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Key points
- You can change your perspective to view adversity as an opportunity to exercise your emotional skills.
- You have strengths inside of you—patience, determination, and courage, even if you can't see them.
- A victim mentality might feel satisfying in the moment but it doesn't do you any good.
- Become a warrior for your own happiness, it's in your hands.
Would you like to activate your superpowers? While you don’t think you have any, you do. You just don’t know where to look.
When you’re struggling to recover from your husband suddenly leaving, you may only be able to see the present as misery and the future as bleak. A different perspective will allow you to recognize your hidden strengths, the ones you always had but are buried under grief, sadness, and maybe, despair.
Adopt the philosophy of stoicism which, in a nutshell, teaches that if you can view any setback as an opportunity to grow and develop, you’ll strengthen your character, making you better able to handle anything life sends your way.
Once you have mastered the stoic approach, rather than bemoaning things that happen to you that you may label as bad or unfortunate (your husband leaving), you’ll welcome them as a chance to hone your ability to create value from adversity (like looking for things you can feel grateful about). A simple cliche to describe stoic thought is turning lemons into lemonade.
Women who are struggling to rebuild their lives after abandonment have the emotional work of regaining a sense of peace and meaning in life.
- They have to figure out how to stop their minds from whirring obsessively about their ex
- They have to stop regretting and blaming themselves
- They have to banish the sense of shame for being single
- They have to grieve all they have lost
- They have to train their thinking to envision a new and different future
Time heals to some extent but it’s what you do with the time that makes the difference. That’s where the work comes in.
After your husband leaves, you essentially have two choices.
- You can wrap yourself in the cloak of victimhood, explaining to everyone who comes near how unjust it is and how unfair he was, attempting to elicit sympathy
- Or you can work through the perfectly normal grief (this might take time) but eventually develop a defiant attitude: I’m not going to let this ruin the rest of my life
When you are really down, the stoic approach would guide you to, perhaps, practice things that you really don’t feel like doing, although you know they’re good for you—going for a walk or cooking yourself a healthy meal. Getting yourself to engage in self-care takes emotional work but the more you engage in them, the easier they become. You will start to feel better. And along the way, you develop the skill of good self-care.
I have previously written: “Don’t press ‘send’ when you’re still in your pajamas.” Although you may want to send a begging, pleading email to your ex in the middle of the night, it might not look like the best idea in the light of day. If you can practice the skill of self-control and wait a day, you’ll probably be glad you didn’t humiliate yourself by pressing send.
Your husband leaving forces you to struggle to do the thing that’s in your best interest even though it’s hard. This will strengthen your character and you will grow from it. The more you practice self-control, for example, the easier it will become and you can add it to your list of superpowers.
What skills do you need to apply to achieve the items on the list above?
- Stop obsessing. You can use your determination to stop yourself from ruminating and instead, distract yourself. When you see that you're on that mental hamster wheel, turn on a documentary about Italy or listen to beautiful music to help your mind rest.
- Stop regretting or blaming yourself. You can read the work of Kristen Neff and learn to practice self-compassion.
- Banish shame. Exercise the courage to join a single women’s group and engage in meaningful activities with your new friends.
- Grieve. Permit yourself to feel the pain without the fear of it overtaking you.
- Envision a new future. Encourage yourself to explore new things, no matter how small, that you can incorporate into your life.
You can change your perspective to look at this huge setback as an opportunity for you to challenge yourself, turning it into multiple lessons on living. It's all about appreciating your life, no matter what form it’s in at the moment and in the end, you'll be proud of how mighty you’ve become.
When you encounter anything hard in life, try to look at it differently. View it as an opportunity for you to reach down and bring up your best, so you can face down the situation with courage, patience, self-love, determination, and or resilience. There will be no lack of opportunities in life for you to rise to the challenge and put your stoic skills in practice.
