{"id":723,"date":"2015-05-18T12:22:28","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T12:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/?p=723"},"modified":"2015-05-18T14:26:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T14:26:39","slug":"are-you-finally-putting-yourself-first-in-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/05\/are-you-finally-putting-yourself-first-in-divorce.html","title":{"rendered":"Are You Finally Putting Yourself First in Divorce?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend said recently that they wondered if there were a possibility that my soon to be ex-husband and me might work things out.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, this is something I have heard more than once.<\/p>\n

The answer is no.<\/p>\n

All the kings horses and all the kings men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. Even if they called in a second kingdom’s worth of horses and men.<\/p>\n

What they see is me making a very strong effort to co-exist. It’s not comfortable and frankly, there are times I wish I didn’t hear my mother in my ear saying, “Do the right thing.”<\/p>\n

I am weary of doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

It’s not comfortable sitting across from someone who you once built a life around as the new agenda is to take that life apart. It’s not comfortable seeing laughter and social chit chat when you have felt the tears and silence. <\/p>\n

It’s like watching a movie of your life – only a really bad B movie or a horror flick. One that doesn’t have the ending that you wanted.<\/p>\n

It’s funny because in many ways my own kids do not have the expectation that we co-exist, yet society seems to demand it. Or is it really that people don’t like change so we have to play parts until the expectation of us isn’t quite so high.<\/p>\n

In divorce, often people tell us what we should do. It reminds me of grief when people tell you that you should be over it by now or moving on by now. <\/p>\n

The answer is no.<\/p>\n

No outside source should tell us how they need us to fit into their world while our world is falling apart.<\/p>\n

Doing the right thing for so long actually is what got me into trouble in my marriage. I was extreme. Always doing what I believed right over my own feelings. It was not a good balance. I never chose myself. In fact, many divorces happen because one spouse was investing more of themselves than the other in the relationship.<\/p>\n

Divorce is me choosing myself. <\/p>\n

I don’t need to do what’s right for everyone else anymore. I need to do what’s right for me.
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A friend said recently that they wondered if there were a possibility that my soon to be ex-husband and me might work things out. Surprisingly, this is something I have heard more than once. The answer is no. All the kings horses and all the kings men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. Even…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1,14,108],"tags":[230,2,122,123,43,110,4],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic","category-divorce-2","category-inspiration","category-new-beginnings","tag-catholic","tag-divorce","tag-divorced-mothers","tag-divorced-parents","tag-marriagecounseling","tag-new-beginnings","tag-relationships"],"yoast_head":"\nAre You Finally Putting Yourself First in Divorce? - How Great Thou Part<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/05\/are-you-finally-putting-yourself-first-in-divorce.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are You Finally Putting Yourself First in Divorce? - How Great Thou Part\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A friend said recently that they wondered if there were a possibility that my soon to be ex-husband and me might work things out. 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These human moments are the Hope Virus that spreads amongst us and can\u2019t help but propel us into better human beings with a larger sense of the world.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/author\/corme"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":728,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}