My divorce has been the hardest and most defining event of my life, which is why I am devoting a short series of articles to talk about it, and expand my introduction in the most meaningful way I can think of.
There are many things I went through before being ready to move forward with my life after divorce, but this article isn’t about those things. Today I specifically wanted to touch on some things I learned after the dust settled, so to speak. When I was ready to progress, but didn’t quite know where to start.
If you are hoping to read about how I went backpacking in Europe, or went on some crazy adventure to find myself, then this probably isn’t the article for you. This is more of an exploration of my thought process, and some of the things I experienced and discovered that led me to my own personal self-discovery. I hope that some might find it helpful.
Postmortem
One thing I remember right after the divorce was a very strong desire to analyze the whole thing in depth. I would find myself thinking a lot about what I could have done differently, and what exactly went wrong. I also thought a lot about my ex-wife, and the way she was, her personality, and why we couldn’t make it work. It was basically me laying out our 7-year marriage, and doing a post-mortem to make sense of it all.
In hindsight, I can see that allowing myself to go over these things was a healthy process. I didn’t stop at just thinking about these things either. I was looking up every article I could find about divorce, mental health, the effects of divorce on children and so on. I think in part, I just needed to know for sure that I had made the right decision, and that there wasn’t anything else I could or should have done to fix things.
Exploration of Personalities
My postmortem exploration naturally led me to the next phase. As I had stated above, I was looking into what made my ex-wife tick, personality-wise. Well, this also made me start asking, what makes me tick personality-wise?
When I was married, I had, had the belief that you each bring a different personality to the table, but that over time, you bend and mold each of your personalities in order to be the best you can be for the other person. It seemed to make sense at the time, but living in this new post-divorce world, I started to question if that was actually a good philosophy.
One of the hardships I had faced during marriage, was that my ex was very glad to bend and shape my personality to make me (in what was her view) better. This involved, not only promoting things she wanted me to be, but also cutting out the things that were “unacceptable” to her. The problem I found, besides that it seemed I was the only one trying to make changes, was that as hard as I tried to be everything that she wanted, I could never completely fulfill the expectation. Slowly over time, I found myself losing my sense of identity, until eventually, I was just a zombie. I felt like a chess piece in a game that was my wife’s well planned out version of what life was supposed to be like.
During my postmortem, I started to wonder if maybe changing myself wasn’t the best idea. Maybe, the key wasn’t to try and be the best person that my wife or I could construct, but maybe it was to try and be the best version of myself, and to eventually find someone who could accept the full me. This led me to looking into personality types, and personality tests online. I took several of the tests, and gained many insights by doing this. Not every personality profile or test is the most accurate, but even taking the less accurate ones was helpful, since I could pick it apart, and see what was, and wasn’t a fit for me.
I think the most helpful personality type system I explored was one called Myers Briggs. In all honesty, this system isn’t endorsed by professionals in the mental health field, in fact, many therapists and counselors turn their nose up at it, but I have personally found it to be very accurate and insightful, and extensive, though not perfect.
As I started exploring my own personality, I realized that many of the things my ex-wife wanted me to shed, were actually things I quite enjoyed about myself, and were fundamental parts of who I was. For example, I am a very creative person. I like to write, play music, work with my hands… She didn’t see these things as useful, (except for occasionally working with my hands) or viable to what she considered to be respectable and realistic career options. She also didn’t see how it would benefit her, or our family, so she became very hostile toward any project or casual hobby I started that involved these things.
What About the Bad Traits?
It was easy to convince myself that it was a good idea to embrace my good personality traits, but what about the bad ones? Should I accept myself fully? The good and the bad? One example of this dilemma was that I felt like I was a bit too much of a pushover. I mean I obviously let my ex walk all over me, and I let her change me, right?
Well, as I delved deeper into my study of personalities, I discovered that it was pretty well accepted that personalities don’t change. In other words, I tested as an ENFJ (under the Myers Briggs Assessment), and according to experts, at my core, I would always be an ENFJ. This got me to thinking, if it’s true that no one can change their personality type, then maybe the traits that go with those personalities aren’t inherently bad?
I started to look deeper at my “bad traits”, and I started to look at what my motivations were for acting the way I did. I started to ask myself the hard questions. Such as, what was my motivation for being a pushover?
I started to realize that I didn’t give in to my ex’s demands, because I was weak or afraid, or even a pushover. I did it because I personally put a tremendous value on having harmonious relationships in my life. I put value on selflessness and giving as much as I can to make my relationships work, because I also greatly value commitment and loyalty. I became a pushover because I thought that it was the only route I could take that would possibly be able to salvage our marriage. I allowed myself to try to become what she wanted, because I didn’t think we could make it work any other way.
During this personal evaluation, I learned that my personality traits weren’t inherently bad, but that I was expressing them in an unhealthy way, that resulted in me acting like a pushover. I learned that repressing traits that I thought were bad, wasn’t the solution, but that accepting, exploring and developing them was the answer. If I did this then I could avoid making the same mistakes in the future, because I would learn to express myself in a more mature and developed way.
The Odds Are Stacked
Another discovery I had made during my research at this time was that the odds of having a successful marriage were actually much lower in a 2nd marriage, and then oddly, got better upon a 3rd attempt. Well I definitely didn’t want to make the same mistake again, or wait for a 3rd attempt, but I did see myself, most likely getting married again in the future.
I started to consider why 2nd marriages might fail more often than 1st or even 3rd marriages. I started to think about my remarried friends and family members, and I realized that many of them had ended up marrying someone very similar to their ex. I’m not saying this is the reason that most 2nd marriages fail, but this was my own personal observation.
When I was younger, in high school and college, I tended to date a lot of different types of girls. My friends would often comment, that they could never guess who I might bring with me to a school dance, or out on a date, because they couldn’t tell that I had a particular “type” that they could pin down. I kind of prided myself in this, and I thought to myself that I could get along with any personality type, so I never really pinned myself down to having one specific type or preference with the girls I would date.
When my ex and I had gotten engaged, I knew that she and I had very different personalities, and even my friends could tell, to the point that a couple of my friends practically warned me against moving forward with the relationship. I shrugged it off, and went ahead with it. I was confident that we could make it work despite our differences.
After going through what I did, and learning the things I had been looking into, I decided that maybe being a little pickier might not be a bad idea. As I explored the different personality types, I forced myself to choose traits that I liked better than others, and I categorized them (in my head) according to importance. For example; I didn’t want to be so picky that I wouldn’t date a girl if she didn’t get all my pop-culture references, but I did want someone who generally had a good sense of humor.
As I pieced these things together and looked back on previous relationships, I realized that maybe I had, had a type all along. After analyzing the girls I had dated in previous times, I found that the ones of whom I was more infatuated than others, typically had more of the traits I just discovered that I preferred.
Compatibility
Through my research, I discovered something else that seems very simple, but can be complicated when you get involved with someone. That is, that compatibility can have a profound effect on how well a relationship works. Don’t get me wrong, I think that 2 very different people that are committed to each other, are able to make compromises, and communicate clearly, can make it work, but I think by and large, that 2 people that are highly compatible, will have a much easier time making it work, because the way to make it work will come much more naturally. There is less to figure out, if you have compatibility. Being with someone who isn’t compatible, is like trying to learn a new language, but in some ways even harder, because when dealing with personalities, the language the other person speaks may never make sense to you conceptually.
Moving Forward
The things I have addressed thus far may not be helpful to everyone, but they were very important and helpful in my own personal journey. I found that post-divorce, I was actually able to be a lot more decisive and confident than I had been even before the divorce. I felt a lot more confident that I knew who I was, and what I was looking for. This not only applied to my dating life, but also to other aspects of my personal life as well as my professional endeavors.
I did end up marrying again, and after a 4-year relationship, my wife and I are extremely happy and have a much better relationship than I could have possibly imagined. I hope the same success for you in whatever goals and endeavors you undertake as you navigate your life after divorce.
Conclusion
Thank you for taking the time to read! Please feel free to check out the other article in this series, which gives more of a narrative account of my experiences, and is the first part of my story. you can find it at this link: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@livelaughcreate/a-father-s-journey-after-divorce-pt-1-my-extended-introduction