“It’s one thing to lose people you love. It is another to lose yourself. That is a greater loss.” Donna Goddard
My client, who I’ll refer to as Sue, had been enduring more than her fair share of struggles:
- Her Mother had just passed away.
- She had overcome a very serious health challenge herself.
- Her son was struggling with depression.
- She had felt alone in her marriage for many years.
- She felt like she had lost touch with herself.
Not surprisingly, someone came into her life that made her feel everything that she was missing. He made her feel…
- Seen and heard…
- Understood…
- Important…
- Desired…
- More herself than she had felt in years.
These were her words:
- I felt like a whole part of me had been buried…
- I was drowning and he gave me oxygen…
- He woke me up from a life that only felt dark and numb…
- It felt like an addiction because even though I knew it was wrong…I couldn’t bring myself to turn away.
Sue isn’t alone. Honestly, I have heard those words hundreds of times and even said some of them myself at one point in my life.
What is often the instigator of an affair is a disconnection from self.
We’re floundering – grasping for answers and desperate for oxygen – and someone makes us feel alive again…
- Like ourselves again…
- In love, inspired, and excited again…
- Ready to face life again.
That’s oxygen to someone who’s been drowning.
But if we stay here, we’re only creating another, different sort of relationship dysfunction, because we’re relying on someone else to save us from the life we’ve created. There’s no power there; only more dependency.
Instead, we can choose to become our own oxygen source. We can see how we’ve become disconnected from who we really are and find our way back home. We can ask ourselves:
- What do we need? What do we desire?
- How have I been looking to others to meet those needs or desires?
- Where have I abandoned myself and my needs?
The answers to those questions will begin to take you from a disconnection of self to guiding you back home.
Let me be clear: “HOME” does not mean your physical home in your current life with your current marriage. Home means knowing who you really are, letting others see that and embracing all the parts of you.
Home is your heart. Your soul. Your spirit.
You may find yourself and remain in your marriage.
You may not. You may decide to leave your marriage.
You may even attempt to give this other relationship a real try.
But it won’t be from a needy, please save me from myself place. It won’t be from a disconnection from self. It will be from an empowered place of knowing who you are, what you want and feeling empowered to create it.
Welcome home.