In my years of college I have taken courses in psychology, child development, human development, marriage and family relations as well as courses relating to special education. In addition, I have listened to talk tapes and seminars, attended community offered classes, and read and studied book after book after book from public and university libraries. I have studied enough on my own that, had I pursued it through college, I could have earned a PhD many times over. Much is available now online but most of my learning was done pre-internet. Information was available back then but you had to be motivated to seek it out. I was super motivated leading up to and after my divorce. At first I was trying to save my marriage and then I was on a mission for over a decade to "fix" myself so that, if any part of the divorce was in any way my fault, I would be able to prevent it from happening in the future. I went to years of professional counseling with that goal in mind. I did want to eventually get remarried but I also wanted to never go through something like that again.
Years ago, there was a call-in radio program on at night called Loveline. Those were the days when the show was hosted by Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla. I worked late enough that I could listen to it on the drive home. It was fascinating and often disturbing to listen to teenagers talk about behavior and relationship problems and ask medical questions about sex. The phone calls were often unavoidably graphic in nature due to the content of the subject matter discussed. People often were caught in repetitive patterns of behavior. They were "acting out" the pain of past traumas. People seem to be subconsciously driven to recreate unhealthy and destructive situations going from one failed relationship to the next. Dysfunction and abuse have a way of getting passed on to others. I had no idea how common it was for people's lives to be so messed up.
Despite book learning and education, we tend to behave in similar ways to what we observed and experienced growing up. We often become our parents. We don't pause and think before we act; many of our relationship behaviors are automatic. It may seem ironic that a professional counselor with actual credentials in marriage and family relations would behave in a way contrary to their education but this is something which also happens. Not being able to see the forest for the trees is very common. Sometimes denial is more than not wanting to admit something, sometimes it is actually not knowing.
Fortunately, I have parents who were good examples. I also realize that some things are beyond our control. We should take responsibility for ourselves and our own behavior but we should not try to take responsibility for another person's choices. Due to agency, sometimes people choose to do what they do and there is nothing we can do to stop them. We are only responsible for ourselves. We can and should take ownership of our own choices and behavior but not for someone else's.
If you do the very best that you possibly can, to be a devoted and loving husband and father, but your wife still chooses to be unfaithful - that is not your fault. You are responsible for you. I thought that it was somehow my fault. I am now convinced that cheaters cheat. It is what they do. What she did really had nothing to do with me and everything to do with her. It would not have mattered if she was married to me or to someone else, I was just the poor unlucky one that happened to be married to a cheater. I also believe that people can change but only if they are willing.
I blamed myself for her choices but she also told me it was my fault. If it was somehow my fault then she did nothing wrong. That is why she has never apologized or admitted that what she did was wrong. She has never taken ownership of what she did. She is the one that is still bitter even though she is the one that cheated. She is still angry at me for her own choices because she says she never would have cheated if she had been happy. Somehow I should have known she was unhappy without needing to be told. Here's the problem though. She was already unhappy before I knew her. She was already that way before we ever met. How can something be my fault if it happened long before I was even in the picture? Was it my responsibility to make her happy after we got married (even when she never was honest with me about being unhappy until it was too late)? Was her happiness my responsibility or hers? Who is in charge of whom? Because she has not accepted what she did, she has not been able to move on. She is stuck and unable to move forward. She has never been honest with herself about what she did. She is still angry and bitter.
Ironically, she is angry at me for what she did even though I should be the one who is angry because she cheated. Instead, she is the one that is angry. She does not seem to be able to get past it. Once she moved away, I was reminded of this every time I tried to see my children. She still tries to keep me from being part of their lives. She does not encourage or support their relationship with their father. She wants them to only be hers and not mine. She does not want to share. She does not want me to be their father. She does not understand and does not want to understand. She is still stuck in the unhappy place she was before I met her and angry at me because I did not fix it. She is still unhappy.
If someone tries to make you responsible for their happiness, that is not only unfair, it is something beyond your control. You are not their personal savior. The only way to gain the kind of healing needed to be truly happy is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Repentance, or in other words - our willingness, is needed for that to happen. Because she will not admit she did anything wrong, she is not able to repent. She is not able to receive the kind of healing only the Lord Jesus can provide because she is not willing to let it happen. Grace is something we can receive but we also have to choose to allow it.
A powerful example of this can be found in the story of Enos:
"And I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins. Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart. And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens. And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed. And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away. And I said: Lord, how is it done? And he said unto me: Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole.
(https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/enos/1.2-8?lang=eng#p1)
We can be healed completely and made whole once we decide to accept God's grace. Accepting God's grace, however, requires us to be honest.
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