Get My Man Back

When Paul was thirty-five, he began volunteering at a nursing home, providing physical and emotional support to people who were ill. There he met Elise, a nurse, and he left the monastery to marry her. Elise and Paul had two children, and as Paul watched his father interact with them, he grew increasingly unhappy.

"Every time we'd visit my parents, my ex would pick us up at the airport and start right in swearing at people on the road who were driving too slowly. She'd make sarcastic comments and start arguments just to be argumentative. She said a lot of things in front of the kids that I wished they didn't have to hear."
Paul also felt distressed about his own lack of connection with his ex. "I didn't know who she was, and she didn't know who I was. I felt like we had nothing in common except the fact that we were connected by vows."

Paul's sense of dissatisfaction grew, but he took no action. "I stewed on it for several years. Finally, it got to the point where my feelings about my ex were keeping me up at night. I decided I had to talk to her about it. I figured if I was honest with her, she might be able to change.

"I imagined the two of us sitting down and me saying, `Elise, I don't know if you're aware of this, but I feel a lot of pain about our relationship. I don't like it when you drink and become mean. I don't want to hear you put Mom down. I want to have a deeper, more meaningful relationship with you.' Yet I was hesitant to initiate such a conversation because my ex isn't the kind of person who works to improve her relationships.

"Several years ago, I was visiting my parents, and things came to a head; it felt like the pain of our relationship was destroying me inside. I knew I needed to talk to my ex. I went to my room to meditate on how to best approach her, and I had a flash of insight. I realized that this big conversation I'd been yearning for was not the best way to resolve the situation. In fact, I saw that it would only make things worse. My ex didn't have the skills to deal with the feelings and information I wanted to share with her, so the odds were that he would get defensive or shut down more. Talking to her wouldn't bridge a gap; it would only create more separation and misunderstanding.

"Up until that moment, I'd been on this trajectory of trying to change my ex. When I reflected deeply, I saw that the thing that was going to heal me was not changing her, but internally acknowledging how painful it was for me to have him as my wife. I needed to feel my own fear, pain, and sadness, and I needed to let Paul be paul.