Anger is a healthy emotion.
When you feel anger, what you do with the excess energy is all-important. Harness your anger to move towards your goals and dreams. Anger at ex-partners, anger at the state of the world, anger at a shitty manager, each is like little charging station to increase your blood pressure. Use that pressure to move your plans forward. Don’t look back in regret. Leave those people in the dust. Anger informs your soul. Listen to what hurts. And then, learn to move forward out of what is making you angry towards things that make you happy.
Suppressed anger leads to health issues, depression, rage, and addiction. By building a healthy response to your anger, you can begin to move your life towards happiness and contentment. Your anger towards someone else is YOUR issue. Let it go. Move onward and upward.
Toxic anger is like drinking poison and hoping it kills the other person. It’s only going to make you sick. Unresolved anger is not good for you or any of the people around you. Let go of your anger. Use anger for good.
Two people agree to have kids and a huge shift happens in their lives and their future together. You are committing to a lifetime of connection with this person, even as you are agreeing to bring new dependants onto the planet. It's a massive transition, this becoming a parent. Deciding to divorce your co-parent is another huge shift.
I wonder, someday, will they ask how the divorce happened? Will my adult kids want to know who's idea it was to break up our family? These are conversations I could never have with them unless they asked.
I did learn to love full-on in this marriage. I learned to put my whole soul into the project and come back with the joy of being a parent, and being in love, and being married. This total commitment is part of what blindsided me in the divorce.
Do my friendly offers for help, or extra carpool support, or running errands with them, make any difference in the timbre of her voice? Nope. She's not done with me, she's furious with me, still.
Today, three years later, I am happy. Alone. But happy. And I won't pass judgment on her and the boyfriend who has given her strength and steadiness. My daughter likes him. That's enough for me.
I can let go of my side of the problem, right now. And that's my healing. My ex-wife, she's got her own road ahead. I no longer have to take her inventory. I can let her sail her own boat without my input or dependence.
We could've separated and agreed to a 50/50 parenting and 50/50 custody schedule as I requested. That was more in keeping with the way we parented. But it did not match up with my then-wife's objectives. Those "options" she learned about from the attorney, rather than the options about staying in the relationship she could've learned in the couple's therapy.
Being an ally in the #metoo revolutions means developing a more evolved response. This morning I stepped right into the #metoo conversation. A woman who I respect and have known…