Justifying our actions. Is it because the only ones we need to justify are the ones we feel slightly uncomfortable with?
Be it loudly and vehemently to those around us or just to ourselves in the quiet and solitude of the night when sleep alludes us and we spend those hours convincing ourselves we are right. Everyone else is wrong.
And when challenged the white-hot poker of indignation can fire us into stances which normally we wouldn’t dream of taking.
Alex did it when he left me. Justifying his betrayal as something he couldn’t control. That the explosion in his head was more then he could cope with. That the OW was the only one to understand.
I justified my lack of anger and my acceptance of his appalling behaviour to myself and others around me as my attempt to save my marriage.
My brother – H – is justifying his decision to destroy his marriage as his wish to find happiness before his life is over (he is only 63!). He may shrug his shoulders and say “These things happen” – but the raw emotion of the tone of his voice and the look on his face, belies these words
When challenged we can all stand our corner and fight against all the odds. So how do people like Stephen get us to see there could be another way. A better way.
I know he succeeded with me. I know I fought against it with a determination that was ‘impressive’. As you know, I was even ‘banned ‘ from coaching sessions!! So what made me wake up one morning (during the ‘banned’ time) and realise I was wrong. What grain of an idea or suggestion had he ‘planted’ in my mind and what made it grow so I finally saw I was wrong? I have no idea!
I know I was scared that my world would implode if I let go (I don’t mind that phrase so much these days).
When I watch H and see what he’s doing to himself, his wife and his children it makes me sad. It also makes me cross because of the wanton destruction of everything around him.
When I think of Alex I wonder if part of him is not so sure of the route he has taken (why else would he have signed off his last email in May with ‘love Alex’ having not done so since he left). I have no idea how he is now. He has his new life. Which will still be filled with the same day-to-day chores as his one with me. Is it so great – the change he made?
What makes these men (and women) throw away what they have and then justify their actions from a stand point built on quick-sand?
Are we doing it all the time – on a smaller scale – in our every day lives? Do we justify our actions and decisions – and by that I mean the dodgy ones – because we are too scared to either listen to others or apologise for getting it wrong, or, most importantly, admit our mistakes to ourselves?
Do we spend too much time living on the edge of fear – either in our working lives or in our relationships? And in our fear to get it ‘right’ are we too often ‘getting it wrong’?
Too many questions and not enough answers – Sorry!!
That’s another thing that’s scary!
I've Survived! and I'm "Flying"!! 
“Do we justify our actions and decisions – and by that I mean the dodgy ones – because we are too scared to either listen to others or apologise for getting it wrong, or, most importantly, admit our mistakes to ourselves?”. I’ve certainly done that.
And on smaller day to day stuff, I do sometime make the “wrong” decision out of fear or some other negative emotion such as anger mostly.
It must takes a lot of self-awareness and then self-control to live in a completely non-destructive way…
Thanks for this interesting thought, and I sincerely hope that Alex IS unconsciously realising the mistake he made. It would take another enormous load of courage for him to consciously acknowledge that, and I hope that one day he gets there.
x
It’ll be interesting to see if he contacts me in the next few days as the Decree Absolute is now about to happen. The court have approved the financial settlement so this is the final step.
BTW I don’t expect him to!
It’s funny how people think changing their environment will bring them happiness, when happiness comes from within.
I got the, “I just need to be happy”, line! I wonder how many of them actually find the “continued” happiness they cause so much destruction trying to find?
I wonder too. I can’t believe Alex is that happy as he’s cut himself off from nearly everyone he knows. As to my brother….. Well time will tell. It’s all too soon at the moment.
Yes it is a lt of questions but they are good questions to which I don’t have the answer. But it’s a sad state of affair with your brother
I’m feeling philosophical today, I think. You bring up some good questions. And once we come up with answers to these we’ll find some more equally intriguing posers, I guess. I think these men and women throw away what they have because they think their new situation will be more exciting and fun. Alas, once the new is worn off and they settle into a routine with that new/soon-to-be old relationship, surely they must realize that they got it all wrong. It’s not better after all.
So many questions are left unanswered – if only we knew the answers it would help to dull our own pains from heartbreak.
It would be lovely to have some answers.
More ideas the better – someone must know!
The challenge that people face is they create meanings from their feelings. These feelings to them become facts.
If you are having an emotional response to any situation the only way to judge it is if you know how your mind created the meaning.
Most people don’t and so blindly trust random emotions which they think they have made sense of.
A person can be so focused on everything that’s wrong they are missing other truths.
In other words people create a story about their life or world and then believe their own hype.
What do you think you believe about you that isn’t a fact?
This is critical to understand.
This is still a tough one to get my mind round Stephen. But I hope I’m getting there!
I know for a long time I thought I was unlovable – and then managed to find evidence to back that up.
I know I sometimes think I’m too old to attract someone new who is still feeling young at heart and in search of adventures – and then prove it to myself by all the dreadful people I seem to come across on the dating sites.
I know I was scared I would lose Alex – and I did. But maybe that wasn’t totally my fault! I suppose I then stopped being me and tried to be the person I thought he wanted me to be – which wasn’t the person he fell in love with. So – OK – I didn’t exactly help the situation.
I gather (from the village grapevine) that my brother has decided his wife is boring. Actually I think it’s more likely that he’s bored (and maybe feeling a bit left out) and is now blaming his wife for everything.
So what you’re saying is we create a meaning from the feeling and then act upon that meaning. When actually we haven’t dug deep enough to work out what the problem really is?
You got it!
thank you but read below!
But wait one second! Both Alex and H are intelligent people. They must know that they’re shifting the blame away from themselves.
i still don’t see how they could do something so drastic. Or is the meaning so powerful they can’t visualise anything different??
In a state of fear people disconnect from their core values, they then usually adopt coping patterns created from childhood.
They are not aware when or how they were created and so they run them as adults.
Again they feel bad so that feels real so they live in reaction through that distortion.
In many cases you can see grown men and women acting like children in fear.
That would explain why both Alex and H have even put on the same facial expressions and mannerisms. Both reminded me of children – in a rather spooky way. Not pretty in an adult.
The similarities have been shaking.
So here – in my little blogland – so many of my readers are facing the consequences of our partner’s actions from these distortions. How do you shift that belief?
Firstly they have to want to discover their truth.
Sometimes the pain has to hit maximum before people will search for help.
Many are convinced that how they experience the world is the only way for them.
Henry Ford once said something like this… If you think you can or you think you can’t you’re probably right.
The real answer is the person has to have a good enough reason to make the change.
People can feel safe in their own misery.
Understand the change you want and understand in detail why you want it.
“People can feel safe in their own misery.”
Ha! Been there – got the T-shirt!
But if they (Alex, H, etc, etc) don’t believe they want their marriages but are still miserable what then?
I suppose until they get so miserable they ‘buy into’ the help 100% then no-one can do anything! Otherwise they either refuse help altogether – or just pay lip-service to it (I have a rather uncomfortable feeling I did that for quite a time!!)
So that leaves the ‘victims’ who also have to decide the change they want and why they want it. And that’s equally if not more difficult because our misery has been inflicted on us.
It makes it doubly difficult because presumably the step change also has to involve ‘letting go of what we had’.
We have no other option. So creating a future which is fun is what helps??
I suppose we have to ‘justify’ letting go?
And that’s also scary.
That is so true. Even now, after all that’s happened, I am finding it difficult to let go.
And I am finding it difficult to see the misery of the people who left, because as far as I can tell, my husband is happy now. So it really feels as though he was justified to leave me because he was miserable, because it worked and now he’s happy. This possibility really hurts.