My heart was so broken and empty after twenty some years of marriage that I didn’t think I would ever believe in trusting someone with it again. I am not saying that I am anywhere near that now, just that I am beginning to feel open to the possibility.

One of the best lessons that I learned in marriage counseling was the day my counselor said this to me, “You are the one who made the choices in your life. You put up with certain things, you made the choices again and again.”

Of course, I am paraphrasing, but you get the point. It was a moment of emotional liberty for me. You can’t move on unless you take your power back. For the first time in my life, I had felt victimized. My counselor was putting it back in my lap. Your relationship and your heart are not out of control. Things are not hopeless and you are not helpless. You are not a victim.

It meant I could not only start moving forward towards healing, but it meant that I could learn how to make different choices the next time around.

I recently wrote a celebrity quotes piece for Beliefnet about men who truly love their wives.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Celebrities/10-Celebrity-Quotes-from-Men-Who-Adore-Their-Wives.aspx

I kept marinating on the research I did for that piece and it led and inspired me to write another piece about how many legendary romances were not first marriages. I wrote if for DigitalRomanceInc.

https://digitalromanceinc.com/mens/after-divorce-break-up-5-reasons-believe-love/

The good news is if you let go of the pain and stop looking into the heart of the person who broke it and focus on your own heart again, you really do begin to heal. Then you learn next time to self-protect, learn from your mistakes and what it was that drew you to the person that broke it in the first place.

Instead of thinking of it as love gone wrong, we have to believe it is taking us towards love done right.

If you have any thoughts on this, I would love to hear from you at colleen.sheehy.orme@gmail.com

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