Denial Of Sexual Orientation Doubles The Pain
I figured out I was a lesbian 10 years ago. At the time I had been married for 15 years. We had two kids, a dog, a station wagon and a house–but no white picket fence, thank God. When I made my discovery, everything I thought I knew about my reality crumbled around me and I cannot express the confusion and fear I felt. Paramount in my thoughts was my family. I felt sick about breaking up my family–I couldn’t even think about it at times, especially the effect on my kids. I would instantly break down in tears–at the dinner table, at class, at a store. Yet as time went on it became clearer and clearer to me that I had to leave the marriage in order to survive, emotionally and even physically, as I was having suicidal thoughts.
Looking back, I can now acknowledge the denial I was in when I got married. Although I had attractions to women all my life, I was unable to connect that with identifying myself as a lesbian. This was purely a survival strategy, totally on a subconscious level. My mind simply could not allow that admission, through fear of how I would be treated and viewed by society. So sad! The result was, I did what was expected…I got married and had children and lived in a kind of oblivion.
For years, denial seemed to work. My mind was silent while allowing me to weave an intricate and full life as a heterosexual…marrying, having children, forming community bonds. But denial turns out not to be permanent. After years of protection, the spell wore off, leaving me laid bare, as I am, my true sexual identity exposed and raw and as demanding as a newborn.
Now I see the great irony of it all. In the end, denial betrays us and doubles the pain. Far from sparing me from the pain I so feared–the anticipation of living as a lesbian–denial ultimately added the even more devastating pain of breaking up my family. Although I have been divorced for 5 years, it still hurts. I still have trouble thinking about the effects this has had on my family. Luckily, my kids and ex-husband seem to have weathered the storm, allowing me some peace with my past.
The saddest part is that the fears that drove me into denial have proved to be largely unfounded. By finally accepting myself and embracing my sexuality, instead of the suffering I imagined, I have experienced relief and a sense of peace and wholeness.
Pat Cheney is a life coach working with gays and lesbians who are coming out in midlife and with spouses in gay-straight marriages. To find out more about her services, visit Pat’s website at http://www.discoveringpride.com.
Maintaining A Relationship With Spouse After Divorce
Some marriages survive for a brief moment for the sake of the children. The relationship that endures is not a quality marriage of two people who love each other. It has turned into a marriage of convenience that eventually becomes inconvenient for both parties. The children are well aware that the marriage ended long ago, but they do not know how to go about maintaining a relationship with the parent who moved out of the house.
Some divorces are so brutal that the couples find that they have a hard time maintaining a relationship with their spouse after the divorce is final. The divorce might have involved a lengthy custody battle where all of the stops were pulled out to ensure one parent or the other would win their points for custody and walk out of court with the children in tow and feel like a winner.
The mere act of divorce splits the lives of two people right down the middle. All of the efforts to save the marriage are nil and some couples approach a divorce on the same grounds as a business deal. They put in their bids for property and negotiate visitation times with the children of the marriage. It is hard to maintain a long-lasting relationship of friendship from a relationship of love that ended so tragic.
After the final divorce degree has been issued each person is faced with starting a new life. Some spouses prefer to place a lot of distance between the memories that surround their past life. Conflicts arise when they want to move to another State and make plans to register the children in a new school. The relationship between both parties will determine whether another battle will ensue when the other parent finds out about the move.
Other divorces occur because adultery has occurred during the course of a marriage. The chances are very slim that any sort of relationship will be maintained after the final decree is issued. The couple can not even consider reconciliation of the marriage because of the hurt involved. The children of broken marriages suffer the most during a divorce and some find that maintaining a relationship with either parent is the betrayal of the love they have for the other.
If at all possible, divorcing couples should try to find a middle ground to stand on. This neutral ground will serve as a place where communication lines are kept and will serve as a resting place for children to place their guilt. At the neutral ground, children can continue to maintain a relationship with both parents and keep guilt from entering into the relationship that they have with all family members.
James Brown writes about http://www.romantictreasure.com
Marriage, What’s The Point
Once upon a time, there was a young woman who was dressed in ragged clothes and was forced to serve those more fortunate than her in order to survive. Regardless of how hard the people around her pushed her to toil and slave, she worked diligently while showing concern and kindness to those even less fortunate than her. You could see from her demur that even though she had been poor all of her life, she trusted God would meet her needs.
Many fairy tales have taken this same young woman and painted her not only loving on the inside, but so beautiful on the outside that a prince would overlook her rags and see the real her. A frustrated princely youth that up until she came into his life had never found anyone worthy of his affection.
We know from movies and cartoons how this story ends. She marries the prince and they live happily ever after. However, no matter how hard you try to mold it or force it into following this story line, life can seldom live up to the movies. Love is not so easily packaged and sold.
Over 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce. Living together without a legal marriage is now becoming more and more popular. Families throughout the world are collapsing because love in people’s hearts have grown cold. Love that was suppose to flourish and last a grow.
What has happened to the fairy tale life that puts two people together for a lifetime? Why is the dream of a strong relationship impossible to achieve in our present day world?
Genesis 2: 18, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to live alone. I will make a suitable companion to help him.’”
In the beginning God created man and woman to help each other. An unbreakable force bound by a marriage that united them through love and intricately weaved them so closely together that their souls became one. Together they would populate the world. Together they would live in the Garden of Eden as a family, enjoying each other and having a loving relationship with God.
God’s desire was for marriage to be a strong force that enabled two people to stand up to opposition by presenting a united front. Two people who would build their lives together with God as the center of their marriage.
In order for God to teach the man and woman He had to test their loyalty to Him. In the center of the garden stood two trees. The fruit of one tree unlocked the secrets of good and evil and the other tree was the tree of eternal life. God forbid them from ever eating from either tree.
The most beautiful creature in all the world was the snake. Satan entered the snake and easily persuaded Eve to eat from the forbidden tree of good and evil. From that moment on everything changed. A world game erupted between good versus evil and man became the player.
No longer was the world perfect, now it was filled with temptations to sin. Every man and woman were given the opportunity to make choices for good or evil. Freewill gave everyone the ability to decide whether or not they would follow God or their own evil hearts.
A Spiritual game took shape enabling an unseen world to influence the minds of men in the great tug-of-war of life. Satan was punished for inciting the man and woman to turn against God and was thrown down to earth. Satan became the god of the earth and his spirit demons infected the minds of men with thoughts of jealousy, pride, selfishness, impatience, and every form of evil.
Jesus tells of Satan’s control over the world. John 14: 30a, “I cannot talk with you much longer, because the ruler of this world is coming.”
God fought back and sent guarding angels to protect His precious world game players by inspiring them with the voice of the Holy Spirit. He sent prophets to teach people how to fight against Satan and sin. He gave us the Laws of Moses and finally He gave us the greatest sacrifice when Jesus died for all mankind’s sin.
When the battle begins in the minds of men our biggest opponent becomes the people who are closest to us. This is the reason why our marriages are under attack by Satan all of the time. For example, Satan takes couples who are suffering from the loss of a child or going through an illness and makes them play the blame game. He uses arguments over petty things like picking up clothes, doing the dishes, watching to much sports or spending to much time on your pleasures apart from your family.
Matthew 10:36 “A man’s worse enemies will be the members of his own family.”
Jesus even goes as far as to say that the world game between good and evil is so great that sometimes the cost means you must give up your entire family in order to win your own game. This happens when the trouble of staying together brings so much evil into your life that you must divorce. You must divorce in order to retain your faith in God.
Luke 14:26, “Whoever comes to me cannot be my disciple unless he loves me more than he loves his father and his mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and his sisters, and himself as well.”
Marriages cannot last unless couples put God first. If you are with someone who does not believe in God it will be impossible to be together. Strong marriages are build by God and love.
Satan uses stress that comes in the form of unhappiness at work. He uses finances when they are so tight that a family can’t pay their bills. He uses a woman’s menstrual cycle when her hormones are out of control. He uses a man’s mid-life crisis to get him to run from his family and have an affair. Marriages end when both refuse to work together to mend the problems with God’s help.
Luke 12: 52&53, “From now on a family of five will be divided, three against two and two against three. Fathers will be against their sons, and sons against their fathers; mothers will be against their daughters, and daughters against their mothers; mothers-in-law will be against their daughters-in-law, and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law.”
God uses the Bible to teach us how the family was formed and how family values can protect us from Satan’s destructive powers. He tells us how to love and respect our partners.
Ephesians 5: 25, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it.” Verse 33, “But it also applies to you; every husband must love his wife as himself, and every wife must respect her husband.”
The game of life resulted from Adam and Eve’s unwillingness to be content in perfection. They wanted to understand the things of God and the only way this could be done was through the temptation to do evil.
Understanding this great complex world game helps us to build strong relationships only with God’s help. God is love! God is able to protect us from evil. God is teaching us through the tests we face in the world so we can gain revelations on how to love unconditionally.
Satan fights against everything that keeps us from understanding what we are doing wrong. He makes us only think of ourselves. He uses worldly values that tells us to take care of ourselves. He conquers us by giving us so many evil thoughts about our spouses that we stop loving.
Matthew 24:12, “Such will be the spread of evil that many people’s love will grow cold.”
God teaches us how to form solid relationships when we allow Him to work in our lives. His guidance helps us not to think of just ourselves. He helps us to put the needs of our partners first. When God is the head, He builds unbreakable marriages.
Ephesians 5: 21-24, “Submit yourselves to one another because of your reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband has authority over his wife just as Christ has authority over the church; and Christ is himself the Savior of the church, his body. And so wives must submit themselves completely to their husbands just as the church submits itself to Christ.”
These verses have value to those who fight to keep their relationships strong. But we must also understand that when you are in a life game our relationships are what teach us the difference between good and bad.
Sometimes we enter into relationships that are built on lust and not love. Sometimes we are deceived by a person who says they love us, but it is only for the purpose of getting what they want. Sometimes God uses wrong relationships to teach us what we really want in the right person we will marry in the future.
Understanding the difference between building a secure and mutually satisfying relationship is realizing our need for God. God builds strong relationships. God protects us from the evil voice of Satan, who wants to destroy love. God is the only way for marriage to survive in a world game.
1 John 4:7&8, “Dear friends, let us love one another because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
The princess looked into the loving eyes of her prince. She melted into his arms of love. Love that was built by God and held together by God. Marriage that is made strong by conquering the difficulties in the world with God’s help so they could live, “Happily Ever After”.
Linda C Dipman author of THE GAME OF LIFE IT’S ALMOST OVER http://outskirtspress.com/gameoflife presents: AND HIS LOVE SHONE DOWN my true life story! It describes all the persecutions I endured. Lovinghandsministry.com
Marrying Mistakes and Life Beyond Divorce
Marriage is full of habits, both good and bad. Habits feel natural and easy which means they don’t break themselves by accident.
Many people who escape a bad marriage, tend to get involved in the same type of relationships they just escaped from. They marry the same type of person, fall into the same types of problems, and find themselves in another abusive situation.
For those who want to move on to better things, its very possible. The biggest piece is realizing the trap exists. The next is to find help and there are lot of communities, usually founded by men and women who can relate.
Lisa J. Peck, author of “Stop Marrying Mistakes,” found herself in an abusive relationship and sought the help of Growth Climate, a program developed by therapists that teaches how to take control of your life using principals. Peck learned alot in the process of turning her life around and here are some of the most important things she’s learned that she shared during an interview on Inside Romance Success.
The four fundamentals of emotional growth:
1. Understand that every person has his/her own climate or mood.
2. Realize that the mood a person feels and displays will effect how others treat that person.
3. Realize that people effect each other. A person who is surrounded by negative people will suffer more stress and is much more likely to become depressed.
4. Understand each person has inner and outer support systems. The success and positive people support themselves. An easy way to support oneself is to be surrounded by positive people.
Three crucial steps to healing:
1. Mourn the loss of a relationship and acknowledge the pain.
2. Nourish the mind and the body. (It is far to easy to punish or neglect the body when the spirit is not happy but this will only perpetuate the bad feelings.)
3. Evaluate aspirations and passions. Reconnect with the real you. Find the inner child. A great help here is for someone to ask “What did I enjoy doing as a child?” Connecting with old dreams is NOT silly, it’s powerful.
A common problem attached to relationship problems of every level is depression. If a person can get excited with their life and future possibilites, it is much easier to move on.
Steps of depression and how it happens:
1. Self worth struggle – every child is born with a sense of self worth. Humans believe they are valuable as a person until told otherwise.
2. Instinct wrestle – Someone thinks they are not as good as they had thought or hoped.
3. Choice – In the end, each person chooses to believe or to doubt themself.
Self worth comes from being productive. People who get involved in things are able to adjust more easily from broken relationships. The mind can hold multiple thoughts but there is only room for one feeling at a time, therefore by helping another person, the first will be carried away from their own problems. This can be a ton of fun, AND it’s rewarding!
Kids are a real issue for most marriages, divorces, and remarriages. Few people plan to become the ‘evil’ stepmother or father but often the kids involved create their own worst nightmare by being hurtful or standoffish. Lisa J. Peck created the The Ten Commandments of Step-Parenting developed to ease emotional hurts and let the parent be the parent.
Here are the first five:
1. Give the child personal space
2. Be yourself around them
3. Set limits and enforce them
4. Allow outlets for feelings for both children and biological parents
5. Expect ambivalence from the child. They need time.
The proactive strategies outlined by Lisa J. Peck during her interview can smooth the path to a healthy recovery from divorce and open the possibilities of beautiful new positive relationships.
Remember to beware the trap of bad habits, get help, help others, and move on.
Dr. Proactive Randy Gilbert enjoys producing the “Inside Romance Success” show hosted by Kevin Decker, who presents his insightful interview with Lisa J. Peck based upon the techniques from her book.
http://www.insidesuccessradio.com/Guests/Lisa-Peck