AboutPhilip Belove, Ed.D. Expertise Divorce is the beginning of a life review process. For many people, it`is the first intentional decision they make about their lives. The transition into the next stage of life is difficult at first, but it gets easier. The questions I can help you with: What happened? How do I take care of our children? How do I get over my anger? How do I plan a future for myself?
Experience I am Philip Belove, psychologist and coach. My specialty is helping people do their midlife transformation work, a psychological project that creates a foundation for happy and satisfying second half of life.
Midlife Work, because it involves so much careful attention to inner truth, is notoriously stressful on marriages and on dating relationships.
The challenges of the midlife project are echoed in the typical questions asked me as a dating-at-midlife expert:
?Learning to reconcile what you say with what you do. This challenge is echoed in questions like: Why does he say this when he does that? What is really happening?
?Learning to create your own dreams instead of being the victim of someone else's. This challenged is echoed in questions like these: How do I say that I don't want to xyz? I've been lying about some things and what should I do now?
?Learning to live a life that suits you. This challenge produces questions like Is what I'm doing normal? What if my kids think I'm crazy? How can I say that this is starting to bother me?
A person doing Midlife Transformation Work needs to develop 1) A Working Vision, 2) Skills and Strategies to realize that vision, and 3) External sources of support for the project. My role for people is to be part of the support system. I help people clarify their visions, develop the strategies and skills they need, and I help them review their progress.
Education/Credentials M.A. Counseling Psychology
Ed.D. Counsulting Psychology (Family Therapy)
Question I feel so alone at times. I don't attend church presently but I do believe in God and I love Him with my whole heart. About a year and a half ago, my husband, who was 60 at the time, left me for a younger woman..the same age as our oldest son. We've been married for 36 years and we have 3 grown children and 4 grandchildren and 1 more on the way. He had been seeing her for several months but I never clued in, until around Nov. 2006.He finally admitted to it and I asked him to leave on Dec. 1, told him to think about things. He decided to leave me and wasn't interested in reconciling. I was debastated, to say the least. I had just lost my mom, and almost lost my dad who fell and broke 8 rids; our oldest son's marriage split; I was having health problems.
I had to take him to court as he wasn't financially supporting me. The last thing I want to do is divorce him as I still love him SO much and I know that God can turn this whole thing around, but in the natural, it doesn't "look" like he wants to reconcile. My lawyer suggested that we go back to court and divorce and get a better financial support from him.
In the meantime, I lost a breast to cancer and I'm still being treated for cancer, and I have fibromyalgia (lots of pain!). My lawyer got a proposal from his lawyer stating that he can't support me in any way as he has too many bills to pay. I have no other means of income, except what he gives me weekly. This woman he moved in with has 5 children, so it's no wonder he claims he can't support me, but the law says he "has" to. He's also been secretly working for a man on a farm, but I never got one penny from that. He lies and lies to cover up. I don't know what to do. I cry every day as I miss him so much. I live alone and I'm so lonely.
When we talk on the phone, he's very rude with me...he attacks me verbally, like I'm the one who did wrong. It seems that he wants to be rewarded for what he's done to me and our family? To this very day, he's hardly contacted our children and grandchildren. He told me that he's going to spend "quality" time with his new family..and that's what he's been doing. They been seen all over the place eating out, shopping, dancing/drinking...etc.
I can't tell you how it hurts me to see him hate me so much!! What hurts more is he's turned his back on his own children/grandchildren..his own flesh and blood!! How can anyone turn his back on his own?? I don't understand this man. He loved the Lord and we raised our children in church, to love God and obey his Word. We weren't religious... we stressed on a "relationship" with Jesus, not to a bunch of rules.
I don't know if I'm doing right by divorcing him? I don't want to pay for his freedom for one thing. I have to place this in God's hands on a daily basis...sometimes even more. I don't want to lose him, but then I have to ask myself "do I really want him back after what he's done and is still doing to me and our children?" I don't know.... I know I can forgive him...but I don't think I could ever trust him again.
Please, tell me what you think. What would be the best thing I could do? My heart is still broken into a million pieces as I still love him, but him rejecting me is SO painful! He's now just turned 61 and she's 37 and it "looks" like they're still going strong. Her husband died a few years back and she has quite a reputation. I never thought my husband was interested in living with a woman like that. Not to judge her... I just find it hard to accept. I am praying for her as well.
Please help me clear my mind!! I can't think staight as my pain is getting in the way. Thank you and God bless you, for taking the time to read this!!!
Charlotte
Answer Well first of all, start going to church. You need the community. You need to be around people who appreciate you and enjoy you. Everyone who gets a divorce needs to do this. You need it times ten.
Second, you need to give serious thought to how bitter you are. You are fully entitled to be angry and resentful. You will have to forgive but you won’t be able to forgive until you have also confessed to yourself, to God, and to one other person the darkness and anger you hold in your heart. Your forgiveness with be only as cleansing as your candor. If you pretend you are less bitter than you are, you will not receive the relief you need.
Also, it’s possible that your own anger, which you might find confusing and frightening, is keeping many people at a distance from you.
Also you need to have a prayer group.
Every one of the terrible things you’ve mentioned in an enormous burden on your soul and your body. You have to be very careful or you will find that it is making your physical symptoms even worse.
I understand that you love him SO much but he may well be lost to you. Best for you to assume he is also lost to himself. The best way to handle your loneliness is to find a community of friends through church.
Take your lawyer’s advice and insist on support from him. It’s best that he be held responsible for how he’s conducted his life. You owe this to yourself, to your children and grandchildren. You don’t have to understand him or what he did. Your first priority is taking care of your own..
Your wish to not “Pay for his freedom” is a wise one. You can’t even consider having him back until he has been held responsible for what he’s done.
You have to be strong for your children and grandchildren and yourself. Let me say it again. You have to be strong and that means you can not extend yourself for him. He is lost. He has tried to escape his life and his reality. You can not do things which make it easier for him to live out this lie.
