“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” – Agnes Repplier
I was sitting with a group of friends from high school at our 30th reunion and one guy starting talking about his marriage. They were hanging on because of their high-school aged kids and the money but it was a relationship of closed doors and “why can’t she just be?” and it sounded like from her side “please just leave me alone.”
It brought to mind a whole scrapbook of memories from the end of my marriage. I felt like I was suffocating and starving. Suffocated because he had a long list of his needs and entertainment that he pressured me daily to meet and starved because he had no interest in listening to or participating in what fed me. I stayed in that marriage because I didn’t know what the difference was between hard times and impossible to fix. My sense of responsibility kept me in a situation that was irresponsible to my own being. In the waning days, I just came home at the end of the day and drank wine, a lot of it. And while I drank, I smoked.
There was no doubt that I was headed for a recovery program but then my business partner told me of my husband’s infidelities and although it was many confusing months ahead as I’ve written in my post Projections, my life changed. As I see it now, the Universe plucked me out of a self-destructive situation and gave me another chance to figure out happiness. I found my way to my own recovery activities. I spent time each day meditating and the long, rhythmic breathing replaced smoking. I read, journaled and leaned towards the feelings I was having instead of trying to numb them with wine. The people that I hung out with changed. Instead I found trust in the Higher Power to walk with me through life. I lost my marriage but found myself again.
As I was thinking through all of this, the question had come up whether our friend should stay in his marriage and someone said, “Ask Wynne” as I must have been the only divorced person sitting there. Of course I can’t answer for anyone else, especially when there are kids involved. But my answer for myself was “Not if you can’t breathe.”
Surprised By Joy 