Step Number 1 - Start with a Beginner's Mind

[Meredith]

How SURE are you about things that are going to happen?

I’m not sure at all! One minute I think that there is hope and I am sure that this will end with him moving home and life returning to normal. The next minute I am convinced that I can never change, he won’t ever change and its time to let go.

How much do you rely on the past, and the present, to predict the future? Especially about the "negative" things?

All too often. Since the past seems to keep repeating itself, I rely on it to predict the future almost every day.

How would you see the situation you're in from an outsider's point of view? What if you were a third-party looking at the events that are going on in your life? How might you see things differently?

Probably the exact same way my friends and family see it. That H is unmotivated and has too many problems from his childhood that he is unwilling to deal with. That I am acting like a doormat and allowing him to walk all over me and that I need to get some chutzpah and tell him to beat it.

If you were to read your story on the board like it was someone else's thread, what would you post to yourself? What advice would you give to you? How well would you take that advice?!

I would tell myself to keep trying, and that it isn’t over until it’s over. I would focus on the fact that H has never said he wants out of this R and continue to lovingly detach.

If there was no past history to taint your views of the possibilities of things that could happen in the future, what might things look like?

The future would look so bright! Without the past, I would not know how easily H was able to deceive me. I would then trust him, and myself so much more.

If you were to put aside the "fact" that everything your partner is doing is meant to hurt you, what other possible explanations for some of their individual behaviors might you be able to come up with?

Well I know that everything he is doing is not meant to hurt me. The problem is, I feel that he doesn’t seem to notice that it does hurt me. I would see his behavior as self-serving and irresponsible, exactly what I view it as now.

What areas of your relationship might it be helpful to "take off your blinders", and see things from a different perspective?

The biggest area would be infidelity. Before DB/DR I thought that every affair signified the end of the relationship. Which is why I asked H to leave. If had taken off the blinders six months ago, things may have turned out quite differently.

What does that dot that the teacher drew on the blackboard represent to you?!

H telling me “things are blah”. A big dot that I never considered significant and is now the focus point of everything.

What would your answer be to the "miracle question"? Your answer to how things COULD be, instead of the way that they are?

They could be great. We could be happily married and raising our son in a loving environment. We would be each other’s best friends, and there would be no space for another woman.

If you were to start things over from scratch, with a clean slate, what would your relationship be like? What would YOU be doing to help lead it into the right direction? What would your answer be to the "miracle question"? Your answer to how things COULD be, instead of the way that they are? What would your answer be to the "miracle question"? Your answer to how things COULD be, instead of the way that they are?

If we were starting with a clean slate, I wouldn’t be so critical. I would be trying to impress him, and he would be doing the same for me. I would accept him for who he is and not for who he may become. He would do the same for himself.