Disrupting the Divorce Experience. Defining Your Next Chapter.

Just thinking about it differently...…………………………………...

Bravo that woman.  Is this for you?

Source:- www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKgS8lJD9H4

It’s Never Gonna Stop.

I’m almost to the point of giving up. I was with my husband for 14 years. He was rarely home, stayed out all night and came in drunk more than too many times. He couldn’t hold a conversation without picking up his phone. The same phone that went off around the clock. And I stayed anyway. I even stayed after one of his flings showed up at my house to relieve herself of her guilt. I caught him smoking dope. Still stayed. I was faithful to him thru all of that, I stayed home with kids and was mom and wife. He isolated me from my family. The only friends I had were “his” friends. I kept receipts showing where I had been and what time if I did leave the house. He text and called me at least 20 times a day if he was “at work”. Finally I got fed up and I left. Within a week his “new” gf lived with him and they were posting all about their relationship. I hadn’t even filed for divorce at that time. After I filed for divorce and after it was finalized I listened to “I still love you, come home” until I couldn’t anymore. He was saying that crap to me then bashing me to ppl in town. Today he text me and accused me of cheating on him the whole time with someone who is married. So his retaliation for me being done with him is to obliterate my character. This is a small town and it won’t take long for him to tell everyone his BS lies. I don’t even know what to do anymore. When I defend myself it just gets worse. I’m just at a loss. 

Source:- https://nightsaretheworst.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/its-never-gonna-stop/

3 Reasons Married Men Will NEVER Leave Their Wives

You're dating a married man, but if you think he'll be yours one day, guess again.

At least 3 times a week I get an email from women asking me about the married man they're dating. The women are all frustrated because the guy hasn't left his wife, and they want some form of commitment from him.

If you're having an affair with a married man, this going to be a virtual slap in the face, and it's one you need. I'm going to give you 3 reasons you're wasting your life, and why he'll never leave her.

1. He has everything he needs: Why would he leave his wife and kids? He gets to have amazing sex with you with no commitment at all. Then he gets to go home and play with his kids. It's the ideal situation for a guy. He has the wife who feeds him, cleans up after him, and looks after his children, and then he has his lover taking care of him in other ways he needs. He has two girlfriends and everything done for him. He's enjoying it!

2. Divorce is too painful: Think about the repercussions of divorce. There's the hassle of lawyers, the fighting, the upset of the children, the financial burden, and a host of other problems divorce throws up. Why would he put himself and his family through that if he doesn't have to? You seem happy to see him when he can fit you in, so why would he leave his wife?

3. He'd have left her already: If this guy loved you more than anything, then even with the pain of divorce and the upset of leaving his family, he'd have left her by now. If he wanted to be with you, and if he loved you like you think he does, he'd have already left his family. Think about it. He hasn't left his wife because he doesn't want to. Simple as that. So what do you do about it?

Very simply, you give him an ultimatum. What he's doing isn't fair on you, his wife, or his children, and he needs to make up his mind. You need to gather as much strength as you can, look him in the face, and tell him, "I love you. I want to be with you. But I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to see you again until you move out of your home.

"I want to come to your new apartment. I don't want to keep meeting at my place or hotels. The only way you'll see me again is if you text me or call me with the address of your new apartment. I want proof you've left your wife." Give him this ultimatum and you’ll know where you stand. Are you going to be his partner or will you only ever be, "the other woman"?

You see, the "other woman" is never going to succeed.

The other woman is never going to get the man. All she's going to do is waste her life waiting for a man who will never be hers. She's missing the chance to find a man who's devoted only to her.

I know women that have done this for four, five, six years even. You need to look at your own emotional needs, wants, and desires. Are you dating a married man because you like to live on the edge? Is it because you don’t want commitment yourself? Maybe you're scared of men hurting you?

A lot of women date married men because they're so afraid of getting out there and meeting men. They have relationships with married guys because deep down they know it's never going to go anywhere. They don't need to leave themselves 100% vulnerable. Other women just love the chase. They love the drama of trying to win a man who isn't theirs. You need to figure out who you are. My advice is stop being the other woman. It's not fair any of you involved, and you deserve a man of your own!

Source:- http://www.yourtango.com/experts/david-wygant/3-reasons-your-married-man-will-never-leave-his-wife

Advice For Cheaters And Their Partners

If you have repeatedly cheated, or are the partner of a cheater and can't seem to forgive or break off the unhealthy relationship, Dr. Phil has advice.

Cheaters:

Look at the statistics.The chance of a successful relationship born of infidelity is not even one in 100. A marriage that starts in infidelity has no foundation. You go into it with guilt, shame, angst, worry, and all the baggage that comes with that. Add to that managing your ex and going through possible custody battles for children. Is it worth it?

Think of the children.If you have children and you are cheating on your spouse, your children will suffer. You are turning their lives upside down, fracturing their family unit and destroying their peace and harmony.

Think ahead to what the courts might think of you as a parent. You may think your partner wouldn't fight you on custody, but people change when they get into a divorce court. Your spouse might just decide that the person who stole his/her partner will not steal the children as well. If you enter the divorce arena in the midst of infidelity, you have put your children in play. Again, ask yourself, is it worth it? 

If the person you are having an affair with is married with children, ask yourself, "What right do I have to fracture his/her family unit in which innocent children are growing every day, just to feed my need?"

Be honest with yourself.Is the unfaithfulness over with? Moving forward, do you absolutely and unequivocally have nothing to hide? You'll never get past this until you start being drop-dead honest. Remember, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you don't think you can stop on your own, get professional help. 

Be honest with your partner.
By not being honest with yourself and your partner, you're doing nothing but perpetuating the deception. If you know that you will continue to be unfaithful, and if you really care about your partner, you will let him/her go and get yourself some help. 

Accept responsibility.
Have the decency to tell your spouse in all honesty and candor that you own your choices. You're the one who ran this relationship off in the ditch. This had nothing to do with your partner. If you want to fix your marriage, you have to accept responsibility and do whatever it takes to earn your partner's trust back one step at a time. 

Assess your commitment level.Are you committed enough to your partner in order to do the work necessary in order to repair the relationship? However long it takes to get this relationship back on the road, is however long you need to work at it. 

Behave your way to success.
Keep in mind, you can no longer be in contact with the person you were having an affair with. Avoid the places you know he/she frequents, change your phone numbers, and if you're unsure of your strength in staying away from him/her, then move. If you're so out of control that you're like a moth to a flame, then get away from the candle!

Turn toward your partner.When your life or relationship becomes rocky and affects your sexual relationship, that is the time you should turn toward your partner, not away from him/her because of your sexual needs. 

Re-engineer your life.If you are a sex addict, and you really want to change this, it's not a quick fix. It's an entire reengineering of your life, values, beliefs, thoughts, conduct and emotions. It's about deconstructing your life, and reconstructing your future. Unless you get professional help, you're going to continue to victimize everybody who you touch because you're controlled by your impulses rather than your values.

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If You Are Being Cheated On:

Get real.
The best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior. What do you predict? If your partner has cheated on you repeatedly and now swears he/she will stop, what are the chances that this is true? You can't change what you don't acknowledge. Isn't there a point at which you say, "I deserve better. My children deserve better. He/She may not have any boundaries, but I do. And my boundaries say, 'You either treat me with integrity, dignity and respect or you don't treat me at all'?" Stand up for yourself and for your children. You've given your power away and you've got to get it back.

This is not your fault.
Stop beating yourself up about this. You have got to know that this has nothing to do with you. You are not the one who made the decision to break your commitment to your partner and cheat. You have nothing to do with your partner making the immature, inappropriate, self-destructive choice to turn away from you to someone else.

What is your payoff?
Do you want to get past this? Or is there a payoff you receive from the situation? Do you enjoy playing the victim or subjecting your partner to a life sentence? Do you fear that if you forgive a partner who truly is remorseful and has changed his/her behavior that you are "letting them get away with it?" 

Assess your commitment level.
You can either handle being vulnerable with your partner again or you can't. And if you can't, you need to get out of this relationship and move on. And if you can, then you need to let him/her earn the trust back and start putting this relationship together again.

Consider the consequences.
If you have children, your decision will affect them as well. You do have responsibility here for what you do next. You have to make a decision about whether or not justice is best served by allowing your partner to re-earn your trust, or if it's better not to subject your family any longer to the current situation. 

Decide if you can choose to forgive.Forgiveness is a choice. It doesn't mean what your partner did is OK. How much you trust your partner is in part about what your partner does, and in part a function of whether you have confidence to handle it if he/she disappoints you. If you find out that he/she strays again, can you handle that? 

If you can't forgive, let go.
When you choose the behavior, you choose the consequences. If you continue to throw this in your partner's face, you will eventually run him/her off. Ask yourself if this is going to be a life sentence for your partner. Can you heal from this and forgive? If not, don't continue to live in anger and/or be with someone who causes you pain. 

Source:- http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/127

8 Myths That Could Kill Your Relationship

If you think relationships don't take hard work or that passion shouldn't fade if you're really in love, think again. Credit: Dreamstime View full size image

There are hundreds of myths about relationships, according to Terri Orbuch, Ph.D, a Michigan clinical psychologist and author of "5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great" (Delacorte Press, 2009). The problem with persistent myths is that they can erode a relationship's happiness, she said.

When you think a relationship should be a certain way, and yours isn't, frustration sets in. And "frustration is the number one thing that eats away at a relationship," Orbuch said, and "it's directly tied to these myths."

That's why it's so critical to bust the below misconceptions. So without further ado, here are eight myths about relationships that might surprise you.

1. Myth: A good relationship means that you don't have to work at it.
Fact: "The strongest most enduring relationships take lots of hard work," said Lisa Blum, Psy.D, a clinical psychologist in Pasadena and Los Angeles, who specializes in emotionally focused therapy with couples. She believes that our culture, education system and parenting styles don't prepare us for the fact that even good relationships take effort.

She likened a healthy relationship to a good garden. "It's a beautiful thing but you wouldn't expect it to thrive without a whole lot of labor and TLC."

But how do you know if you're working too hard on a relationship? One sign, according to Blum, is if you're feeling unhappy more than you're happy. In other words, are you spending more time tending to the relationship and keeping it afloat than enjoying it?

This unhappiness becomes less of a rough patch, and more like the "normal state of affairs," she said.

Another bad sign is if you're trying hard to make improvements and changes, but you don't see the same level of effort on your partner's part. "There has to be some sense of 'we're trying really hard, both making changes and that's making a difference.'"

On the flip side, if both of you are trying and you can see positive changes being made at least some of the time, then that's a good sign, Blum said.

2. Myth: If partners really love each other, they know each other's needs and feelings.

Fact: "It's a setup to expect your partner to be able to read your mind," Blum said — because when you anticipate that your partner will know your wants, that's essentially what you're doing. We develop this expectation as kids, she said. But "as adults, we're always responsible for communicating our feelings and needs."

And once you've communicated your needs and feelings, "a better measure of the quality of your relationship" is whether your partner actually listens to your words. [5 Communication Pitfalls and Pointers for Couples ]

3. Myth: If you're truly in love, passion will never fade.

Fact: Thanks to movies and romantic novels, we assume that if we genuinely love someone, "the passion, urging and loving" never go away. And if they do disappear, then "it must not be the right relationship" or "our relationship [must be] in trouble," Orbuch said. However, passion naturally diminishes in all relationships.

Daily routines are one of the culprits, Blum said. As their responsibilities grow and roles expand, couples have less and less time and energy for each other.

But this doesn't mean that the passion is gone for good. With a little planning and playfulness, you can boost passion. Blum sees many relationships where passion is alive and well. "Passionate sex is a byproduct of sustained emotional intimacy along with a continuing sense of adventure and exploration and sense of playfulness." Orbuch also has emphasized the importance of couples doing new things to perk up their relationships (see her specific advice).

And when it comes to passion-squashing routines, Blum suggested couples ask themselves: "How do we tame our lives sufficiently that we can make time for each other and have energy left for each other?"

4. Myth: Having a child will strengthen your relationship or marriage.

Fact: Studies have shown that relationship happiness actually decreases with every child, she said. This doesn't mean that you start loving each other less or that you won't bond at all over your child, Orbuch said. But the mounting challenges can complicate relationships.

Having realistic expectations helps couples prepare themselves for their new roles, she said. When you think that a child will improve your relationship, it only adds to the complications.

As Orbuch said, "'should' statements don't allow you to see what the other person is doing to strengthen and manage the relationship," and these expectations "cloud your judgment." She recommended planning ahead and talking about the changes that will occur when you have your first child or more kids.

5. Myth: Jealousy is a sign of true love and caring.

Fact: Jealousy is more about how secure and confident you are with yourself and your relationship (or the lack thereof), she said. Take the following example: If you have a jealous partner, you might try to show them how much you care so they don't get jealous. But you soon realize that any amount of caring isn't a cure for their jealous reactions.

While you can be supportive, according to Orbuch, your partner must work on their insecurity issues on their own. "No matter what you do, you can't make your partner feel more secure" or "change their self-confidence."

Trying to make your partner jealous also can backfire. While men and women are just as likely to experience jealousy, their reactions differ. Men either get very defensive or angry, believing that the relationship isn't worth it, Orbuch said. Women, on the other hand, respond by trying to improve the relationship or themselves.

6. Myth: Fights ruin relationships.

Fact: In actuality, what ruins relationships is not resolving your fights, Blum said. "Fights can be really healthy, and an important form of communication and clearing the air."

Also, the type of fight a couple has plays a role. Not surprisingly, nasty, scornful or condescending fights that leave couples resolution-less and not talking for days damage the relationship. Productive conflicts that help the relationship end with "some mutual decision about how to manage this disagreement," Blum said. (Here's help on improving your communication and becoming a better listener and speaker.)

7. Myth: In order for the relationship to be successful, the other partner must change.

Fact: Many times we're very good at the blame game and not so good at pondering how we can become better partners. Instead, we demand that our partners make such and such changes.

Unless, there are extreme circumstances like abuse or chronic infidelity, Blum said, it takes two to make changes.

But even more than that, it's up to you to figure out what you can do. While this seems "simple and obvious," 100 percent of the couples Blum sees point the finger.

"It's a profound mental shift to look at what can I do [and] what changes can I make."

8. Myth: Couples therapy means your relationship is really in trouble.

Fact: By the time couples seek therapy, this may be true, but changing this mindset is key. Most couples seek therapy "when they've been suffering for a really long time," Blum said. "What elements were good in the relationship are destroyed."

Instead, Blum suggested that people view couples therapy as preventative. This way, a couple comes in when they've been stuck on one or two conflicts for a few months, "not five or six over the last 10 years."

This article was provided to LiveScience by PsychCentral.

Source:- http://www.livescience.com/15610-myths-kill-relationship-satisfaction.html.