The toxic ex-wife or husband doesn't respect the boundaries of their relationship with their ex. They have never really let go of their mates and will hang on for dear life all the while undermining your ability to co-parent with them and move on to a new life.
Below are 7 tips and guidelines to help you recognize the actions of a toxic ex-wife or husband:
They Don’t Respect Your Privacy
Even though you are divorced they still feel they have a right to know what you are doing and who you are doing it with.
You will be bombarded with questions about your life. Are you seeing anyone? Where were you over the weekend?
Your children will be questioned about what you are doing with your life. The toxic ex-wife or husband has no problem using the children to find out information about you and your life.There is a difference between friendly interaction and an attempt to control, which is what the toxic ex wishes to do.
They Interfere with New Relationships
You’ve heard that old saying, “I don’t want you but I don’t want anyone else to have you.” You may find yourself divorced from someone who feels it is fine that they have moved on with their life but can’t stand the idea of you doing the same.
This sort of ex will do whatever it takes to sabotage any new relationship you form. Which, in turn, makes it difficult to form new romantic relationships because not many want to be in a relationship with someone who has a crazy ex meddling in the relationship.
They Will Use Your Children Against You
This type of toxic ex comes in different forms. They may try and turn your children against you by bad-mouthing you and your actions to the children. Or, they go as far as abandoning their own children to punish you for some wrongdoing they feel you have done.
They are willing to hurt their own children in an attempt to control you or get back at you in some way. This is a very dangerous and wounded individual.
They Will Blame You for Their Unhappiness
It doesn’t matter what they are unhappy about, you will get the blame. If they treat their children badly and cause their children to become angry, you will be blamed. If they lose their job, have car trouble or just can’t seem to catch a break, you will be blamed. You may go months at a time without seeing them or talking to them but, you can bet that if something goes wrong, you will be blamed.
They Will Try to Plant Seeds of Doubt
You will hear comments projecting failure on your part as a result of your inability to hold the marriage together. They will say and do whatever needed to undermine the goals you set for yourself. Some will go as far as predicting failure for the goals their children set. This is symptomatic of a manipulative and vengeful mindset and any comments from such a person should be ignored.
They Will Use You as an Excuse for Their Own Bad Behaviour
If they choose to ignore the needs of their children, you can bet it will be because of something you said or did. To be able to live with their own bad choices they have to alleviate the guilt by making it appear that they had no choice.
All their bad choices are made based on some wrong you did them...in their head, anyway.
They Will Use the Court System to Stay Engaged
They will defy court orders knowing you will take them back to court. This is a passive/aggressive way of keeping a connection to an ex-spouse. They get to use the court system to punish you and, to stay connected with you. This is one great reason for making sure you have a good settlement agreement before you sign your divorce papers.
Source: https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-recognize-a-toxic-ex-spouse-1103291
1. What Does "Letting Go" Mean?
According to Dr. Lawrence Wilson, "Letting go can be as simple as recycling or giving away old clothing. It can be as radical as leaving a long-standing marriage or friendship and changing one’s entire lifestyle. Whichever it is, it is always going to be somewhat painful. I mention this because the feeling of loss that accompanies any type of letting go is perfectly normal, and should not be confused. If one expects no pain, then when the pain of separation and letting go and abandonment hit, many people turn away rather than move forward boldly."
When in the throws of emotional pain, "letting go" can be an abstract concept that is hard to grasp. When going through my divorce I heard and read a lot about detachment and moving and all I read seemed fine and dandy. The only problem? No one bothered to tell me exactly how one "lets go" or "moves on" when suffering debilitating emotional pain.
This article is an attempt to give you what I so desperately needed during that time in my life. It is a guide of sorts that will help you get through the "letting go" process while also dealing with the negative emotions that accompany a divorce.
It is about building a new path for your life that is not influenced by the pain of a broken marriage or the anger and resentment toward a spouse who has left. Dreams, hopes and fears are led by beliefs. We marry with the belief that it is going to last forever. We build dreams for a future with another person based on our belief that, that person will not let us down.
Moving forward and detaching during the divorce process means we have to come to terms with the fact that the dreams and hopes we had are now based on self-defeating beliefs. I hear from a lot of clients such things as, "he should not have cheated" or, "she made a vow and promised to stay." These are thoughts or beliefs that keep us stuck in a situation we no longer have any control over.
They also create more conflict during a time when we need to be dealing with the "here and now" instead of our belief that the marriage should not be coming to an end. "Letting go" during the divorce process not only helps us focus on protecting our legal rights, it helps us rid ourselves of old dreams and hopes so we can start building new dreams and hopes for the future. We replace old beliefs with new beliefs!
2. Letting Go With Love
If you are the one who made the choice to leave the marriage it is important to remember the love you once felt for your spouse. Although you feel the marriage is over, no longer fulfills your needs you should strive to transition from married to single with compassion for the one you are leaving behind. Any transition is easier to make if it is done with compassion, kindness and love.
If you are the spouse who has been left, letting go with love will be more of a challenge. I'm not suggesting you not set boundaries with the bad behavior of the spouse who has left. I understand that it is hard to feel compassion for someone who has cheated on you. It is almost impossible to show love toward someone who is victimizing you through the Family Court System.
There will be times when you need to be assertive and set boundaries because you do have a right to be treated with respect. Whether you are the leaver or the one left behind, I suggest you always remember the old saying, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
The easiest path to "letting go with love" is to never do to someone else what you wouldn't want someone to do to you. Keeping this idea in mind throughout the emotional and legal process of divorce will lead to less conflict and in the end a higher sense of self-respect.
It is OK to be angry, it is not OK to stay anger. It is OK to feel resentment, it is not OK to stay resentful. If you need to set boundaries and exert your rights during the divorce process do so kindly and gently.
3. Letting Go of Toxic Anger
"Anger is a powerful and sometimes frightening emotion. It's also a beneficial one if it's not allowed to harden into resentment or used as a battering ram to punish or abuse people." Melody Beattie
The key to being able to use anger productively and in a beneficial way depends on how we react when feeling angry. The healthy way to react when angry is to become assertive. The unhealthy way to react is to become aggressive.
Being assertive when angry means you are able to express your needs and get those needs met without hurting others. I can hear you now, "wait a minute, my need is for him/her to stay in the marriage." And if that is what you are thinking then let me clear it up for you. When I talk of "needs" I am talking of those needs that are within your control. You don't have any control over whether or not your spouse chooses the marriage but you do have control over other issues and how you will be treated, how marital assets will be split and your co-parenting relationship with your ex.
Being assertive doesn't mean stomping your feet and digging in until you get your way. Your marriage is over, the need to keep your spouse in the marriage can lead to the unhealthy form of anger...aggression. Aggressive anger becomes pushy and demanding with no regard to what the other person feels they need or want.
Aggressive anger keeps you stuck, assertive anger helps you move forward with your life after divorce. If you are using your anger to get back at or punish your ex, you will be the one to pay in the end. If you are using your anger to make sure you are taken care of emotionally and legally during the process of divorce, you will reap the rewards of behaving in a healthy manner.
Whether it is divorce, the loss of a job, or the behaviors of a friend, things are going to happen in life that cause us anger. You have no control over the behaviors of others but you do have control over the way you respond to their behaviors. Controlling your anger and responding in an assertive way is the difference between your pain being short-term pain or long-term pain.
4. Letting Go of The Victim Role
I'll share a bit of personal information to make my point of how damaging it is to play the victim. My ex husband wanted a divorce, I didn't. I didn't fight him though because one of my long held beliefs about life has always been, "who wants to be with someone who doesn't want to be with them."
We got our divorce, I didn't ask for alimony or make any unreasonable demands legally. He was given liberal visitation rights with our children even though he rarely took advantage of what he was given. He also became angry, aggressively angry.
He had to be angry and point fingers at me and blame me for this, that and the other thing because he had been raised to believe that good men don't leave their families. So, instead of being able to say, "I no longer want to be married," he had to say to the world, "I had no choice, she was so bad I had to leave." That got him off the hook, when it came to being labeled a bad man BUT it also turned him into a victim and he hasn't played that role well. But have you ever known a victim who played it well?
My ex needed the approval of others and since he new leaving the marriage would get attention, he didn't want it to be attention that would reflect negatively upon him. He had to sell me out so that he could look good through and after the divorce process. He wasn't the victim though and neither was I, we were parties to a situation that was changing and nothing more.
No one needs to play the victim role in life to get the love and attention we all crave. In fact, playing the victim role will get us less of the love we so fervently desiring. Bad things happen to good people. Good people make choices that may be viewed by others as a bad choice. Regardless of what happens to us or what mistakes we feel we make, owning our ability to stand on our own two feet regardless is the only way to get what we most need out of life, love and positive attention.
The most disturbing thing I've observed about my ex since our divorce is that he is someone who stands around and watches life happen around him. He is a very passive man who lives life by going with the flow. I can look back now and see that he was this way during our marriage and nothing has changed since the divorce.
And that is who the victim is, a person who doesn't take pro-active steps to make life happen for them. Life is something that happens to them. The victim doesn't make things happen, they wait until things happen to them.
Being the "victim" of your spouse's infidelity or desire to leave the marriage is a sure fire way of missing out on all of life's possibilities. Why not choose to be the victor instead of the victim and take control of the direction your life moves in?
5. Letting Go of The Need to Control
When in emotional pain one might struggle to remain in control of the situation in an attempt to lessen their pain. If we are busy trying to control what is happening to us, we are not able to see what could happen to us if we were more open.
I know a woman whose husband wanted a divorce. She fought him every step of the way during the legal process of the divorce. It was her belief that marriage was forever and she would do anything in her power to keep him from breaking up their family.
Many years later this woman is still trying to control the situation based on her belief that marriage is forever. In a perfect world marriages last, that was not her world though and she can't give over control to the fact that her marriage ended.
Her ex husband has a new wife and has moved on with his life. She is now putting most of her energy into changing state divorce laws to make harder to get a divorce. She and I share the belief that divorce laws are too lenient, the difference between she and I is that for her it has become an all consuming movement. She has shifted her need to control whether or not her marriage survived to controlling the laws that allowed her husband to divorce her.
I often wonder what she would be doing with her life if she had let go of her need to control whether her husband continued to love her. Or whether or not she had control over the legal system that allowed her husband to no longer love her.
Are you trying to control what course your marriage is taking? Are you bent and determined to control how another person responds to or behaves toward you? Stop and think about what you would be doing differently with your life if you only let go of your need to control that person.
When you wake up tomorrow, let go of your need to be in control. Choose to do something that will bring enjoyment to your life. At the end of the day you won't be able to deny that you've had a better day, so much better than those days when you are trying to control and influence others.
6. Letting Go of What You Want
This is a big one, probably the most difficult step you will take when dealing with negative emotions during the divorce process. Letting go of what you want entails changing your own mind about such an issue as whether or not your marriage remains intact. You will be called on, during the divorce process to let go of time with your children, marital assets and much more.
We can want something so desperately that it can feel like an actual need. It is easy to confuse our wants with our needs, especially during the demise of a marriage. You are going to be called on to negotiate and compromise on the issues above. If you can't let go of what you want (need) you won't be able to focus on what is in your best interest during divorce settlement negotiations.
A mother who has been left for another woman may cringe at the thought of giving up time with her children to a cheating husband. She will fight tooth and nail to keep him from gaining shared custody or even liberal visitation.
In her mind, her children are better off with her than a cheating scoundrel. She wants her children and dismisses the idea that even though he cheated on her, this father loves and wants his children also. This mother will put what she wants above what her children want...time with their father and that is when standing up for what you want does harm to not only you but others.
Think of it this way, we don't often get what we want but if we give up the struggle, we can get something better. You may still want your marriage but if you don't give up the struggle to get what you want, you will never know what else life has to offer in it's place.
You may resent paying child support and wish to retain that money for yourself but which is more important, getting what you want or showing your children their needs are important to you, important enough that you are willing to give up a want so they can have?
You are going to sit down with divorce lawyers or mediators and come to an agreement with your spouse about how life will be dealt with once the divorce is final. Coming to an agreement that benefits all concerned isn't going to happen if you are not able to let go of some of what you "want."
Source: https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-let-go-of-emotions-during-the-divorce-process-1103277
Psychopath - Noun- A person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviors
Narcissist - Noun- A person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves
These two types of ex tend to be by far the worst kind of people, you can both be married to and therefor divorce from, as their lack of empathy and obsessive need to win and inflict pain on others, seems in many cases to have no end.
Almost unanimously when I hear of people taking their exes to court over and over, or divorces that drag out for years even decades, I already in my mind have a presumption that there is a good chance that these cases involve a person with one of these disorders.
Besides the obvious facts that divorce from these people are often, more dismal, and highly contentious, they are often harder to move on and recover from, here are a few of my tips on moving on from a psychopath or narcissistic ex.
1. Realize that in most cases, you would have been targeted by your ex for your giving or passive nature, generally a psychopath or narcissist are looking for the givers of the world to feed off, as emotional vampires do. You will have often been young, naive or have the persona that you want to believe the best in people, these traits in you are on the surface great traits, but to a narcissist or psychopath they make you the perfect prey. Forgive yourself for the lack of judgment in marrying these people, they often are extremely charismatic and won’t always reveal their true motives, until after marriage and or children, when they know it’s harder for you to escape. Once you can forgive yourself and see the pattern or red flag behaviors it will be easier for you to spot this in new people and break the cycle.
2. Understand that even though for many years you were probably emotionally abused and made to feel not worthy or enough, you are and always were enough, this projection on you is nothing about your worth and always everything about your ex’s tactics to control and hurt you. Your reaction to them would have been their drug of choice for many years, and this dynamic must be broken once and for all.
3. Let go of the fact that many people around your ex will probably buy into their dramatic victim playing, you may feel anger towards, your ex’s friends, family or work colleagues who have bought into the narcissist or psychopaths award winning dramatic acts, over the course of the divorce. Let this anger go, remember those people are now no longer a part of your life as your ex shouldn’t be, don’t blame them, as they can only see the side they have been shown by your ex. Anger is always a wasted and draining emotion you owe it to yourself to let it go.
4. Spend some time analyzing the true dynamics of what your relationship and marriage were, often in these abusive relationships we are so bam boozled by the gaslighting, playing victim, and emotional abuse inflicted we can’t see the wood for the trees. Once we have divorced and exited these relationships, it will take a while for you to begin to see things exactly how they are. If you are looking for clarification, there are a lot of great articles about narcissists and psychopaths on the internet, that will explain in more detail their behaviors and relationship dynamics, once you really understand what you are dealing with things seem clearer.
5. Seek support, whether on dreamsrecycled or join our Facebook group or any one of many online support groups, understand you are not alone, when you connect with other people who have been through or have recovered from these relationships you feel a lot less isolated and making new friends after a divorce is always an important part of moving on.
6. The top 1 thing everyone after divorce from a narcissist or psychopathy needs to do is disengage. I cannot stress how important this is, disengage fully and forever. These people are not fixable, and will never change. Expect at first the antisocial behaviors to escalate, but whatever they do to get a reaction do not fall for it. Stand firm in your disengagement, three-word text response only for child coordination, no emotion, no aggression, no anything, whatever you feel good bad or otherwise, never let them see your reaction. Eventually the abusive ex will start to look and then sadly find a new target/victim to emotionally feed off.
7. Lastly and in my mind most importantly work on yourself and self-love, your psyche and ego will often be shattered by this type of ex, the stronger we make our selves the less our ex will be able to hurt us, and the stronger and happier we will be in ourselves. Daily positive action, whether, in work, health, or goals gets us to this better place quicker. Throw in a huge heap of daily positive affirmation, and you will feel much more like your old self quicker.
The process of healing and moving on from any divorce won’t be easy, an abusive relationship, will be even harder, but rest assure you leaving these abusive unions, is a huge victory for you, and you should be applauded for having the courage to stand up and say enough is enough. Once you realize that in that act alone you have already won, the possibility to create a happy new life are endless. Having the strength to leave makes you unstoppable, so go out and create the best life you can, you may not feel like it at this moment but you are already halfway there.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/divorce-from-a-psychopath-or-narcissist-is-never-easy_us_59626a70e4b085e766b513b1
It’s time to stop bullying yourself into staying…
One of the reasons making the decision to divorce is so painful – even when you know that leaving your marriage is absolutely the right thing to do – is that you believe doing so is wrong or bad.
So instead of sitting down with your spouse and having an honest discussion about ending your marriage, you remain stuck in your head (and your unhappy marriage) wondering how to divorce without feeling guilty.
Guilt is an emotional anchor and can prevent you from taking the actions you need to take care of yourself.
It’s tremendously difficult to shed because it’s based on the expectations you have of yourself. Expectations like being an amazing parent to your kids, being true to your spiritual and religious beliefs, keeping the promises you make to your spouse and yourself, and the family and friends who love and respect you.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with these expectations – until you use them against yourself as a reason to feel guilty about even considering getting divorced, despite knowing the only way for you to feel true happiness is to leave your marriage..
So here you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Paralyzed and unable to move. Out of guilt.
But you can move forward, work through your guilt and gain the clarity and peace of mind you yearn for.
The first step is to work on your thoughts.
As you continue to adjust your thoughts by allowing yourself to gather and consider more information, your emotions will shift away from the guilt. You can then begin your divorce journey from a place of respect for your spouse – and for yourself – rather than from a place of guilt, shame and blame.
Here are five tips for how to divorce without feeling guilty – for anything.
Feeling guilty about what divorce would do to your kids?
First, it is extremely important to understand that the commonly accepted “fact” that divorce destroys children is a lie.
What makes divorce so hard for kids is how their parents react to and deal with it. If you and their other parent treat your children as messengers or spies, stop spending quality time with them because you’re too wrapped up in your life, stop showing them the love they deserve, cease giving them the structure and security they need, or talk poorly about their other parent when they are within earshot, your kids will certainly suffer.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t suffering because of your divorce. It means they are suffering because of your poor behavior and role modeling.
If you commit to being the best parent you can be and get the support you need to move past your divorce as completely as possible, you have nothing to feel guilty about.
Feeling guilty about betraying your spiritual and/or religious beliefs?
This type of guilt is usually based on fear of reprisal from On High. And this was something I really struggled with when I got divorced.
In virtually all religious traditions The Deity is forgiving and teaches love. If this is true of your religious/spiritual view, then you know that others can be and are forgiven for their mistakes.
And you’re no different from any other person, you make mistakes and you can be forgiven without the requirement to continue to feel guilty once you’ve asked for forgiveness. Even better, you take the time to learn the lessons from your experiences so you can move forward with enriching your spiritual and religious life.
And, seriously, if God can forgive you, who are you to not forgive yourself?
Feeling guilty about breaking your promise to your spouse?
The fact is that people grow and change over time. You and your spouse are both different from the people who promised to live together for the rest of your lives.
And chances are you’ve both neglected your marriage over the years.
The best thing you can do now is acknowledge to yourself and to your spouse your own part in the demise of your marriage and apologize for it. And since this is the best you can do, there’s no reason to continue to beat yourself up for it, since castigating yourself won’t change anything.
This is another opportunity for you to learn and change how you’ll do things in the future.
Feeling guilty about breaking your promise to yourself?
Again, you’ve changed over the years and so has your spouse.
The truth is that you’ve always don’t your best given the circumstances you were in and the knowledge you had at that time. That doesn’t mean you were perfect or the ideal mate for your spouse, and that’s OK.
The promises we make to ourselves are the best we know how to make at the time to provide us with as much joy, as little pain, and as solid a sense of integrity as possible. As we mature, what makes us feel good about our lives changes – sometimes dramatically.
Sometimes the only way to maintain personal integrity is to break a promise you made to yourself when you were a different person and to then let the guilt of having to break the promise dissipate.
Feeling guilty because of how your family and friends might react (or are reacting)?
You’ve probably heard the adage “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
This sentiment is an important one to remember as you continue your divorce journey.
The people who truly love you want the best for you and sometimes their expectations and biases can get in the way. And when that happens they begin their efforts to induce guilt in you.
When family or friends attempt to send you off on a guilt trip, their words and behavior say much more about them than about you.
And that sometimes they turn out to be people who don’t matter in your life (at least in the moment).
These tips regarding how to divorce without feeling guilty all focus on how YOU think about and interpret things.
That’s because you need to change your thoughts and perspectives before you can start releasing the emotional anchor of guilt.
As you continue to remind yourself of these ideas, you’ll start feeling more compassionate toward yourself and your soon-to-be-ex.
As your compassion grows, your guilt will diminish and you’ll be able to move forward and end your marriage with respect and love for everyone concerned – including yourself.
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/divorce/how-to-end-a-miserable-marriage-without-feeling-guilty-at-all-wcz/
