CONFLICT RESOLUTION & RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT...

… Appropriate Resolutions™ for home, work, community, and everywhere in between.

© 1998-2008 Joseph Ravick  and Appropriate Resolutions™

    How long can a person continue ignoring her own needs! Would you choose (or have you ever chosen) 'long-term pain' for 'short-term gains', living in hope for that elusive prize of personal happiness?

 

JUDY'S STORY

     Judy had tried over and over and over again to speak with her husband Sam of 18 years without triggering his ‘sensitivities’. She couldn’t remember the first time but it seemed years ago. It seemed to her that every time, as soon as she began to outline what she was feeling, he appeared to withdraw, his eyes glazing over. This was a pattern she came to dread; what became even harder to bear was his ignorance-motivated, anger-camouflaged confusion; at least that was what she saw and how she labelled it.

     For Judy, her hopes, aspirations and assumptions were no longer the point; she knew for a fact that she could no longer accept the status quo given all her attempts, her many sleepless nights and distracted days. Scary as it felt, for the first time she needed to acknowledge and accept the fact that her marriage was skidding on a slippery slope, a feeling she had tried hard to overlook since it invariably came close to causing her a panic attack. And yet her needs could no longer take a back seat as she attempted to cope with Sam's hissy-fits while raising two teenagers with all the inherent challenges of an increasingly out-of-control life.

     Judy had tried all the options she could imagine; marriage counselling cut short after that one disastrous session, many late night discussions which exhausted them both without resolution, and even one attempt to interest Sam in filling out a “How to succeed in marriage” magazine exercise passed on to her by her best friend. All had proved to be frustrating and fruitless.

     Now was the time, overtime she felt, to say enough is enough and to send Sam a resounding “No!” She was not prepared to carry on their poor excuse for a relationship; short-term pain for long-term gain was no longer an option for her. Sating “no more” had become her ‘get out of jail free’ card, the road out of her painful matrimonial reality.    

         Six months later, Judy was on her own, the legalities relating to their ‘things’ and the terms about parenting had been almost settled thanks to the invaluable assistance of two collaborative-law practitioners. It had not been easy or stress-less but after all the tears and emotional spectres had been managed, and for the first time in almost 10 years, Judy felt free and unencumbered by what had become chronic emotional and spiritual pain. Judy had cured herself of her unremitting ache by simply ‘biting the bullet’ and asserting her right to happiness by finally saying "no, no more!" She had opened a door and walked through having rejected what her mother had apparently endured all her life. Now optimistic, everything was possible and exciting! Even her kids seemed to thoroughly enjoy their new family dynamics as the best of all worlds. "All was now good."

For more about life, conflicts and relationships in an entertaining format,

check out  The Resolver…  a free, no-obligation, monthly e-journal.