Love is the core skill and core need we all have. Many of us grew up in homes where love was conditional. If you behave this way I will love you. If you go against my wishes, I will exclude you from my love. This is not how love works. Love is universal energy, either you’re tapped into it and give it freely, or you are lacking in love.
The rest is negotiation, navigation, and nurture. We've both got work ahead of us. We are always in a state of becoming. But today, I have my lifetime cheerleader beside me. And I'm always ready joyfully embrace her in all of her flaws and misdirections. We've all got them.
With this woman, I have established my new JOY TRIBE. And my two kids are basking in the renewed joy as well. By showing them what a loving and happy relationship looks like, they can begin modeling their future relationships on healthy patterns.
It's already sounding snarky to me, but I have to give thanks to the mother of my children for releasing me from a marriage that had grown unbalanced and unhappy.…
Stay focused in the present moment, but do allow yourself to dream and project into the future with your partner. Opening those doors of dreaming together has been a gateway of power for us.
And as we radiate and recommit, as we lean in towards one another and take the leap of faith towards life-transforming love, we can see the effect our joy is having on our friends and family. And the kids, while still readjusting to our new configuration, are already showing warmth and enthusiasm around our together unit, which now includes a new partner for me.
I will be in the process of recalibrating my life in relationship to my ex-wife probably for the rest of my life. Even after the kids are off and doing their own lives, there are always collective contributions that need to be made, adult advice that needs to be given, and we will never fully separate from the relationship.
I learned that one person cannot keep a marriage together no matter how hard they try or how much they want to keep the family together. I was in agreement that things could not continue as they had been.
That's how the first home base became a hostile environment for both of us. We labored to keep the kids out of the fray and we began couples counseling two very different perspectives.