What an ugly thing to discover after nearly 6 years in a supposed honest, monogamous relationship…

My partner has been intimate; emotionally and physically, with another man… OUCH

I guess I am now another statistic… There are a lot of them relating to affairs and cheating, so I am discovering!

There are some chilling stats here…

Tuesday November 24, 2009 By Kevin Morrow

Hi everyone, what’s up?

Funny how I ask that question but I don’t really know your answer until you comment. So comment after you read this blog post and tell me what’s up. Here’s an even better idea, comment what you think about this topic.

I was on facebook and I saw this as a “status update” on my friends page. I thought I would talk about it especially since what I have to say wouldn’t fit on facebook.

So let’s get into this…

Why Are You Afraid to love?

I’ve heard some people say because they are not in control, and as a result they feel the other person is. Let’s look at this from TRUTH. If it is not perfect, unconditional love, it’s illusion. The reason a person would feel like they have no control has nothing to do with love. It has everything to do with fear of love. People are associating love with hurt and pain because they “think” that love can be taken from them.

Love cannot be taken from you. Love is something that is eternal within you, it doesn’t leave. The difference between love and “emotions” is that emotions are created by the mind that separates itself from the feeling of perfect love.

You are the only person that can control your reactions, so thinking somebody else is in control is in your own mind. If you believe things to be this way, that is the way it will be for you.

But check this out…If you love yourself, like perfect love DOES, you cannot be hurt by love. Hurt is the opposite of love and the opposite of love is not real. The opposite of love is an illusion of your mind. That’s why it doesn’t feel right.

Wherever there is fear, there is a calling out for LOVE.

Some say they are afraid of love because you can’t guarantee what will happen in the end. This is also an illusion. You can’t guarantee that you will wake up tomorrow but you still go to sleep. The only thing you can guarantee is that you control your reactions.

Love is not a thought, love is REALITY. This is why everybody seeks it, because they feel they are separate from it. Fears are thoughts. They come from a mind that “thinks” it is separated from love. If you didn’t think you were separated from love you would not have these fears. So the question to ask is, why do you feel like you are separate from love?

If you are afraid of love, you are most likely looking for love outside of yourself. From another person, or valentines day card, or roses, or chocolates, something external that has no real value. The real value of love is internal. That’s why people who love themselves do not fear love. Because they are love.

Think about it…The world is always changing, why would you look for love outside of yourself? It would always change. Your inner beliefs are what make the reality you “think” you see outside of your self.

You are afraid of love because you are afraid to take responsibility in the fact that it’s your fault that you are not experiencing it the way you know you should. This is what causes the conflict. The spirit is perfect love, the mind thinks it’s separated. The two cannot exist together because one of them is not real.

I’m not pointing fingers, I know this to be reality within myself, and this is how I heal my mind.

If I feel like love is outside of me, and I’m not responsible for whether or not I experience it correctly, then I will blame things, people,events, and I will create fear. None of these things are real, they all pass away.

It’s similar to associating success with a car. If you feel like you are successful because of a car, what are you after you don’t have the car, or grow tired of the car. Are you back down at the bottom of the barrel? Do you have to go out and get another car to be successful again.

The more you do something like that, the more you create illusions of reality for yourself. Love is the only reality there is, everything else is illusion. When I say Love, I mean perfect unconditional love. Not the love that is subject to the “perceptions” of the split mind, and the “gratifications” of the ego. I’m talking about the perfect love that everybody is pursuing without even realizing it.

The only way to heal fear of love is to forgive it’s existence. If you can forgive the fact that you see the fear in others, it begins to heal your mind. Once you realize that if you forgive the fear of love in others, you will begin to forgive the fear of love within yourself. This will heal your mind from the false reality that you are not LOVE.

The link below is to The Escape the Matrix Radio Show “Forgiveness is the New Sexy.”

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/freeyourself/2009/11/15/forgiveness-is-the-new-sexy

Parenting During Separation and Divorce

Divorce can be a painful experience and parents may find it difficult to respond to the needs of their children, for extra emotional support and attention.   To help your children cope with divorce, you need to learn to manage your own feelings and new circumstances.   Like many other parents in similar circumstances, you can move forward and help your children move forward too.

Expectations

Divorce is not a single event, but a process that unfolds over time. It involves a series of family changes and reorganizations that may take several years.   The events and emotions that accompany these changes cannot be dealt with overnight. It takes time for everyone in the family to adapt.

Separation and divorce can be an emotional roller coaster.   You may experience feelings of anger, isolation, anxiety, euphoria, depression, guilt, loss of control, fear, incompetence and insecurity.   You may doubt your ability to deal with the needs of your children because you also face pressing needs of your own.   Sometimes parents may feel that they have failed their children, and may doubt their own worth.   These emotions and difficulties are a natural part of going through a separation and divorce.
 

Different Challenges

The process of separation and divorce can be one of the most difficult experiences in an adult’s life – socially, emotionally and financially.   Most parents are ill-prepared for all of the challenges and adjustments they may face, including:
• Changing homes, neighbourhoods and schools, which may lead to a sense of instability and the loss of relationships and support systems.

• Economic changes – two households cost more to maintain than one. Some parents may face a sudden financial crisis.

• Difficulty in concentrating on your job. Or you may immerse yourself in work, especially if you are no longer living with your children.

• If you are not living with your children, you may feel cut off from their lives.

• Increased demands and responsibilities if you have the major role in caring for the children. It may seem like there are not enough hours in the day to spend time with your children, and still find any time for yourself.

With all the pressures of divorce parents are under even greater stress.   It is important for you to carve out some time to take care of your own needs.   Schedule time for activities that help you get in touch with yourself, whether through a hobby, physical activity or simply relaxing quietly.   Allow yourself occasions to break away from the momentum of “doing” and simply “be” even for a few minutes to help you regain your balance.   It will give you a better sense of perspective and will help you stay on top of the day-to-day stress of work, children, and the separation or divorce.

MARRIAGE A LA MODE

Fiction Short Story

By

VIKRAM KARVE

Dear Reader, I am sure you have heard the saying: Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Now, please read this fiction short story:

At exactly 8 PM her cell-phone rings in her hand. She’s expecting the call – that’s why she’s holding the cell-phone in her hand. She looks at the caller-id, accepts the call, moves the mobile phone near her ear and says, “I love you, darling!”

“I love you, Sugar!” says her husband’s voice from half way around the globe. On his bed beside him, sprawled with arms and legs outstretched like a fallen statue, the woman is still asleep, her breathing untroubled.

It’s a long distance marriage, and the ‘married bachelors’ have been following the same drill for quite some time now – two calls every day at exactly the same time (Eight in the morning she calls him up just before leaving for work and eight in the evening she receives his call from half way across the globe just before he leaves for work. And both of them start their conversation automatically with the words: “I love you, darling! Or, I love you, Sugar!” He’s her ‘darling’ and she’s his ‘Sugar’!)

“How was your day?” the husband asks.

“Hectic. Lot’s of work. Deadlines to meet!” the wife answers. She steals a glance at the handsome young man sitting beside her in the darkened lounge bar.

“It’s terrible here too,” the husband says, “It’s killing – the work. Too much traveling. Sales meets, seminars, conferences. One hotel to another. Living out of a suitcase. I’m feeling exhausted.”

It’s true. The husband is indeed feeling exhausted; a relaxing, satiating kind of exhaustion. He gets up and opens the window and allows the early morning air to cool his body, then turns around and looks at the marvelous body of the woman on his bed. She looks lovelier than ever before, and as he remembers the ferocity of her lovemaking, he feels waves of desire rise within him. Not for a long time has the mere sight of a woman aroused the lion in him to such an extent. He smiles to himself. He feels proud and elated; it was a grand performance. Spontaneous lovemaking at its best; not like the planned and contrived “quality” lovemaking with his wife, full of performance anxiety, each performing for the other’s gratification, putting on an act and both faking pleasure thinking the other would not know.

“Yes, darling. Poor you. I can understand,” the wife says, and sips her potent cocktail. It’s her third. She wonders what it is – the mysterious but deadly intoxicating cocktails her companion is plying her with, and she is feeling gloriously high.

“I’m just waiting for this hectic spell of work to be over so we can meet,” the husband says. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks at the sleeping woman. Mesmerized, marveling. It is difficult to believe that in a few hours from now they would be addressing each other formally again.

“Oh, yes. It’s been three months and I’m dying to meet you. When are we meeting?” the wife asks.

“I’m planning a fantastic vacation. I’ll let you know soon. We’ll go to some exotic place. Just the two of us. Quality Time!” the husband says to his faraway wife and at the same time looks yearningly at the gorgeously sexy woman lying so close to him.

“That’s great! We must spend some Quality Time together,” the wife says to her distant husband while she snuggles close against her strikingly handsome colleague. He presses his knee against hers. She presses hers against his. He moves his hand around her over her soft skin and pulls her gently. She feels an inchoate desire. He gently strokes her hair, and she turns towards him, her mouth partly open as he leans over her.  Fuelled by the alcohol in her veins, she can sense the want churning inside her like fire. And as she looks into his eyes, and feels the intensity of his caresses, she can sense her resistance melting.

“I love you, Sugar!” the husband says.

“I love you, darling!” the wife says.

Their lovey-dovey conversation completed, both the long distance spouses disconnect their cell-phones, focus on their present objects of affection, and, with renewed zeal, carry on the passionate amorous activity presently in hand. After all, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

At the beginning of this story I had quoted a famous saying: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Now I am temped to say: Absence makes the heart grow fonder – for someone else.

MARRIAGE A LA MODE

Fiction Short Story

By

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009

Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

vikramkarve@sify.com

A l’inverse du salon du mariage, le salon du divorce, de la séparation et du veuvage, à ouvert ses portes le 7 et 8 novembre 2009, à la porte de Champeret, à Paris. Ce salon nommé “Nouveau Départ” à pour but d’aider les personnes en instance de séparation, à gérer au mieux cette transition difficile vers une nouvelle vie. Le tout premier salon du divorce a été inauguré en Autriche, en octobre 2007.

Ce salon du divorce, de la séparation et du veuvage à été élaboré autour de plusieurs pôles:

>> Le pôle “conseil et droit” est composé d’experts tels que des juristes, avocats et notaires, présents sur le salon, pour conseiller et répondre à toutes les questions pratiques des visiteurs.

>> Le pôle  “psychologie et formation” mis en place afin d’aider certaines personnes qui se retrouvent face à des situations difficiles à gérer, telles que la mort de son mari ou de sa femme, une séparation difficile ,ou une difficulté à se prendre en main et à vivre seul après une rupture.

>> Le pôle “immobilier et décoration” qui se charge des problématiques de déménagement ou d’aménagement et de décoration de nouvel appartement, en cas de séparation d’un couple.

>> Le pôle “image de soi” qui s’occupe des personnes qui ont besoin d’être valoriser et de reprendre confiance en elles, après une rupture. Cet espace s’organise autour d’ateliers conseils beauté et relooking.

>> Le pôle ” loisirs et rencontres” qui propose des voyages, des programmes de sport, des agences de rencontres, afin de permettre aux couples séparés de prendre n nouveau départ et de continuer à avoir une vie sociale, pour rencontrer de nouvelles personnes et envisager de nouvelles perspectives de vie.

Estimant le taux de divorce en France à un divorce sur trois mariages, le marché du divorce semble être un nouveau business à exploiter, ou le public sera certainement au rendez-vous.

>> Site officiel du salon du divorce, de la séparation et du veuvage

>>source: 20 minutes.fr: article Le premier salon du mariage ouvre ses portes à Paris, du 07/11/09.

Dans mon chagrin, rien n’est en mouvement
J’attends, personne ne viendra
Ni de jour, ni de nuit
Ni jamais plus de ce qui fut moi-même

Et l’avenir mon seul espoir c’est mon tombeau
Pareil au tien, cerné d’un monde indifférent

Author: Chase Wilhelm
Source: ezinearticles.com

So I am getting out of the Army. Technically my contract doesn’t end until the end of September. But with all of the leave I have saved up I am leaving and will spend my last days on what they now call transition leave, formerly known as terminal leave. This sounds good right? Well it is good, the only problem is the actual getting out part.

I’ve been in the Army for 6 years now and know some things about how to get stuff done in the Army. I even know some things about getting out from seeing other soldiers get out.

And let me tell you, it’s a good thing I know a little bit about it because it is not exactly the easiest task in the Army. Those that are familiar with the military may also be familiar with the term “break it down barney style” meaning to make it stupid simple or go step by step. Most things in the Army have a “barney style” option where a subject matter expert can tell you exactly what to do if ever there is a question. Now that is awesome, if you ever have a question in the Army there is always someone with an answer.

Well when you’re getting out there is no one with the answer, because everyone who is a subject matter expert is only and expert because they have left the service meaning there is no one left with the RIGHT answers.

So, since I am becoming a subject matter expert, I can pass on some, www.chase.com, of the things that I have learned during my process. Now it’s not like it’s impossible to get out if you haven’t a clue. I have seen many people who are within days of getting out, and only then are they pushed through the system.

These people end up getting out, but the process is not a smooth transition for them because they are rushing to accomplish tasks that can be done months in advance. So here are my lessons learned.

1. The first thing that should be done is your leave form or DA 31. This should be done at least 4 months before you are planning to start your transition leave.

2. After you have your leave form approved you can turn it in to the transition office who will then cut your orders which you can pick up a few days later.

You need your orders before you can do very much else.

3. I would recommend to start your phase 1 and 2 physicals as part of your medical out processing as soon as you get your orders.

4. You can get your commander to sign a memorandum allowing you to turn in your CIF gear up to 2 months before your last day in the unit. Clearing CIF is not the most desirable thing to do because they often kick back items for being dirty or tell you that you are either missing something or that it is not the color or type that they want you to turn in.

Not to mention that when you clear CIF you need to go in person to make the appointment to turn in your gear, and they might not have an open appointment for 15 – 30 days or more. Since clearing CIF has the potential to me a nightmare it is advisable to have your commander sign this memorandum as soon as possible and make the appointment as soon as you have the memorandum in hand. Also, make sure that you clear CIF before you have your household items shipped back home, just in case.

5. You will need to go to transportation and sit through a briefing, which is sometimes done on a, www.

chase.com, walk in basis but usually not, in order to set up the shipment of your household items and get the paperwork for your vehicle to be shipped. Be sure to schedule the pickup of your household goods after you turn in your CIF and Company gear. Make sure that you keep your “I love me book” with you so that you will have the documents you need to clear. And yes, I mean the whole book, because when you final out and it comes time to write, www.chase.com, your DD 214 (The form that tells the world you are a veteran who was honorably discharged) you can prove the things that you have done that may not be accurately written on your ERB or enlisted records brief.

This is very important because this is the document that will provide you the benefits afforded a veteran as well as being required for government jobs in the future. You will need at, www.chase.com, least 6 copies of your orders here.

6. Once you are within 30 days from your last working day you can attend the briefing to get your clearing papers. Your clearing papers are to clear the installation. At the end of the brief they will schedule a day that you can come back and pick up the clearing papers.

This is usually within 10 days of you leaving. You will need at least 3 copies of your orders here.

I would recommend that everyone making the transition sit through most if not all of the briefings that ACAP (Army Career Alumni Program) has to offer. When you are done here you will have completed a resume that will help you out in the real world. And once you have your orders, you will need them everywhere that you try and clear. Also, make sure that you have canceled all of your utilities before you actually leave.

You may also want to switch your direct deposit into a local account to the place that, www.chase.com, you are going. The last thing to make sure is that you have your NCOER/ OER in hand before you leave your post.

Now, I may have missed a few things and if I have feel free to remind me of those things and I will add them to this post.

Thanks for tuning in,

Chase

Visit http://ChaseWilhelm.com to track all of my adventures and life experiences which I will gladly post my advice on anything that I can help out with.

Slowly, I take out my pack of Dunhills.  In one motion, I strike my match and cup it in my palm, lighting my cigarette.  My thoughts cloud my mind as I take a deep drag, the smoke swirling, spinning, twisting into ephemeral shapes before dissipating into the surrounding air.

I’m at a smoky cafe, sipping on my cà phê sữa đá … my phone is ringing and beeping, people calling me out for Saturday night.  I undo the button on my blazer, and smooth out the crease that has formed on my shirt.  I guess now that I’m single again, I should think about how my life was before I made my commitments.

Yet still, I can only think about work, accomplishments, my family, my close friends.  I attempt to peck at my keyboard, writing a few lines in the document I’m preparing for a work client before I pause for a moment.  I can’t do this right now.

I suppose, I can start by saying, with utmost humility, that my life has been amazing up to this point, save for the long string of truncated relationships, and the last broken one.  I’ve been blessed with good health, a wonderful and supportive family, and not too many friends, but ones that care for me.

I see my life has have happened in phases …

From a young age until high school, it was the constant immersion in the street life.  My realization that that wasn’t for me; the travels across the country in my high school years, the experiences of meeting new people and faces then.  Starting my business at a tender age of 17, taking the ball and running with it.  The optimism of my college years, Berkeley, UCI, and beyond.

I’ve met so many people, yet kept so few.  In a way, my best friend is right when he says that I live my life really aloof.  I’ve always held my cards so closely, almost jealously, from a young age.  It’s almost like a poker game, in a way.  Even if I had a royal flush, I bluff, I walk around the fact, and only lay down my hand when I know I have the better hand.  In a sense, it’s protected me, saved me from the harsh times.  I’m starting to think though, that at times, losing can’t be helped.  It’s what I make of myself after I lose that would make me the better man.  Maybe, sometimes it’s okay to lose.

I had an interesting talk with one of these girls that work here.  Normally, I would immediately dismiss what they have to say, because though they have got the looks, I haven’t really seen anything else that would attract me into talking with them further.  She said something though that really struck me as insightful.  She said: “J. maybe your walls are just too high, and you’re used to hiding behind them.”

I know I have high walls.  My relationship history has taught me no less.  All along, I thought that perhaps even though I live behind these walls, I could somehow wait for a woman to come along who would notice the ladder hidden in the ivy.  Sadly, I guess it’s not that obvious as I had hoped at times.

So now, I’m on a mission to slowly putting myself out there.  I’ve always been the pinnacle of what you would call a “runner.”  That decent looking yuppie that every woman wants but *can’t* have.  I gain an interest in a woman, woo her with words, compliments, and get myself in close.  Sometimes it doesn’t take more than a night.  But as soon as I feel that I’m losing control, I pack up my things and run away as far as I can.

I guess it’s the fear of uncertainty that always puts me off.

In a way, my last relationship taught me something, if I look beyond the disappointing parts.  Really, it’s the first time that I really put myself on the line, and out there.  I can try to learn something from it, as I slowly move on and away.  How to love a woman and ignore my fear of the unknown.

Still, I feel myself struggling to avoid falling back into the same pit that’s trapped me before.  It’s a shame that how I grew up, as it is for most men, has really affected my view on relationships.  For those who didn’t become totally lame and hopeless, we became players or ladies’ men, and I constantly find myself being caught in the middle.  In a way, I could describe myself as “emotionally retarded.”  It’s hard to express myself in that way, without freezing up, feeling so lame, stuttering like I did with my first girlfriend way back in high school.  It’s easier to stand aloof, exude confidence, and ignore my own problems.

I am like any good man.  I want the simple happiness.  I don’t care about how much I’m making, or if she’s stunning; I want that simple happiness of knowing that when I wake up tomorrow, everything will be great still.  Sadly, my experiences have jaded me a bit.  When I see a happy relationship, like how my grandparents’ were even at the ripe age of 96, before my grandfather passed away, I can’t help but feel a bit of jealousy.  I suppose it doesn’t help much that my best friend is now dating my ex’s sister.  I feel happy for him, but with it comes a bit of sadness in my heart.

And so, as I continue my struggle to better myself as a man, I’ll put myself out there again tonight.  It’ll be Hollywood or bust.

I thought separating would only be about me and my husband, but as soon as you start sharing the news, the stories, the decisions, it also becomes about the friends and family you both share. 

I told my 2 best friends the revelation that my husband had been lying to me, I told no one for 3 weeks, but I had to share the news, I needed to get it out.

Now I get that they are hurt, protective of me, and angry at my husband…..well my best friend Lisa started calling him a loser and said to me “looking back on this, he was the loser you were supposed to date, not marry”…well that really hurt and I’m kind of obsessing about it……I know she’s trying to validate my reason to separate, but it’s done the opposite, it’s unvalidated (is that a word?), the 10 years that I have spent with Todd.   

Now Lisa is the strongest, smartest, take charge woman that I know, I really appreciate her friendship and advice…..she can be intimidating, so in this situation where I need to set some boundaries, I’m having a hard time telling her:   I can’t have her speak so negatively about Todd, I can’t have him be a “loser”, I know he’s done horrible things, but he’s not a horrible person.  He is the father of my son and I need to be able to see the good in him, to parent with him, respect him and work with him in the days, weeks, years to come.  The three of us are a family regardless if we’re married and I don’t want an enemy, I want to find a friend in Todd, no matter what.  If I hear all the negative things my friends think of him, and some of the comments are probably valid, I might not reflect to my son, how his father is a good man, a man that is to be respected and cherished, just like my son should be…..

I’ll have to get the balls to tell Lisa, I can’t hear her bashing of Todd anymore……I hope she gets it though, that this is more complicated then just hating him or keeping him at arms lengths.

I’ll let you know how it goes….

Amanda inquires about a discord between her husband and her nearly three-year-old daughter:  “I am writing to ask for your guidance on an issue that we have been experiencing in our family for the last year and a half: an extremely attached-to-Mama Sophie who is often so cold to her Papa that he feels very sad and rejected. 

Last night Kevin came home from being away a few days for work, and Sophie wanted nothing to do with him.  She just wanted him to go away and was screaming for him to leave.  Kevin was very sad, saying that he has a daughter who is not attached to him.  I wish I could say this was an isolated incidence, but it is not.  It is the norm.  We instituted ‘Papa-Sophie’ Saturday mornings 6 months ago, so that they could bond one-on-one.  If I am present, it is extremely difficult for Kevin to spend more than a minute or two with Sophie, because she very much demands me physically and emotionally.  The Saturday mornings seemed to help a little in the father-daughter relationship, but for the past few months, she screams and cries when he goes to her in the morning and she tells him to put her in her bed and leave.  Sometimes she’ll just fall back asleep for an hour. 

Bruce, this is so painful to watch…Sophie not wanting to be with Kevin, and Kevin feeling unloved and unliked by Sophie.  Sophie and I talk about Papa often and lovingly very regularly when he is at work or away traveling (which is quite frequent…and when he is home, his workday ends after 7 or 8pm at night. He often works on the weekends, too. This behavior towards Kevin started when Kevin was away for us for an entire month while we were in the process of moving). 

I thought this current state of emotion would improve between Sophie and Kevin, but it has not, and I am beginning to see Kevin withdraw a little from Sophie.  It is so difficult to really talk about this with Kevin because he tells me, ‘you’re going to say it’s my fault.’  On top of that, Kevin is extremely stressed out with his work, which is incredibly demanding, taking almost all of his waking time and sapping all of his energy, as he can’t stay asleep due to the anxiety that awakens him.  He has nothing left to give… he is just managing to ‘get through this’ until he can find another job.  

What can I do, what can we do as a family to heal the divide that, for now, exists between Sophie and Kevin?  How can we nourish the attachment between Sophie and Kevin that seems so weak that it does not exist?”

*

While I am not inclined toward being the “expert” with a ready fix, I welcome this question, and particularly the raw authentic emotion of a mother who wants the abundance of her love to nourish and bond both her daughter, her husband and their relationship.

I like to try to understand this sort of situation from multiple angles and hope that a more accurate and empathic understanding will organically give rise to improved connections.  Thus we look at Sophie first:  at around two years old it’s not uncommon for kids to be rather bossy, ordering around grown-ups and petulantly pitching fits when he or she don’t get his or her way.  Keep in mind that while “terrible twos” trips nicely off the tongue, three is often the time of even more highly pitched tantrums—an exhausting stretch for parents to be sure.  When it comes to tantrums, by the way, it’s often best to let them have it out (so long as she’s not hurting herself, i.e. with head-banging); our task is to serve as the bowl to contain their overflowing feelings.

Children at this age also tend to have some issues with choices, wanting things both ways and yet not having the maturity to allow the loss of whatever they cannot have (i.e. she really does want to keep her cake and be able to eat it too).  In this case Sophie probably does want daddy, but she also wants mommy (and keeps powerfully attaching to her in dad’s absence), and once she gets frustrated it all turns to poop and we’re in the red zone of unreasonable petulance (think the out-of-control queen in Alice in Wonderland shouting “off with her head”).

Keep in mind that transitions are hard—waking from the nap, school to home, dad re-entering the family.  Unfortunately in this case, the reunion moment where Kevin is ready for a big hug marks a disruption in the Mommy-Sophie alone time, thus provoking a hissy-fit rather than a Hallmark moment.

Also, the context of this problem seems to mark the confluence of separation individuation (going back to around 18 months, when kids start venturing back and forth from mom or dad’s knee at the park, needing the secure base of a non-clinging, non-anxious, and non-rejecting upon return parent) with a father who must travel frequently (thus creating some issues of confusion about feeling abandoned, and then retaliating with rejection at the point of reunion) further confounded by a move, which can be unsettling to a child who likes consistency to help them feel secure.  After all, if houses can change, parents can come and go rather suddenly, the idea that the child could suddenly experience a loss that does not reverse itself (i.e. the move) may have provoked anxiety about other potential losses.

Power struggles may also be at play here, with a child working the oldest strategy in the kid handbook:  divide and conquer.  By rejecting dad and siding with mom, Sophie tries to nominate herself into co-parent power role.  Perhaps she gets to sleep in the big bed, gets more special mommy time, and generally gets her way when daddy is away… and thus it makes sense she would perceive his return as a loss of attention, power and centrality.

Finally, kids unconsciously give away their unwanted feelings.  Thus what we parents feel can often be a good indicator of what they feel:  in this case, rejected, disempowered, unwanted, hurt, angry, confused, sad.

In trying to understand this situation more fully, we must also try to wriggle into Kevin’s shoes.  Dads can often feel a little extraneous to newborns, not to mention left out in the cold as the mom and baby have a love-fest of bonding.  Compounded by economic pressures, many dads feel like they must do more in return for less.  When the child finally starts to attach with them, and then pulls away, it is doubly hurtful—as if designed to break these father’s hearts.

For dads it can be useful to contemplate where they were at when they were the age their child is now.  Did father leave the family, have an affair or fall off the wagon, etc. at this point?  We can be triggered to unconscious wounds and then be re-experiencing traumas as if we were young children again, taking hard enough feelings and making them rather overwhelming.  In addition, if themes of rejection or abandonment are relevant to any given father, it can be helpful to realize this and avoid projecting the abandoning mother, or old lover onto either wife or child.

Then there is Amanda’s psyche.  Can there be unconscious feelings of anger for the travel?  Is mom ready for a break when dad returns, and this makes the sensitive child feel that they are about to be handed off and thus cling with all their might to the mother?  Could the mom feel competitive with the daughter and fear that she will end up bearing the brunt of her daughter’s rejection if the tables turn?

By being conscious, and not ashamed of our Shadow selves—our darker, possessive and competitive natures—we are freer from being possessed by them and thus unconsciously acting them out. 

While these thoughts cannot possibly capture the nuance of even this, much less any other given situation, the spirit of these ideas is toward thinking expansively, compassionately and non-defensively.

As for strategies to consider for helping this situation heal:

VERBALIZE THAT TRANSITION IS HARD, as this helps frame the issue as a transitory feeling state and reminds us that it will pass.  We might say to Sophie, “It’s hard when daddy goes, and it’s hard when he comes back.  Transition is hard.” 

Activities to help ease transition might include calendars with days being crossed off until dad returns (which makes this also a teachable moment in that it conveys the relevance of a calendar); making cards for dad when he’s away; daily check-in phone calls.  Sometimes the underlying anxiety for a kid like Sophie is that mom will also go away, so the message that Sophie will always be taken care of can answer the unconscious dread and sometimes help diminish the fear that drives the negative acting out.

Given that the moment of reunion is often fraught, consider shaking things up—go meet dad at the airport one time; meet dad at the ice-cream shop; decorate with a welcome home banner, etc.  Kids sometimes do well when you frame a choice for them:  do you want to greet dad in your green dress or your blue dress slyly give Sophie control over something, while making the accepting back of father a non-negotiable aspect.

Kids like structure:  “Dad will come in, we will tell him about your day and the latest projects you’ve been doing, then mom and dad will read you a story and in the morning, we’ll have breakfast together” can be a calming sort of mapping of what is going to happen.

SUPPORT DAD—give the love to dad that Sophie cannot, and leave her have space to be rejecting.  Beware reinforcing negative behavior (i.e. lots of begging, mea culpa guilt, withdrawal and self-pitying despair in the parent in response to her petulant rejections sends a message of weakness that gives too much power to the child, and thus makes her anxious.  Dad’s best play is to stay on message:  “I see you are mad at me, don’t want me right now, hate me, etc. but I love you just the same.”  In order to be able to do this, dad needs to really feel the love from mom.

A dad (or mom) who stays with love and centeredness in the face of rejection will be rewarded with a deeper bond and the knowledge that the child has been offered an image of enduring love that they can, in turn, internalize and carry with them throughout their life.

MENTALLY ARCHITECT A POSITIVE OUTCOME:  Envision Sophie being four or five and drawing peacefully as dad comes in from a trip and she calmly greets him (rather than perhaps dad’s fantasy of her running across the room and leaping on him for a big hug).  Picture the family having a group hug and a harmonious transition to peaceful, engaged and lovingly respectful dinner together.  Visualize Mom and Dad reading a story together with Sophie happily between them.  They tuck her in and then Amanda and Kevin truly catch up and listen to each other as Sophie sleeps peacefully in her bed.

Hold this (or your hand-crafted future image) in your mind.  When Sophie escalates, and you start to feel anxious, breathe deeply and ask, “What action and/or thinking leads to that lovely future moment?”  You’d be surprised how well consciously architecting a more harmonious vision can help organize our cells into just knowing how to get there.

So, today let’s send love to all parents who are feeling frozenly rejected, hurt, angry and even tempted to throw in the towel on it all—banding together in spirit to support these moms and dads in the service of hanging in and finding the love to conquer the transitory hate and fear that resides somewhere in each of us, and in all our collective children.

Namaste, Bruce 

p.s. As I was crafting this post I received a follow up email from Amanda.  I think it underscores the point that consciousness leads to change in mysterious ways.  It read:  “Kevin actually took a real day off work today…I was very much surprised…and elated!  And guess what?  He agreed to go with Sophie to a little class that I usually take her to… a 2-hour ‘parent-tot’ preschool.  They had a good time together.  Sophie cried for just a few minutes when I dropped them off, but then she was fine.  Also, it was SO great for Kevin, because he was with 12 other little ones, all within 6 months of Sophie’s age, and he had a very positive experience, especially with one little boy, Keaton, who wanted to hold his hand and be near him most of the time (some parents don’t attend). I think this gave Kevin an understanding that he is absolutely okay as a parent, that children Sophie’s age naturally gravitate towards him and like him and are comforted by him. 

Hmmm… this out-of-the ordinary desire for Kevin to want to take a real day off with the intention of spending time with Sophie within hours after I write to you about asking for direction.  Coincidence?  Something tells me no…”

Everyday, our laws are being updated in a myriad of ways, especially by the EU, regulating our lives in more ways than ever before,but also improving our rights, for example, becoming subscribers to the European Convention on Human Rights – ECHR. This does what it says on the tin – recognises and enforces right s of the ordinary citizen.

These rights are exersisable in our daily lives for example our right to a fair trial or the rights of older people not to be exploited or childrens’ rights to be treated fairly and with dignity. It is  a charter that has been carefuly thought out over many years and was made part of Irish law in 2006.

The right to a speedy trial is another human right but is one that is often not fulfilled. This is particularly so when dealing with issues of Divorce and Separation. It can take a number of years for such issues to be dealt with by the courts, often without the parties ever being able to really say what they need to say to each other. The only forum they have is a court room or a solicitors letter to express their wishes, fears and anxieties about the children and their future.

But this is changing with the Advent of Collaborative Law. If ever  a system was needed to allow for people to separate in a dignified and civilised, it is now, and this is the way.

You can now instruct a solicitor trained in Collaborative law to deal with your Separation or Divorce by way of a series of Fourway meetings, involving you sitting down with your spouse or partner, his or her legal representative and your legal representative. If it becomes evident at any point that going to court will be necessary, then your current lawyer is  disengaged and a new person engaged to carry on the court process.

to find out more,go to www.acp.ie  or to read more about family law, see   www.irwinsolicitors.ie .

Waters Says He’ll Perform if Israel Tears Down Wall

Waters Says He’ll Perform if Israel Tears Down Wall

Pink Floyd’s former frontman Roger Waters said Tuesday he’ll take to the stage the minute Israel tears down its West Bank separation wall, just as he did in Berlin two decades ago when another wall came down.

Visiting a Palestinian refugee camp in the shadows of the towering concrete structure, the British rocker who co-wrote the iconic 1970s album “The Wall” said he hopes “this awful thing is destroyed soon.”

Waters, 65, said the West Bank wall has been on his mind since he first saw it up close in what he described as an eye-opening visit in 2006, following a concert in Israel.

“People who haven’t actually seen this, what’s going on here, can’t actually imagine the impression that it has on you, the sick, kind of churning feeling that you get in your very heart when you see this, how depressing it is,” Waters told The Associated Press in an interview.

Water’s comments didn’t sit very well with Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev, who, quoting The Wall’s most famous lyric, said “we don’t need no education” from Waters.

Israel began building the barrier — a concrete wall in urban areas and fence with sensors and barbed wire along rural stretches — in 2002 following Palestinian bombings and shooting attacks on Israeli civilians. Israel insists it’s a temporary security measure.

Palestinians says it’s a land grab because, once the final third is built, it will slice off 10 percent of the West Bank, part of the lands they want for their state.

The stretch of barrier between Jerusalem and the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem consists of graffiti-covered gray slabs, with army watchtowers rising up at intervals. At an Israeli-run wall crossing, large crowds of Palestinians wait in long lines, particularly during morning rush hour, to reach jobs in Israel.

On the northern outskirts of Bethlehem, the Aida refugee camp, home to about 5,000 Palestinians, abuts the wall. Palestinian officials often escort foreign dignitaries to the camp — among them Pope Benedict XVI during his Holy Land pilgrimage last month — to illustrate the disruption of daily life by the barrier.

Waters dismissed Israel’s security argument, saying he believes the wall “is not here to stop Israelis being blown up on buses.” He said if that was the sole reason, “what’s it doing in the occupied territories, surrounding settlements and cutting (Palestinian) farmers off from their olive trees and so on and so forth?”

“This is an exercise of colonialism,” said Waters.

Regev said the barrier has sharply reduced Palestinian attacks, which have killed hundreds of Israelis since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2000.

“We don’t need no education about suicide bombers coming into Israel and murdering innocent people, and how the security barrier has prevented that by more than 95 percent.”

But Waters said he believes the barrier is indefensible.

“When you stand in front of an edifice like this, whether it’s here or outside a township in South Africa, or in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War, or in Berlin in the 60s and 70s, it’s something you know instinctively that this is wrong. It’s a bad thing,” he said. “It cannot survive forever.”

If it does come down one day, he said, he’ll perform at the site, just like he did in 1990, at a spot where the Berlin Wall had fallen just a year earlier. “In fact, I would insist on it,” he said.

In the meantime, he’s considering performing elsewhere in the West Bank, perhaps in the town of Ramallah, but has not made firm plans. On Monday, Waters visited a refugee camp in the northern town of Jenin to support efforts to reopen a local movie house that closed in 1987.

When he played in Israel in 2006, he was criticized by Palestinian activists trying to organize a cultural boycott of Israel. Waters said he now feels ambivalent about having performed in Israel.

Waters, who left Pink Floyd in 1985, ruled out a reunion with his former band mates; their last joint performance was in 2005, for a Live 8 concert. “We had a great career as Pink Floyd. We all enjoyed it. We all worked together and enjoyed everything and it was brilliant. I think it’s over,” he said.

The Life and Death of the Identity

If you have been reading my posts you may have guessed that a major driver for me has been awakening.  I have enthusiastically followed a path that has moved me to ever deepening levels of understanding about the true nature of being, consistently opening up and dropping into places within me that now hold no identity, where the personal is totally unimportant, and the impulse of pure, unrestricted creation is able to shine out.  As I have shed the structures that have held my identity, I have come across some interesting challenges in relating to others and in relating to all those things to which our culture in the West gives value.    

I have been looking at my experiences as my relationship to the ego and identity – prime structures of separation – have changed and how that relates to my movement through life back towards the pulse of Creation….. It starts for us all around the time of birth when we come into form, into Life, and create an I-dentity.

The ego-identity is part of the personality structure that develops throughout life.  As a young child we are loved, nurtured, fed, held….or not.  Out of these experiences we individuate into the people that we bring into our relationships both with ourselves and with others. We individuate from our parents but also from the pure impulse of Life, learning ways that hold us apart from the true nature of our beings as unfettered expressions of all creation. We move from a state of universal union in which the heart freely resonates with everything, without fear, to one that sees itself as a unique thing, separate, special, quantifiable, defended, and we develop a personality with defenses formed by fears related to perceived threats to our survival.  These defenses create protective armoring not only in our musculature – affecting how we hold our bodies – but in how we express our energy through our emotional and mental responses to specific situations. With the fleshing out of our defenses, the ego is fully formed and with it a sense of ‘I’ – the I-dentity is born.  And the bulk of this happens before our 7^th birthdays!! 

None of us, unless Avataric, are spared this process of separation from the Mystery that is the Divine Creator.  As we incarnate numerous veils of separation are created with the strength and resistance of Teflon, yet so thin as to be almost undetectable to microscopic ethereal examination.  They are part of the spiritual skeleton of our beings. The presence of these veils makes any evolutionary move back into the unified field of pure creation impossible.  You cannot awaken with them in place, and your unique life challenges and dramas will continue to repeat themselves for as long as you identify with the places of forgetting that they support.  Unless spiritual evolution is one of your drivers they are unlikely to go, and you are equally unlikely to be interested in what might be the deeper truth behind your identity.  But if it is, and when they do go, the ego can no longer hold onto its position as the leading character in the play that is your life, and so you lose your identity.

The persona that we identify with is reinforced throughout our lives, firstly by our parents who name us and generally instill in us certain values, beliefs, and prejudices that create the foundations of our realities.  Then the reflection of our friends, acquaintances, and life experiences are added to the pot, and all these elements are embraced by our egos.  Our identity, unique and separate, is then constantly reinforced by whoever we come into contact with.  It happens on many levels but the first one is likely to be on meeting someone, when the questions we ask help form an impression of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in our minds. These ‘I am’s….’ that we exchange with each other help us to relate and each question asked builds an instantaneous picture, giving a sense of identity, interests and lifestyle.  For example:

What do you do?                        ‘I am an art consultant/I am an energy therapist’

Where do you come from?         ‘I am English, and I live in New York’

You can change your identity superficially by leaving your job without having the security of another to go to, or selling your home without any plans to find another, as I did. Either will most likely send a tremor of anxiety through your community of family and friends, and you may find that they attempt to lure you back by sending out tendrils of fear unconsciously designed to scare you back into the fold.  You will be breaking the accepted mold, leaving behind the identity that defines you to them, and which they have helped you forge.  You will probably find that you need to make adjustments as you create new relationships that reflect the movements in the axis of your existence. 

Evolutionary levels of transformation and the human response to it, will occur when you move from merely swopping or adding identities to undermining core positions and beliefs, and the supports that hold them in place. When you do this the ego will be seriously threatened and the nature of the ego-identity has to adapt or die.  Surface changes, like the ones mentioned above, can be the forerunners of the seismic movements that are going on in the inner planes of your being as you start dissolving the structures of your existence, and so too your I-dentity.  A signature of significant change is the dropping away of things, habits, and people whose presence in your life no longer resonate with you or serve you.  In relationships, if you can’t bridge the divides that can form as you change – and the onus falls on you to do this – then you will find that gradually your worlds drift apart.

As you embrace a new direction and challenge the nature of reality your extremely resilient ego is dented, but it takes on the changes as if it was going to gain from the direction you are taking.  It embraces this change from an intellectual place and creates a new identity as you embark on your search for the truth.  My ego-identity took on the identity of a spiritual path AND the spiritual seeker alongside the existing identities and the defended personality structures it already ruled.  It was happy!  It was behind this new venture!  Everything was under control, and all was well in its new world.  My interest in returning to Source had become something that my I-dentity , my ego, embraced as being fruitful to its long term wellbeing as an individual, even though it was not.  It didn’t recognize that it had everything to lose – that for it the perception of gain was just another illusion. 

Personally speaking, my journey is not unique.  Like many, I created a fabulous and strong ego that allowed me to successfully navigate the challenges that I met on my life’s path.  The impulse to awaken to the true nature of my being was not apparent to me and it didn’t start to emerge until I was in my 30s and I started to feel some dissatisfaction with what I was creating in my life. Whether we know it consciously or not, there is generally a subliminal pull that leads us, by hook or by crook, forward towards a reunion with Self. Until that point the ego, and its many masks, rules.  In my case it was never asked to step aside and allow what was behind the mask of identity to come through, because there was no awareness that there was anything other to relate with.  My identity until that time, had shifted, morphed, been knocked a little, but remained clear.  Looking back, I can chart how I, as an adult, moved through life and how I got to where I am today.  My true nature remained quietly hidden, waiting until I got fed up with the play that I had created. It has gone something like this:

• I lived a materially successful and socially active life – I conformed with the accepted standards of my peers to a large degree.
• I started to get panic attacks when some of the most painful relational woundings of my childhood began to appear in my adult relationships.  My passion for my work into which I had put 100% of my being was seriously compromised and I turned to the healing arts for help, through therapy and hands-on healing.
• I connected, with the help of my healer, to parts of me that I never realized existed before or had forgotten – I experienced expanded states of being and became fascinated with quantum theories and realities.
• I started to read about, train in, and experience other levels of existence. My awareness and my energetic container expanded enormously.
• I found teachers who reflected to me the true nature of being and encouraged me as I stepped into the stream of the awakening path.  Their awake and aware consciousness helped me to evolve.
• I stopped planning, dropped structure, and went with the flow of Life.   I sold my apartment and put all my belongings with the exception of a suitcase of clothes into storage and I traveled to places around the world that I felt called to visit. 
• I lost my sense of the personal; my sense of being in any way special; my identity with a spiritual or any other path; my templates for existence, and my identity.

It wasn’t until the supports that maintained the drama of my existence began to crumble that the ego’s throttle-hold on my life weakened, and so did my sense of identity.  But it wasn’t until the core veils went that held me in separation from Self, that the nature of my journey shifted.  I had had transcendent experiences, tastes of bliss or emptiness that felt like they must be what enlightenment is all about, but until the structures of separation disappeared, I didn’t recognize that these were little more than expanded states, amazing experiences that have very little to do with true awakening.  My I-dentity remained intact until the intellectual understanding dropped from my head and traveled right through my heart into the core of existence.  Often, for this to happen, you are called to face your greatest fear – the one that holds your deepest life-long wounding – and this is what happened for me too.  Only by surrendering did the structures that I had thought were there to protect me reveal themselves to be keeping me from my heart’s desire for reunion with the Beloved, the Creator of All that Is, and with this awareness they dissolved.  When this happens there is no choice but to wake up from your dream to the reality that there is ‘no one’ there. 

Firstly, and most importantly, you wake up to the knowledge that there is no personal I-dentity with who you were.  When you actively hunt for it in the corridors and rooms of your existence there is no ‘I’.  I was then aware that I am nothing but an expression of the pulse of creation. This knowing was slim at the beginning, but as I started to live life from this place, embodying it as fully as I could, each aspect of identity that had built up over the course of my life started to crumble.  For me it was two years from a point where I recognized that the Identity had gone to a point where I had embodied this awareness to a place of real understanding.  Like me, you may feel echoes of your identity through the conditioned responses that still trigger you – and language demands that you refer to it all the time – but the seeker, the do-er, the sense of personal, they go, along with other aspects of your being.  For me, one amazing part of this was in finding commonality with beautiful or mundane lifeforms around me, and really seeing that with the ‘death’ of my ego-identity I was just another essence expressed in Life, no different from any other, and part of the whole.

This life is a journey, that’s for sure! The death of the identity is not The End.  It is one step deeper into The Mystery!

©2009 Sarah Lidsey

While my husband and I are figuring out our separation-we plan on getting through Xmas and then separating in the new year, he’s been sleeping in the spare room…well this week and last he joined me in bed to watch Grey’s Anatomy.  There is such a comfort between us, it’s so easy to just be with him.  We laughed, joked and enjoyed that hour before he left to go sleep in the other room.  It is such a weird dichotomy….knowing that I can’t trust him, that his lies over the past 10 years are too much for me to forgive, the proverbial straw has broken my back, but on the other hand the comfort and shorthand you have with someone after being together so long, is hard to let go.

Jai Nitai!

The following is an excerpt from a letter I received from my gurudeva about the path of bhajan.

The easiest way to receive bhakti for Bhagavan is “kAnnA” (weeping). It has originated in Dvapara Yuga from Radharani Herself when she was crying in separation from Krishna. At that time Lalita and Bishakha asked Radharani, “Radhey! We are unable to tolerate the pain you are feeling in separation from your beloved, let us take you to Mathura and bring you to Kanai there.” But Radharani replied, “No, Bishakha it’s better if you do this one thing for me, please manifest a deity of separation of Krishna and keep that always within my heart, so that I can cry in separation for him always…so that I can cry out all day and all night for Him. This is my greatest happiness.”

The happiness of crying in separation from Krishna is a million times greater than the happiness achieved while actually being united with Him. In the Kali yuga our beloved Gaurasundar cried out by calling, “Ha Krishna!” Likewise Srimati Vishnupriya Devi cried out by calling, ” Ha Gaura!” And my gurudev Srimad Ramdas Babaji Maharaj also cried by exclaiming, “Ha Gaura!” So the surest path to achieve Sri Sri Gaura Govinda is this mood of crying in separation. I can tell you with certainty that if you can keep crying like this you will definitely gain the lotus feet of Nitai Gaura Radhey Shyam in this very lifetime.

 A Bangladeshi toddler separated this week from her conjoined twin sister was talking and behaving normally Thursday after waking from a medically induced coma, the head of the surgery team said.

Trishna is already doing well enough that she could leave intensive care, said Wirginia Maixner, director of neurosurgery at Royal Children’s Hospital.

“She looks brilliant, she is talking, she is being Trishna, she is behaving the way she always has,” Maixner told reporters. “She’s phenomenally good.”

Her sister, Krishna, will be slowly brought out of the coma later Thursday, Maixner said. Krishna will have a longer period of adjustment as the separation brought more changes to her body and brain’s blood circulation.

Krishna, is seen at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne in Australia.

Maixner said they hoped to have an indication Thursday night or early Friday about how Krishna’s brain was responding. MRI scans Wednesday showed no signs of brain injury.

Maixner said there may be minor changes to the girls from where their brains were separated but that overall the brains looked good.

“I can tell you that it’s not until I saw that scan that I had my first breath of relief,” she said, revealing she did a short “chicken dance” when she saw the positive images. “The scans look great. I believe we’ve brought them through safely. I believe that the girls will come out really, really good.”

The twins, who turn 3 next month, had been joined at the top of their heads and shared brain tissue and blood vessels. They were separated Tuesday after 25 hours of delicate surgery, and then underwent an additional six hours of reconstructive work.

Maixner said after the girls have recovered, their next hurdle will be learning to walk.

“There will be a process before the girls start walking and they have gone through so much in the last two years that it will take a bit of time — but they will get there,” she said.

Doctors had earlier said there was a 50-50 chance that one of the girls could suffer brain damage from the complicated separation.

An aid worker first saw Trishna and Krishna in a Bangladeshi orphanage in 2007 when they were only a month old, and arranged for them to be brought to Australia.

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Apparently I have enough time to update my post tag list, nothing new in the land of N yet, trying to figure out how I’m going to interlink all of my story’s into movuies and stuff.

Truly these are troubled times

When the nearest one can get to one’s brethren

Is a ten-foot pole’s length,

And the most one can talk about

With one’s nearest neighbor

Is the goddamn weather.

Now what is this big change I speak of and why would anyone care to read about a story (separation) that has been lived by so many people all over the world?  Well this is more about me and my carthatic need to take control over something in my life and put everything out there, my natural reaction is to close off, stuff everything down and ignore the realities of difficult situations but if I really want change in my life now, I need to really think about every step and writing things down makes them real and concrete, black and white!

So I’m 29, my birthday is in the beginning of March and I’ll be 30!!! Yes 30!  And in this past month, my husband of 5 years has revealed that he has been hiding a lot from me, enough that the life I thought I was living was not real, the deceptions were elaborate and has really caused me to question our entire relationship.  Well admist all of this is our beautiful 15 month old son.  He is awesome!  But because of him I have really taken pause to think about what I can deal with from my husband because you want to preserve “The family”.  Well what exactly does family mean?

So I will be sharing my story as I embark on separation from my husband, turning 30 in 4 months and detailing my journey into my 30s.

When depression hits, the timing is never good. I burned out for a number of reasons, but a big one was fatigue from over-work and over-commitment.

So before I burned out, I’d weakened my marriage simply by not investing much in it, and after I burned out, I had nothing left for it even if I want to invest. This turned out to be a double whammy and turned what should have been “made in heaven” to something that resembled hell.

I was irritable, angry, impatient, intolerant so almost anything was provocative to me and my wife paid the price. Unfortunately she isn’t the most secure person in the world so took it all personally and couldn’t be objective enough to see that I was in trouble. A spouse that can spot the symptoms and gently steer their spouse in the right direction toward help is truly a blessing. But I didn’t have that.

Our marriage was on the rocks. We were like pit bulls in a pit. We were either at each other’s throats, or passive-hostile. We were down to discussing logistics for a separation and divorce. There were times my wife didn’t feel safe. There were times I didn’t go home…. for days.

Burnout, depression, fatigue has a massive impact on marriage, there must be a huge casualty list. My wife is now being treated for depression after suffering years of my irritability and intolerance.

We’re now in the process of discovering who we are (psychologists call it individuation) and becoming whole by owning our own stuff and being responsible for it. That means not blaming the other for our own flaws and addressing it. I’ve learned a lot about marriage through my experience and will try and share some of the ideas that’s helped me understand what we’re trying to build here and how to make one that actually works.

We’re both growing and may even start being good friends soon…. hopefully.

Piper begins this chapter with a quote from John Calvin that summarizes the main idea of the chapter and gives us a proper perspective on our own salvation. “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” (p. 45) These two parts are essential to the life of anyone who desires to know God. A person must understand himself in relation to God. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Our greatest offense comes against God (Psalm 51:4). The truth of the matter is that sin has separated us from him. Yet, the knowledge of God brings us to the understanding that he has made a provision for our separation. The knowledge of ourselves brings us to despair. The knowledge of God brings us to hope. You can’t have one without the other.

Having answered the question what is the new birth?, Piper moves on to the question why is the new birth necessary? He begins with a diagnosis of the human condition. Reflecting on Ephesians 2:1-5, Piper says, “We will never experience the fullness of the greatness of God’s love for us if we don’t see his love in relation to our former deadness, because verse 4 says that the greatness of his love is shown precisely in this: that it makes us alive when we were dead.” (p. 47) We can only properly appreciate God’s love when we realize how dead we are without him. It gives our salvation depth and greater meaning as a result. Our salvation “flows from the richness of God’s mercy and the greatness of his love.” (p. 47) Though we were dead and possessed nothing that warranted salvation, God chose to deliver us from sin, death, and judgment as the ultimate expression of love toward us. It is a beautiful truth.

Piper then gets to the heart of the matter by listing seven explanations of our condition apart from the new birth which answers the question of why we need to be born again. First, we are dead in our sins apart from the new birth. I think that sometimes we confuse the idea of being dead with being paralyzed. It’s not like we have been temporarily paralyzed by a stun gun and waiting to come to our senses. We are utterly dead. When a person is dead, he/she can make no movements. Dead is what Paul calls us in Ephesians 2:1-2. We need someone to come and resuscitate us. Second, we are by nature children of wrath apart from God (Eph. 2:3). Piper puts it very simply, “Apart from new birth, I am my problem.” (p. 49) We are our own worst enemy. By nature I am a self-serving and desire my own glory. Apart from new birth, “our nature is so rebellious and so selfish and so callous toward the majesty of Go that his holy anger is a natural and right response to us.

Third, we love darkness instead of light apart from the new birth (John 3:19-20. We are not neutral. Our inclination apart from Christ is to walk in darkness. Fourth, our hearts are hard apart from the new birth (Ezek. 36:26; Eph. 4:18). We are not ignorant of the truth but we suppress the truth in our natural state. Fifth, we cannot please or submit to God apart from the new birth (Rom. 8:7-8). This may be a point of contention for some people. However, I believe the Bible teaches that a person cannot choose or please God. If we are born in the flesh and our minds are hostile toward God being set on the flesh, it is impossible for such a person to choose God. It says that there is something in him that has the ability to do so which is contrary to how Scripture describes a person apart from Christ. Sixth, we are unable to accept the gospel apart from the new birth (Eph. 4:18; 1 Cor. 2:14). In the Corinthians passage, Paul says we are unable to accept the things of the Spirit in our natural state (apart from Christ). He goes on to say that they are foolish to such a person. “He means that the heart is so resistant to receiving them that the mind justifies the rebellion of the heart by seeing them as foolish. This rebellion is so complete that the heart really cannot receive the things of the Spirit. This is real inability.” (p. 52) Finally, we cannot claim Christ as Lord apart from the new birth. I think every point prior to this one has made this statement obvious.

So there you have it. We have been shown the desperate need we have for being reborn. Apart from the new birth that comes through Christ, we have no hope. It is why the new birth is so necessary and important.

Your turn…

Do you agree with Piper’s assessment of the human condition apart from the new birth? How does this make you feel? What encouragement or challenge did you draw from this chapter?

Next Reading:

Read chapter 4 this week and expect a post on Monday (November 24th).