"I am so stuck!"
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Jenna writes: "I am struggling mightily with the question of whether or not to be in contact with my former husband. I have deep feelings of attachment for him still and many fond memories, but the reason we're divorced is that he was unfaithful to me for years, which I didn't know while we were together. When I found out, we separated and eventually divorced. The pain caused by the depth of his betrayal was agonizing, and even though almost 10 years have passed since we split, I still have lingering pain and anger at times. In one way, I want to be a 'big' person and forgive and stay open to the occasional friendly communication, and in another I want to write him off, cut him totally out of my life.
"I've found that when I've been out of touch with him, that I've obsessed about him, so being in touch calms the obsessiveness. Yet he isn't really in my life because he lives far away and has since remarried, and a part of me thinks he doesn't deserve to have any contact with me.
"I've thought about writing a good-bye letter, thanking him for the good things he brought to my life and asking him not to contact me anymore. I've also considered just stopping all communication from my end with no explanation. But either way, I'm afraid I'd regret it later and would miss him even more than I already do. I AM SO STUCK!!! Any insight you could provide would be appreciated."
Dear Jenna,
This is such a wonderful question, because it shows how what seems to be a decision ("Shall I be in contact with my former husband or not?") is actually a complex and intricate web of emotions and reaction states ("parts").
Here are some of the parts that I'm hearing:
Something in you feels lingering pain and anger at your former husband.
Something in you obsesses about him when you're out of touch with him.
Something in you would like to cut off all contact with him.
Something in you believes you need to make this decision now.
To approach this tangle with interested curiosity you would first spend some time establishing yourself as Self-in-Presence. Sit or stand comfortably… bring your awareness into your body… sensing especially the contact of your feet on the ground and your seat on the chair. Allow your breath to deepen. Then bring your awareness into the middle area of your body, and respectfully invite the felt sense of this whole situation now.
What is still unfinished process?
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I can't predict what will come for you. But as I sit with my whole sense of what you've told me, what feels at the heart of it is your own pain and anger… still there after almost 10 years.
I'm not saying you shouldn't be feeling it! What you feel is what you feel, and let's start by accepting that.
But the stuckness of this situation gets its "charge" from somewhere, and I suspect that's it. Otherwise why would it matter whether this person sends you emails or not? And whether you hit the "delete" key when you get them, or not?
Focusing starts where the "obvious" ends. You might feel that it is obvious that anyone would be hurt and angry at being betrayed as you were… and I don't deny that… but don't let that cut off your curiosity or your inner compassion. There is "something in you" still hurt and angry… at least, that's how it seems. THAT place, I think, is crying out for some further process.
So let your body form the sense of it freshly, as it comes right now. Let yourself be curious and open to surprise as you contact it directly, not assuming you know how you feel. Describe your sense of it right now, as if you've never felt it before. And if what comes is something like "hurt," or "angry," then let IT tell you or show you about itself. Be the listener. I suspect something in there has been waiting a long time to be heard.