Divorce is about adaption. Adapting to a new way, a new life. Its an opportunity to redefine yourself. To become someone you don’t know yet. To do this means you need to let go of everything you thought you were. The roles, the masks, the identification and yes the dreams and ideals you had as a couple, as a wife and mother. This takes time, care, patience and self-compassion.
It took me many years to transcend the role of being his wife. It still pops up every now and then. Throwing me off centre.
I didn’t want to let go of being a wife. Here were my some of my challenges letting go of being ‘a wife’ early on. This was written originally in 2014 only one year into my healing journey. Perhaps you may resonant with some of my thoughts and feelings.
“Sad, depth, core pain.
I loved being a wife, I lived my whole life to be a wife. I felt I was a good wife, supportive, caring, good homemaker, lover, companion and friend. I did my best. I sacrificed myself in order to support my husband doing/being who he needed to be. I played my role dutifully, purposefully with deep sense of commitment, value and respect. I was part of a team, who had a common purpose, vision and dream.
At some point the other part of the team resigned, left.
I thought that was who I as. I was a wife and a mother.
As he prepared to leave the terror I experienced was predominately tarred by me thinking this is all I am. If I don’t have a husband, I don’t exist anymore. I am not a wife. Terror. Panic. Obliterated. No purpose. No need to exist.
When he left, the world collapsed, my foundation dropped. I did not have a husband. Yet I still thought I was a wife.
I lived through this role for many months after he left.
Until now.
Painfully, I realised this was happening. I began to open up to the possibility that I was more than a wife.
As I allowed my sorrow, my tears, my sadness to drip further in I felt these internal tears drop onto a vault. A vault that surrounded my essence. It was locked tight. Protected, guarded. Never to be opened.
Until now.
In order to survive, the vault had to open. The cocoon around my core had to peel back, to evaporate to reveal who I really am.
It was surprisingly a relatively quick, graceful, process.
‘Her’ strengths will be channelled into other areas of expression.
She is loved, dearly respected, nurtured, cared for and revered. I love her. I really love her.
Such a beautiful, giving, sharing, wife.
Expression of self. One expression.
It is time for her to rest now.
Ah, she can rest.
No responsibility to her husband anymore.
God I loved being a wife, I loved being his wife.
Big loss, indescribable grief.
Then intensified by another woman.
Replaced.
Depth sense of un-lovability as a woman.
No longer sensual, attractive to the one who was my husband.
The wife is in so much pain, hurt, anguish which can drop into rage and the depths of despair.
Grief at what is, what will not be, what was.
