ACCOUNTABLE

There are many aspects of divorce that are hell-acious and while I do believe in the principles of 'Change your thoughts change your life,' often I am unsure of how to do that in a heightened moment of emotional engagement. How does one stop in a full and stressed moment fraught with tensions? Tensions such as your wife ignoring your requests to review and revise a schedule so that I can spend more than one overnight with my two year old. I was the primary caretaker and continued to be while my spouse was working or at school for the first three months of our separation. Then financial decisions were made that left me no option but to jump into a work hustle that I was out of the loop of for the past two years. I must say I don't mind the hustle, I actually thrive in it. However, as with any good career and business undertaking it takes time to reboot.

Anyway, back to the point, composure. How do you do compose yourself when it seems like the last natural thing in the world to do? That question alone is one of the biggest reasons I started on this spiritual journey. I am seeking to find peace in the storm. The storm of emotional hurts being brought to the surface by an external catalyst. The catalyst and/or stimulant is not the issue, the issue is that the internal hurts have never been properly healed and with even the slightest aggravation old wounds become new wounds and bleed.

The catalyst for revealing these hurts in my divorce seems to be the spouse. I do not think that is the only one. Stressors are all around. I am the only negotiator of how those stressors stress.

Bevy of reasons why the marriage failed:

• I am a total extrovert, my wife is an emotional introvert
• I tend to over-communicate about thoughts, feelings, etc…
• My wife tends to keep her thoughts, feelings, etc… to her self
• We placed blame instead of taking personal responsibility
• We argued to be right instead of discussing/debating to be able to be closer
• We met on Craigslist, moved in after three months, bought a house within a year
• We allowed violence to enter our relationship early on and that breach and violation was never dealt with or healed
• My mother lived in our marital home the entire time we were married and let her disdain of me be known – I personally believe that my mothers presence (and eventually my sisters) in our marital home was one of the worse mistakes my wife and I ever made.
• We were incompatible
• We chose to become weekend warriors buying too much shit and doing too much shit to mask our hurt and painful marriage
• We stopped building a friendship and focused solely on the marriage
• We had opposite ideas about finance
• We lied to one another
• We humiliated one another publicly and privately
• We come from families where both sets of our parents are addicts and never married or healthfully engaged in a long term committed relationship – i.e. we had no skills, we knew this going in and still didn't seek out the help we needed to learn how to do what seemed to be the impossible
• We didn't seek help early enough
• We didn't fully trust one another
• We had no coping mechanisms to deal with our troubled marriage
• We judged each others weaknesses and flaws harshly
• We were downright mean and spiteful to one another

That's the short list. But I didn't start this Blog to bitch about my soon to be ex-spouse. I started this Blog to be accountable and heal and maybe inspire another couple to be better and do better than my soon to be ex-spouse and I were able to do.

Being accountable is a phrase that seems over used at the moment. What is being accountable anyway?

According to my dictionary.com app, accountable is subject to the obligation to report, explain or justify something; responsible; answerable, capable of being explained, explicable; explainable. Accountability is a clearer definition the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable. Liable, legally responsible: You are liable for the damage caused by your actions.

There it is. That is it my soon to be ex-spouse and I were not accountable and liable for the words and actions we took in our marriage, be those words positive or negative. So easy to jump back to We. 

I was not accountable for my own feelings, words, and actions during my marriage.

Damn, I have to restate, just cause it bears repeating dare I forget. I can't process for anyone except for myself.

I was not accountable for my own feelings, words, and actions during my marriage.

Baby steps, teeny tiny baby steps.

One more time…

I was not accountable for my own feelings, words, and actions during my marriage.

I'm exhausted. Too many steps for now. Rome wasn't built in a day.