The Lessons Learned, Will Also be Tested

One the members recently posted this on the forum:

Truer words were never spoken, because he’s right. 🙂

I know that what he says is right, because I saw this happen, but it took me years to connect the dots of how this had once worked for me—that is why the strength of the left behind spouse must be at peak, and enough of the personal journey walked that the left behind spouse will be able to stand with the midlife spouse through that second half.

The first three stages are for the learning, the last three stages are for the test both people will face, to see what they’re made of, to test and apply what they’ve learned. It’s like a life’s lesson’s classroom, in a sense, where you spend time learning, then spend time being tested in various ways, to see what you’ve learned, how you’ve learned it, and how you’ve learned to apply that same learning.

I will also bring up something I said a few years ago, that was based on massive research, and deep thoughtful consideration on what I had gone through. I nearly fell into the emotional trap of thinking the crisis was past, when our situation improved. Things looked really good, and because it appeared we were into a time of peace, it was all too easy to feel that we were near the end, when we were NOT anywhere close to that end.

We were still in the stage of replay. My husband had awakened to himself, what he was doing, discovered that if he didn’t do something, anything to try and convince me to give him another chance, all would be lost. He turned back toward me, still emotionally broken, and began trying again. We still had a long way to go on this road of his midlife crisis.

During that time, I came to know that ready, or not, God would never put any more on me than I could bear, without asking Him for help. I didn’t think I was ready, but God knew me better than I knew myself. I wasn’t going to find out what I was capable of, until I began to directly face the challenges that appeared once we started trying to come together in a different way than before. As I recall, there was a time of peace given so we could begin to get to know to each other again, based on what we had become at that point of the journey.

What we were experiencing was that time we needed to regroup ourselves–a time that lay between the ending of one aspect of crisis, and the beginning of the next aspect. There needs to be a break of some kind between the damage done, and the time the couple needs to bind themselves to each other again, rebuild and restrengthen the relationship so that when the midlife spouse begins fading back into the fog of their remaining issues, the left behind spouse retains that hope that this isn’t going to last forever.

This particular time of more peaceful living, almost always presents a certain temptation for the midlife spouse to try and “bargain” their way out of facing themselves, bury what’s left, move forward from where they are, but that’s a mistake, because what isn’t faced, will certainly return, and it will be worse than before. Time will be added, because the emotional crisis becomes even harder to overcome.

The one thing the left behind spouse needs to understand is that the midlife spouse is unable to do this without your agreement. Your agreement means you stop you own journey, you emotionally adjust yourself to where the midlife spouse is seeking to halt their own journey, and you can’t grow anymore if you agree with what they’re proposing you do.

Your growth is what triggers their growth, your changes are what triggers their changes. If they can convince you to sweep everything under the carpet, forget everything that happened, and move forward from that point, that means you will have sacrificed every bit of the inner work you’ve spent so much time achieving for yourself.

Don’t do it, because it’s not worth it, and yes, they can and often will verbalize this to you. They are aware that your changes demand they change to fit you, and what they’re asking is for you to change back to fit them. You have to ask yourself is this a sacrifice you’re willing to make, considering that you know that if you let this go, it will return, and worse than before?

Just because the affair ends, the situation gets better, midlife spouse says they want to be with you, and work begins on the relationship, does NOT mean the midlife crisis is finishing, or is finished. There are still THREE more stages to go through AFTER the midlife spouse returns still broken. The couple tends to go through a time of false security, but as long as issues remain to be resolved, the crisis will continue, and there is so much more ground to cover, and more emotional road to walk during this time.

The midlife crisis isn’t about the relationship, isn’t about the marriage, and isn’t about the family. It’s about the person who is going through this time of emotional redevelopment, and even though that midlife spouse may seem to settle down, become better, make changes, and begin to experience some major growth, they must still go through the valley of Depression, as they face their various failures of the past, and present, walk the road of greater change during Withdrawal that involves the decisions of their lives that include a decision to either recommit, or not recommit to the marriage, to keep their jobs, to improve their relationships, and they still have issues with their marriage, and the spouse that’s within that marriage to face, resolve, and heal for themselves.

The crisis does NOT stop, or end, just because the damage that has been done during replay has ceased–there is still the eventual full-facing of that damage to do, there is still cleanup to accomplish, and there is still a repackaging of that which has been unpackaged to complete.

The road of emotional growth continues forward, and it will continue until it comes to an end. The improvement and changes within the relationship are only the beginning of further advanced learning within this ongoing journey.

If the crisis were meant to cease after the damage of replay has stopped, then everything else would occur in rapid fashion, and the spiritual aspects would be skipped in full. No, that’s not how it’s going to go, because that’s not how GOD intended this crisis to go.

Why else are we here, if not to learn from the direct experience life is going to teach us? Our time isn’t wasted here, unless WE choose to waste that time running from the lessons we will learn, or die while in a miserable process that was allowed to happen to teach us those lessons.

You know what, though? Tomorrow isn’t promised, nor guaranteed, and the only guarantee you will ever have is the journey you’re choosing to take that will lead YOU into full wholeness and healing, because you are the only one who will be able to control your future, your journey, and the responsibility for becoming what God means for you to be. So make each day the best you can make it, love each other, as God loves us, show love in all you do, speak the truth in all you say, and count your blessings, for they are many.

The above positive mental attitude will serve you well, because emotional survival, just like all other kinds of survival, is ninety percent mental. You are what you think, you live what you learn, and everything you do will be returned back greater than it was sent out. Food for thought.

You’re not going to withstand, endure, and navigate through this second half of the midlife crisis if you have not adequately prepared yourself,(walking the ongoing journey toward wholeness and healing for yourself) and if you’ve not grown as a result of that preparation. Oh yes, I’ve seen disbelief shown many times, in other places over time. When I expose something people say they haven’t seen before, people tend not to believe, UNTIL they begin directly living through any aspect I introduce that I have survived through directly, and seen validated in other situations. I have seen this aspect validated through many other situations.

I don’t just preach the honoring of your vows–for better or for worse–I’m a living example of what that’s like. Life is hard at certain times, but there are times of gathering information from those who have been there before, learning to understand this information, and the last part of this trial is exercising what you’ve learned.

The test you’ll go through is a hard one, but you can do this. You’ve got it in you, just like everyone else has it in them—it’s just that some people don’t choose to move forward, into the harder work that will come once the midlife spouse turns back, and begins wanting the relationship in earnest.

Not all of the work will be done at one time–it will be an ongoing process, where different aspects will be navigated, and I’ve seen people scream in emotional frustration, because the midlife spouse that has turned back is still broken, and they got mad, when they found they would be tasked with the work of helping them come back together.

Why is the left behind spouse given this responsibility? Because in your life that is lived as an example before that midlife spouse, you will be giving them a model of Godly living, Godly love, Godly sharing, and it will test your patience and your chosen Stand to the extreme. The prior aspects of your journey that have involved learning of setting boundaries, standing firmly in the face of adversity, and making it clear what you will accept, won’t accept from people, will also be tested.

It is in every human being to push the boundaries of respect, just to see what they can get away with. There are some people who will never get it, but there are more people who will truly get it, and those are the ones who will be successful in their lives and relationships going forward.

You’re also tested in patience, strength, and fortitude, when the midlife spouse refuses to acknowledge the damage they’ve done, at a time when you think they should. However, there is a lesson learned in the delaying of self gratification when you’re refused this satisfaction you say you crave from the midlife spouse who has sinned against you.

Entitlement says, “I want it NOW, and you are going to give it to me,” but well-developed and mature patience, strength, and fortitude, says, “Give them time to learn to see that part of them that committed this sin,” because I know from experience that the digging an immature left behind spouse tends to do is only going to cause the midlife spouse to close up like a land terrapin, a turtle that shuts itself against real or perceived danger.

Unfortunately, you have people who don’t care about anyone, not even themselves. I’ve seen midlife spouses who were tormented, tortured, pushed, shoved, mistreated, mentally, and emotionally abused and the left behind spouses who’ve done it, did it in the name of finding out the truth–or that’s what THEY said.

It’s all about right times, seasons, and growth within the midlife spouse–and if they’re not in that right time, right season, and right growth, nothing will be given, and nothing will gotten.

Did the entitled left behind spouse get anything besides a lot of self victimized spewing, projection, blame, and heavy anger? Not really. They may have extracted a confession, at the expense of the midlife spouse’s mental and emotional health, but I can guarantee you they paid a heavy emotional price later on in the crisis, because some answers they weren’t able to “extract” then, were NOT given later on. Why? Because the LBS had violated the midlife spouse’s right to start healing, to gain enough strength to move forward, and to grow into a place of making a decision of what they would tell, vs. what they wouldn’t tell on their own.

You think you have trust issues–well, the midlife spouse has trust issues, too.

Thank God, and I really mean that, that there are left behind spouses who are more compassionate than this. I understand the frustration, because I’ve been there, too.

Have any of you ever done something that you never told a soul, except God, who knows all things? If you say you haven’t, you’re lying, because there is not one person on this Earth that hasn’t carried their own personal secrets of things they’ve done they were ashamed of, telling no one, because they were afraid of what someone might think of them.

You might say that whatever secret you kept was different because whatever you did was either before you married, or if you were married, it wasn’t as “bad” as what your midlife spouse did. However, you would be wrong in thinking you’re “better” than your midlife spouse, because you are NOT any higher, nor any lower than the midlife spouse who has committed sin against God, you, the marriage and the family.

Listen, God doesn’t put weight on sin–it’s human beings that put weight on sin that weighs the same–it’s heavy, it’s cumbersome, it’s a burden, and these three aspects contain shame, guilt, and lack of self forgiveness.

So, before you think to get what you want from someone whom you think has done worse things than you–sit down and carefully consider yourself, because you don’t have the right to run a Nazi Interrogation, complete with emotional torture tools, just because you think you’re entitled to getting information you want in your time.

Get over yourself, because you’re not so special that the midlife spouse sought to sin against you in the first place. They sinned against God, themselves, you, and the family in just that order, so it seems to me that GOD takes top priority when we’re talking about confession that leads into forgiveness. God will know all things, but you won’t, and if you continue walking your journey as you should, there should come a time when you won’t need to know what you think you need to know right now. Food for thought.

If you care anything about that midlife spouse, you’ll focus on yourself, walk your own journey, accept what the midlife spouse is willing to give when they’re able to give it, let time do its work, allow them to come to you as they’re choosing to, make them feel safe with you, and do your part in helping the midlife spouse create a new connection with you.

Be a lover, not a fighter. Be willing to step back, give space, give time, and allow the midlife spouse to come to you when they are ready–because no matter what you do or say, that is what will happen–the midlife spouse will come to you when THEY are ready, and not before they’re ready, and able to approach you.

Until that time, be that stanchion, God has called you to be, be that attraction, show love and acceptance, and most of all, show them the Light that reflects the Love of God that shines in you. You learn more when you love more. Learn to view that midlife spouse with the same kind of compassion you would give a friend that you care so much about. Love doesn’t mean you condone, love means you’re willing to stand strong with, and for your midlife spouse, as the road becomes harder going forward. ((HUGS)) Food for thought.