship or have affairs?
  
• Feel indifferent to your partner's needs, issues, problems?
  
• Find less and less interest in your partner's activities and interests?
  
• Nag, plead, scold, keep a score card?
  
• Feel sexual coolness or even avoidance and disgust?
  
• Notice a lack of small courtesies?
  
• Feel anger and fear regularly?
  
• Experience a lack of tenderness and nurturing?
  
• Live in a climate of insincerity and mutual mistrust?
  
• Relate with superficial communication?
  
• Feel alone and misunderstood?
  
• Live each day with chronic tension and stress?
  
• Hear sarcasms, insults, and rudeness in your home?
  
• Find yourself preoccupied with fantasies and feelings of resentment, of getting even?
  
• Put pets first?
  
• Find you both have lost your capacity for surprise and wonderment?
  
• Suffer from persistent health problems, including exhaustion, low energy, or worse?

If you are among the millions of Americans who suffer from a broken heart as a result of a spiritual divorce, you must find a path to recovery before it is too late!

What is a spiritual divorce? It is an "unofficial" divorce that has not involved any paperwork or agreements or discussions of any kind. It is not based on man's laws. It is the unnatural result of a period of unhappiness between two people.

When unhappiness builds, it is meant to be motivational, urging a solution to the underlying cause of the unhappiness. Most people enter a relationship with their eyes half closed and endure a relationship with their eyes completely closed.

Worst of all, perhaps, a spiritual divorce causes a broken heart. And broken heart causes passive-aggressive behavior in dealing with your mate. Such behavior intensifies the negativity, anger, and frustration. Your mind may create fantasies of escape and/or revenge even in the midst of "pleasurable" activities.

You know something is very wrong, but you may not know how wrong or what to do about it. Because of denial or resignation, you may have accepted a cocoon existence. You may have even forgotten the difference between existing and living.

You may wonder how things got so bad but time is better spent in solution. Clearly, you need ways to mend your broken heart... by either healing the spiritual divorce or by getting a legal divorce.

First, all denials, hopes, wishes, and fantasies must be replaced by fact. You may resist being matter-of-fact about your pain, about the destructiveness of the relationship, about what's really going on, but this first difficult step is an essential building block in the foundation of freedom.

Thinking emotionally gets us nowhere. Facts take us into solution. Include all your feelings, sensations, fantasies, thoughts, activities, actions, pains, etc.

We all tend to paint over what we don't want to see in any painful situation. Nature gave us the ability to deny pain and chaos so that we may survive for brief periods of time.

Therapy can help you see and feel, thus opening the door to change. Clarity sometimes requires an objective observer.

Remember: some relationships just aren't meant to be. Walking away is the only solution. Others can be salvaged by following these guide lines:

1. don't let a busy career, social pressures, and a hectic lifestyle get in the way.
   

2. plan time each day developing insight; that is, listening to yourself in meditation, walking, or bodywork. Observe carefully and look for the facts, for the Truth.
   
3. never complain about your relationship to others; only one close friend or therapist should know. Well-meaning people will give you bad advice, and convince you that you are the victim.
   
4. do not tolerate negative comments or thoughts; heal them instantly with fact.
   
5. deal with fantasies by using a technique I developed many years ago: F.E.A.T. (fantasy editing and transforming). Yes, you want to escape or get even or gloss over the issues, but such fantasies need editing so that you empower yourself to be solution-oriented.
   
6. be willing to examine objectively the potential for the relationship.
   
7. avoid blame and one-ups-manship. ("I knew it all along," "I told you so," "You just didn't get it," "You're the problem.").
   
8. express your needs and feelings as "I" without any "you" statements.
   
9. be honest, accurate, and focused on the present and the future; avoid commenting on the past.
   
10. ask for clarification when you do not understand; remember you are seeking Truth.
    
11. discover your options; work with a professional in option-analysis and problem-solving.
    
12. set goals in a time-frame, change conscious and unconscious habits, reduce stress.
    
13. be willing to explore blocks to intimacy and improve communication skills.
    
14. admit to the value of the relationship to yourself and your partner (if it has potential).
    
15. commit to work toward intimacy and deeper love in a monogamous state.
    
16. take responsibility to find ways to fulfill your needs without expecting your partner to meet all of them.
    
17. realize you are not responsible for your partner's happiness and s/he is not responsible for yours.
    
18. practice active listening; assume nothing; do not interrupt; do not try to fix.
    
19. recognize that everyone is an awakening being at some stage of awakening; your job is not to force awakening on anyone, but to simply take responsibility for your own.
    
20. share, nurture; take time, look into each other's eyes, touch, caress; make the end of each day a homecoming.
    
21. come to some agreements on use of time, energy, and money... and child rearing.

And lastly, remember that you do not have to be angry or aggressive to get your points across or to prove that you are strong or right. Always keep in mind that aggressiveness is the opposite of assertiveness: aggressiveness shows weakness, fear, and desperation.

"Aggression is the last resort of a desperate Soul."

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