Wendy Brown was interviewed for an article in Womanista. Read the article here.
“How to Support a Friend Going Through a Divorce” Article in Womanista
Your partner has cheated. What now?
You may still be reeling from finding out that someone you love has betrayed you. He/she is saying that the affair is over, but you don’t know how to figure out what to do next. Do you stay with the person who has done something unloving and untrustworthy or do you move on? If you stay together or not, how do you recover from this loss?
Ultimately, this is a very personal decision. There are people who cannot tolerate cheating of any kind; one incident signals the end of their union. There are others who won’t consider ending their relationships no matter what happens. This could be due to love, children, money, insecurity or any number of other reasons. Then there are the people in the middle, between these two extremes. Even though they are devastated, angry and/or heartbroken, they need to decide if they can forgive the cheater and move forward.
For those who need to make a decision about whether or not to stay with a partner who has cheated, it may be helpful to consider these factors:
- Do you love each other?
Someone who has been betrayed can lose sight of the love in the relationship. His/her anger may be focused on the violation and humiliation he/she has experienced. This can lead to a punishing or controlling approach to his/her partner.
Love includes kindness, grace and caring. It involves understanding that when people are cold, upset and angry; they can do foolish and regrettable things.
It’s important to ask yourself how much love the two of you share and how much more you can develop.
- Have you both accepted the fact that there was something wrong with your relationship prior to the cheating?
Once a partner cheats, he/she tends to be solely blamed for ruining the relationship. The betrayed person usually feels as though the cheating lets him/her off the hook for anything and everything. It doesn’t seem to matter if there were problems like distance, resentment, hostility and rejection between them.
But, realistically, as a couple you must have had some difficulties. And you both would have contributed to them. This doesn’t excuse the cheating. It does tell you where some of your effort needs to go if you’re going to get past it and develop a stronger relationship.
- Are you capable of forgiving someone for wrongdoing?
Forgiveness in this case means processing the loss that occurs when you’re betrayed, but then letting it go. That involves giving up the tendency to think about it all the time, go into fits of rage over it and suspect that it could be happening over and over again.
If you think about it all the time, you’re staying immersed in the problem and you’re not considering the other important parts of your life and your relationship. Going into fits of rage over it suggests that you haven’t been able to get past the anger stage in the process of loss. Perhaps you need to figure out what other anger is hooking you in there. If you suspect the cheating could be happening over and over again, you may need to work on lowering your anxiety level. Maybe you should also make sure you and your partner are on the same page about the kind of relationship you want to have. If you are simply incapable of trusting him/her, then you will have a relationship defined by lack of trust.
- Can you re-build your relationship?
Whether you consciously realize it or not, you built your relationship once already. Together, you took it from nothing and made it into something. In other words, you learned how to trust each other. And then one piece of it went wrong. Now, it’s essential to revisit the issue of commitment, fidelity and trust to see where the two of you are at and what sort of contract you want to make.
Is it possible to get past the pain, anguish, humiliation and sadness that come when you’ve been betrayed?
Whether you go forward as a couple or as an individual, it’s very important for you to see cheating as a loss that occurred. It’s possible to recover from a loss by going through the stages of shock, anger, depression and acceptance. Working through your thoughts and emotions in this experience can bring you a lot of peace, strength, dignity and humility.
Divorce as a step towards personal growth
In my experience, it is difficult and painful, but possible, to look at divorce as a step towards personal growth. It can be very sad, even heartbreaking, but nonetheless an inevitable reality. Something critically important in the union between the two people has broken down. And on one side or both sides, there’s not enough resilience, love, passion or interest to bring the relationship back to life.
In cases of cheating, there’s usually a lot of high emotion; blaming the cheater for everything that went wrong in the past and present. The outrage of the betrayed person can truly be a force to be reckoned with.
Another situation that elicits high emotion is the breakdown of the couples physical relationship. Usually one partner was more likely than the other to avoid sex, which made the other feel rejected and unloved. These situations often degenerate into one of them counting the times they’ve had sex in the last year and the other feeling hostile and defensive. Then, they’re set up to have power struggles in a divorce.
It could be that a couple has never gotten along; they fought their way through every phase of their relationship. And now one of them is tired of it and the other doesn’t understand why.
So, from these examples, you can see the high emotion and potential for drama in divorce. What usually goes along with all of that is high anxiety for one or both of the individuals. Anxiety can cause sensitivity, volatility, intensity and desperation. Anger causes fixation on certain points of contention and fury over feeling misunderstood and sidelined. Depression or sadness makes the whole situation seem hopeless, fearful and lonely.
It’s very important for people who are divorcing to realize that they’re going through a highly emotional life change. Divorce represents a major loss and requires the people to go through the stages of loss to heal.
Although this is much easier said than done, it’s usually a good idea for the divorcing individuals to ask themselves what they would do if they couldn’t be emotional about it. Divorce is a legal process that can be very lengthy and expensive if it’s drawn out. And it’s important to know what’s going to improve if the divorce is difficult. In some cases one partner wants to make the other suffer or hear his/her points one last time. But, isn’t the best revenge living well? Actually, at the end of the day, doesn’t the best life come from living well?
Plus, when children are involved, a dramatic divorce hurts them. I think it’s really important for divorcing people to ask themselves how much pain and anguish they want to put on their children. It’s usually impossible to keep drama from spilling over onto them. If you think about being role models for your kids, it puts a different perspective on how you handle divorce. Suddenly, factors like respect, dignity and grace become important.
How can you tell if you’ve found your soul-mate?
Basically, you need to zero in on the connection between you. And sift through the tumult of emotions you experience when you’re attracted to someone, falling in love or in love. Separate out your feelings into three camps:
- Sexual
- Hopeful
- Resonating
Sexual feelings are any that drive you towards physical intimacy.
Hopeful feelings are those you add to the facts. Facts include what is actually happening in front of you; what is concrete and real. Let’s suppose there’s appreciation, respect, kindness and dignity between you and someone. Then there is what you hope, dream and wish all of that means. It’s your interpretation blended with your vested interest. Beware that your vested interest can go either way: false positive or false negative. You might be wondering why anyone would have a false negative hope. This occurs when an individual is afraid of being set-up for failure. Instead of leaving him/herself open to disappointment, he/she prepares for the worst and actually does a very good imitation of hoping for the worst.
Resonating feelings are the hardest to identify. You need to intuitively pick up if someone is in synch with you. Notice if it feels like you’ve known each other forever; see if you feel like the paths you’re on click together.
At the end of the day, you need sexual feelings, facts, and resonating feelings for a soul-mate connection. Hope is good, but a little goes a long way. The reason you need to separate out your feelings is to prevent the sexual and hopeful feelings from taking over and making it hard to see the facts and feel the resonance.
Can you find a soul-mate on Tinder?
Yes, but you’re really setting yourself up for a challenge. Tinder seems to be set up as the devil’s advocate of deep, meaningful relationships. You have just a little information on your prospective hookup or date and some photos. But, then again you don’t have much to go on if you meet someone at a club or a coffee shop.
What you need to be able to accomplish is no easy feat: Engage a person in such a way that you can tell if there’s potential for a real connection. Inspire him/her to want to get to know you deep down. And have the opportunity to make it all happen.
By the way, that probably means no sex for three to six dates. If you’re looking for resonance with your inner self, you need to be unclouded emotionally. You have to connect with your gut. Sex is a big distraction and a major muddler in this process.
Bear in mind that finding a soul-mate on Tinder is like finding a warm spot in the Arctic. But finding a soul-mate anywhere is one of the hardest and most rewarding things you’ll ever do.