Freedom is being able to be fully yourself. By working through the rebuilding blocks, you are building a more fulfilled life and more meaningful relationships in your future. You’re becoming free to choose your path to a self-actualized life as a single person or in another love relationship.
I felt many times in my marriage that I was trapped in a prison of love. It was hard to be myself when there were so many demands and expectations placed upon me. When I first separated, I felt even worse. But now I have found that I can fly. I can be me. I feel as if I left the chrysalis and have become a butterfly. I feel so free.
—Alice
Wow! Would you look at that view from here on top of the mountain!
After this page, we want you to stop reading for a moment and take time to go on a fantasy trip. Imagine being on top of a mountain with a view of other peaks and valleys below. Smell the pine trees; let the clear, bright, high-altitude sun warm your skin. Notice the clouds lower than you are, and feel the cool breeze blowing off the snow glaciers. Notice how far away the horizon is out over the plains and how far you can see. Think back about the climb. What was the most enjoyable and interesting portion for you? What was the most difficult part? The most painful? Can you identify the many changes that have taken place within you? Have you really reached the top emotionally, or are you only at the top in your mind? Think about how it feels at the top, having worked so hard in your climb of personal growth.
Take as much time as you want with this fantasy before you go on reading. When you have thought about your fantasy carefully, go ahead and continue reading.
On the singleness portion of the trail, we hope you found not only that it feels good to be single, but that it may have been the most productive lifestyle for you during the climb. Now you are ready to consider whether you want to begin to develop love relationships again.
How did the process of working your way through these rebuilding blocks affect the way you deal with others? The way you react to loneliness, grief, rejection, guilt, anger, and love significantly determines how you handle your daily life and your interactions with those around you.
If you really work at the rebuilding process, overcoming each stumbling block—including the ones you’ve had a lot of trouble with—you’ll be able to enter into another love relationship (if that’s your choice) and make it more productive than the last one. You’ll be prepared to meet your own needs, as well as the needs of your loved one, much better than you have in the past. Rebuilding not only helps you to survive the crisis, it also develops your life skills for living alone or in a new love relationship.
Perhaps you are a widow or widower who was satisfied and happy in your lost relationship. Research indicates that widowed people who elect to marry again have remarriages that are more likely to last. Adjusting to being widowed is a very painful and difficult process, thus most of the blocks in our rebuilding model are applicable and helpful to those going through that crisis. Many widowed people, however, do not have to deal with one of the toughest parts of the adjustment: a previous unhappy love relationship.
We’ve included a special section in the book (appendix D) addressing how the rebuilding model can be applied to the needs of those who are dealing with the pain and challenges of widowhood.
For many people, the climb is so difficult that they feel like quitting before reaching the top. Over the years, we’ve heard countless people say, “I want to stop climbing and take a rest! I’m tired of growing.” And many do stop along the way because they are tired or frightened, or feel unable to handle the changes. At such a point, it’s time to sit and rest, get your energy back, then keep on climbing. The view at the top is worth it.
Support, hope, and a belief that you can make it are helpful. But it’s up to you in the end. Probably the best evidence of the difficulty of the climb is the small percentage of people at the top. Do you have the self-discipline, desire, courage, and stamina to make it?
Now comes the “truth in packaging” disclaimer: We cannot promise that you will be happier, or wealthier, or more fulfilled if you complete the climb. We can assure you that there are fewer turkeys and more eagles at this altitude, but we can’t promise that you will find an eagle for yourself (except when you look in the mirror!). The plain hard fact is that you will not necessarily find another “just right” person with whom to create a lasting relationship. What you will find is that you like yourself better, you can enjoy being alone and single, and the people you meet up here will be pretty special—after all, they made this tough climb too!
It is true that there are fewer people here from which to choose. An awful lot of folks just did not make it this far—indeed, many are still at the base camp, playing social games, hiding behind emotional walls, and finding excuses not to undertake the climb. The lack of numbers here may make the process of finding new friends and potential lovers more difficult. But relationships with others at the top are such better quality that quantity is not so important. When you’re really at the top, giving off those good vibrations, there are many people attracted to you. (In fact, you may need to be careful—as an eagle now, you look really good!)
Actually, the top of the mountain is not as lonely as parts of the trail were on the way up. And if you are still feeling lonely, maybe you haven’t reached the top emotionally. (Have you gone through the book too fast?)
You may get discouraged at times when you realize that the old patterns have crept back and you really haven’t changed as much as you thought. Do you normally put on your right or left shoe first? Try to reverse your routine next week and put on the other shoe first. We’ll bet you forget and go back to the old way. It’s difficult to make changes in your daily living habits, and even harder to make changes in your personality. Keep up your determination and you will make it. Don’t get discouraged—it may come slowly!
You may greatly fear the unknown future. You’re not alone! It may be learning to be single; it may be not knowing what to expect or what is expected of you. How do you feel the first time you drive or ride in a city that is unfamiliar to you? Confused, lost, uncertain? How about the way you feel the first time you go to a singles party? There is a certain amount of comfort in the known. (Your old relationship may look good, even if it was like living in hell.)
We doubt you’ll want to go back to your old relationship at this point, but if you do, it will be for more positive reasons than fear of the unknown future.
We’ve talked a great deal during the climb up the mountain about the importance of learning to be single. Let us get in a last word about the importance of relationships. You can become whole by emotionally working hard at it, but we believe there is a part of each of us that needs another person to help us become completely fulfilled. A love relationship is more than icing on the cake, but that analogy seems to fit: the cake is whole without icing, but ever so much sweeter with it! We think each of us needs another person to help us become completely fulfilled and to make life sweeter!
When you were in the pits of the crisis, you gave no thought to plans and goals for the future. Part of your grief was concerned with loss of your future, since you had to give up the plans and goals you had in that love relationship. But when you came out of the pits, you began looking to the future and making plans again.
Ernie, who worked in a hospital, told his seminar group one evening, “It’s like the process in the hospital psych wards. There’s a crafts room where the patients spend time. When patients are first admitted, they have no energy to work on crafts. But when they begin to be really interested in crafts, this is a good indication that they’re ready to be discharged. I felt ready to be discharged from the divorce pits when I started making plans for the future!”
Research has found that recently separated people, and especially dumpees, are very much “living in the past,” thinking mostly about how it “used to be.” Farther along in the process, people stop living in the past and start living in the present, enjoying the sunsets. We hope by now you have stopped living in the past and are living in the present and making plans for your own future.
Recently separated people, and again especially dumpees, are very dependent upon others. As people continue to grow in the process, they gain more independence. We hope you have found a good balance between dependence and independence.
As we’ve made clear, children need to work their way through the rebuilding blocks too, ultimately acquiring the freedom to be themselves, to be free from all the unhealthy needs that control so many people. They need to be free to choose marriage when the time for that comes in the future. Quite frequently, children of divorce say that they will not get married because they saw how devastating divorce was to their parents. Children need freedom of choice in what they will do with their lives, without feeling unduly influenced to either follow or reject their parents’ pattern.
All children are not the same, nor do they have the same needs. So even though we generalized a great deal about children in each of the rebuilding blocks chapters, remember that each child is a unique human being and that it is as important for them as it is for adults that they be respected and treated as such. Their differing needs depend upon age, sex, cultural background, number of children in the family, health, availability of extended family and friends and neighbors, physical environment, conditions at school, and the nature of their parents’ breakup, as well as the individual personal characteristics of each child.
Kids are stronger than you think and can grow through the rebuilding process right along with you. We encourage you to assist them on the journey, and if you’re serious about wanting to do so, you’ll find material in appendix A helpful in guiding you.
We thought you might like one last self-assessment to help you see how you are doing in your personal growth. You may wish to check yourself now and occasionally in the future—say, once a month, or at least in two months, six months, a year.
This final checklist includes some important aspects of personal growth that you need to be aware of in order to keep growing. Most of these are areas we’ve talked about as we climbed the mountain together, and you may want to go back and review them in the book.
Well, how are you doing? Are you satisfied with your “report card”? Bring it out again from time to time. It will help you keep track of your progress and remind you of some of the important concepts we’ve talked about in this climb.
What is this freedom we all seem to be striving for?
Freedom is something you find inside yourself. And you find it by becoming free from unmet needs that control you, such as the need to avoid being alone, the need to feel guilty, the need to please a critical parent, or the need to get free from your own “parent within you.”
The butterfly at the top of the mountain stands for the freedom to fly and to land where you choose. You can become free of the bonds that have kept you from being the person you would like to be, the person you were meant to be, the person you are capable of being.
Your worst enemies are those within you, and it is those demons from which you need to free yourself.
Of course, your best friends are inside you as well. Climbing the mountain not only gives you the freedom of choice to seek happiness—either alone or in another love relationship—it also gives you the freedom to be yourself. And that makes the climb of personal growth worthwhile.
It’s tough for us to end this book, because we know it represents just a beginning for you. The thousands of people who have gone through the rebuilding process have taught us a great deal about what it means to climb the mountain. We hope you won’t put this book away on a shelf, but that you’ll use it as often as you need to as a tool to help you rebuild. Share it with a friend, or perhaps give your friend his or her own copy.
Most of all, we wish you success in your continuing personal growth. It’s a lifelong challenge!