It’s been almost a year since my divorce, but I still feel stuck in [music] sadness and regret over going through with the divorce. As time goes on, it’s harder to remember the abuse and betrayal that led to the divorce, and I long for reconciliation. How do I move forward in acceptance of the [music] life that I have instead of being stuck longing for the life I lost or hoping for something that doesn’t match reality? I think as you’ve taught me, Jim, words frame our reality.

So, I think there’s some pretty key words in this question. One is that she longs for reconciliation, you know, and I understand that longing. Look, it’s really hard when you finally get through the intensity of should I or should I not separate? And at first, you may even feel some relief, especially if the intensity of the destructive um realities inside that marriage were hurting you and causing you a lot of confusion, a lot of heartbreak, a lot of tears.

Um, but the longer we get away from the intensity of the initial impact and for me, the longer I was living in the house by myself, the relief turned into a very strange longing to go back because going back was going to something that was familiar and walking forward was walking towards something I didn’t know.

And quite honestly, I never saw it was going to be part of my life. I never saw that I would be a single woman in my 50s carrying the weight of my family by myself. So, I get that longing for reconciliation. And then I also think it’s important to look at these words. She’s longing for the life she lost and hoping for something that doesn’t match reality.

So, of course, you’ve also taught me, Jim, that mental health is a commitment to reality at all costs. So, I think there’s two key phrases here. Um, I think sometimes we long for reality when we do this game, this mental game inside of our head. And I’m not going to put this on you, but I am going to put it on me. >> So, what would happen to me is I would start longing to text or call the person who for 30 years had been my person whenever something hard happened.

And so, of course, I want to do that. It’s almost like muscle memory. But in order to justify wanting to reach back to someone who had hurt me probably more than anyone else had hurt me, mentally I would play this game of minimizing what happened and maximizing the scraps of love that I was getting, especially at the end.

>> And when I did that, it was almost like the children of Israel painting pictures of Egypt in their mind. >> This is so wild. I was literally thinking that. >> Mhm. >> Like that exact story. >> Like longing for the food they used to have in Egypt and maximizing that thought while minimizing the extreme abuse they were suffering >> which they probably weren’t eating that food anyways because >> pots of meat and stuff.

I know >> like no I’m not quite sure that’s how it worked. But um I think you’re right Lisa. It really does show how the human brain is at sometimes wired um for that sense of reality that we long for. >> Um and it’s easy and it’s so human to try to paint that picture uh and minimize the reality of the pain and the hardship and the hurt that took place that actually got you into the situation that you’re in right now.

>> That’s right. In the book, Surviving an Unwanted Divorce, I talk about a conversation I had with a friend of mine. She called me one day when she was on her way to work and she was so upset she couldn’t hardly even gather her thoughts and she was sitting in the parking lot needing to go inside but also needing to process something.