Dealing with Anger

[Arsene]

Something Denver stole from Truegritter on 05/17/11. What a great post. Very inspiring. Thanks Truegritter and Denver.

"The longer we stay in our marriage the more people think we are a victim, a doormat, a martyr to the marriage. We may believe this too because we do not know who we are really. We have lost ourselves in our marriage and in self doubt because of the crisis in our life.
So we run away and confirm to ourselves that we are victims and confirm others' assessment of us. We run further away from the path to find ourselves. To know who we are. Because when we choose this, who we are is what others perceive us to be and when we believe THAT then we will always be beholden to others for our SELF. We will be defined by others, and live with self doubt, unless we understand otherwise.
We will not understand otherwise because it will happen again and again until we do.

Or

We walk further down the path. We detach. We understand that what our spouse is doing is not to us. It is because of their fears and insecurities. It is because, in part, the way we have behaved. It is because most of all what THEY feel inside.

We understand that we have no control over this.
We set boundaries to protect ourselves and our family.
We don’t fully understand why we are walking down this path. We still doubt why we are since we don’t understand why our spouse is still making these choices. And we think we will be validated for all the self doubt we still harbor if our spouse comes back. If we could get that to happen then we would be ok.
Time goes on. Our friends and others who have experienced this question why we are still doing this. Why would you want to be with someone who clearly doesn’t want to be with you?

It is their choice and not about you BUT why would you want to stay in this because it still is causing you pain?

Why is it still causing you pain? Because you STILL feel that your worth is dependent on your spouse.

And you are still a doormat.
What are we missing?
We all want to feel loved. We think about it, hope for it, fantasize about it, go to great lengths to achieve it, and feel that our lives are incomplete without it. The lack of unconditional love is the cause of most of our anger and confusion. It is no exaggeration to say that our emotional need for unconditional love is just as great as our physical need for air and food.

We learned that love was conditional, that we had to get it from the people around us with our words and behavior. And that is how we perceive it when it is given. We give when expect to get it.

Isn’t our marriage based on this? Isn’t this where it derailed? Isn’t this why we still feel we have to get our spouse back? Otherwise we ARE what we fear we are: UNLOVABLE.
How do we need to be loved?
At this point in your journey it is still about how you need to be treated (loved) and yourself worth and respect is still dependent on your spouse and others.
We may decide to leave at this point because of the long suffering we have endured at the hands of our spouse and predicament. If we leave now [AND IN THIS WAY] we confirm our ignorance of what love means and confirm that to our spouse that your love was not real but dependent and conditional.
You confirm again all the self loathing your spouse feels inside because the person that is supposed to love them hasn’t and won’t and never will. You also confirm this most importantantly in YOURSELF.

We then begin to understand…
We yearn for a deeper answer. We crave knowledge that has so far been unattainable.
We want to know the mystery of love. The mystery of our marriage. To know ourselves.
To remove self doubt. To know who we are at our core.
We start to focus on ourselves. To look inside and know who we are.
Find things we don’t like. Endeavor to change them. To learn what and who we aspire to be.
Not as someone our spouse wants us to be. We tried that already.
Who we really are.
When you do that you begin to understand why you are standing for your spouse and your marriage.
And you start to learn what real love is.
Unconditional love is caring about the happiness of another without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. It’s also when other people care about our happiness unconditionally.

And what it is not
It is not what we have lived in our life and our marriage up to now. It is not controlling. It does not desire and force. It does not depend on action or inaction from our spouse.
And so as we let this soak in and as it takes hold we discover an amazing thing and it gives life to us and breaths hope into our spirits and that is

Unconditional love is when we love despite the foolish choices of our spouse, when they fail to do what we desire, regardless of any choice they make. This love alone has the power to heal all wounds, deliver self respect and remove all doubt for you and your spouse. It allows love and healing to flourish.
This is how we need to be loved. And this is the paradox.
That we only get this when we give it.

And now is the opportunity.

There is no GREATER opportunity you will ever have in your life then NOW to express this kind of love.
To do this takes greater courage than most people will ever understand and will ever know.
And you have received this wonderful gift only by going through the experience. By the trial.
By the tragedy.
What greater thing could you aspire to do.
EVER."