After 22 years of marriage, my former husband decided that there was no option for us but divorce. He recommended that I take my parents up on their offer that I move back home with them and to work for my brother who needed a receptionist and bookkeeper.
Yet, a few years after this decision, my former husband told me that he was devastated when I left him. I was puzzled by the contrast of these seeming conflicting statements:
1. “There is no option for us but divorce.”
2. “You should move back home and live with your parents and work for your brother.”
3. “I was devastated when you left me.”
Then, God reminded me that we all have an Inner Parent, Adult and Child that often feel, think, say, and do things that are seeming contradictions. God pointed out that this man could no longer live with my emotionalism and wanted a divorce, but his Inner Child was devastated when I followed his advice and moved back home. His Inner Child actually felt that I abandoned him.
During our marriage, he resented my strong Italian emotional reactions, but he did not realize their value in his life. He enjoyed it when I responded strongly by laughing spontaneously to his humor, cried when he was hurting, and took care of his needs before he even expressed them.
However, he did not realize that he resented the very same passion in me that responded negatively toward his behavior when it wounded me. I reacted in anger when he broke promises to me, ignored my needs, failed to take my requests seriously, discounted my wishes because he saw no value in them, and made decisions that affected me without giving me a chance to influence those decisions.
His behavior made me feel like I did not matter, that I could not rely on him, and that he was going to do what he wanted regardless of how his decisions affected me. He was often much more interested in pleasing other people and in pursuing personal success regardless of how his decisions altered my life.
Admittedly, my anger was like a volcano. It was short-lived but left devastating scars in its wake; not due to any hurtful words or profanities, but because of the force of the anger behind my describing how I felt. I did not realize that I left wounds behind in him with each eruption of anger.
It was not until I went through a healing process called Transformation Prayer that I understood that much of my thunderous anger was fueled by unresolved wounds from my past. Once God spoke His truth to me about my childhood experiences, that deep seeded anger resolved, and I no longer have a need to use anger to protect myself.
- https://www.transformationprayer.org/preparing-journey-introduction/
Prayer:
Father God, thank You for putting me in the right place at the right time with the right people to learn to persevere in prayer and to receive this deep inner healing from Your throne of grace. Since then, I look at life differently. Issues that used to devastate me no longer affect me adversely. I can more easily change my focus about them because of Your wisdom and grace, and my emotions no longer over-react to situations in the same way.
Thank You for giving me the courage to totally trust Your will for my life, to care for my own needs, to have fewer expectations of other people, and not to jump to false assumptions but to gain all the facts first. I am much freer now in expressing how I feel about a situation without hiding behind anger, and to make my own decisions when anyone makes a choice that adversely affects my life. Thank You that this gives me more compassion for other people’s negative choices and reactions, and more peace and joy because I only put my trust in Your protection, provision, and presence within me.
Thoughts for the Day:
We all benefit from spending time with God to receive healing for wounds from our past that continue to influence our life to this day. Marrying someone who already cherishes and prefers us, who only makes decisions after discussing them with us, who wants to provide good things for us, and who walks in God’s Spirit and not according to the dictates of this world or their own desires is much wiser than marrying someone who we want to change to fit our needs and to make them think and act like us.
