When Divorce Hurts Too Long


by Mary Johnson-Gerard - Date: 2007-01-07 - Word Count: 534 Share This!

This article is about a survivor of Post Marital Stress (PMS) disorder who created a new meaning for the famous PMS acronym. This was accomplished many years ago when she was trying to humorously describe the feelings she was going through when her first husband decided to divorce her to be with his secretary.

Her experience with the real PMS - pre-menstrual stress was always characterized by feelings of depression and irrational thoughts about being hurt or mistreated. These thoughts often morphed into full-blown hurtful rages, which when over, left her with feelings of shame, guilt and remorse.

The interesting part of this story is how the feelings and symptoms of pre-menstrual stress were recognized to be uncannily similar to the symptoms exhibited during and after the divorce. Thus a new meaning for PMS - Post Marital Stress disorder was born. The big difference between the two conditions was that Post Marital Stress did not come for a week and then go away for three. It came and stayed for seven years.

There may be a question forming in your mind right now and it might be .."Aren't all of those feelings appropriate and expectable given the circumstance of a divorce?" The answer is YES. There is an undeniable human need to grieve and mourn the death of a relationship, of a family, and of a way of being. This grieving process is exactly what gets human through the pain and onto the other side of it. Although everyone deals with grief and loss differently and at a different pace, most people move on after a divorce within 2-3 years.

This is a bit hard to quantify precisely because humans are unique. The key element to look for over those two to three years is forward progress. Many people who have gone through a divorce get stuck and do not make forward progress. They continue to grieve the lose of their spouse, their family as it had been, their life as it had been, and their lot in life. How could this horrible thing have happen to them. Even more than just getting stuck, they veer off and go down a path of bitterness, anger, victimization, and martyrdom. When this occurs they have a full blown case of Post Marital Stress disorder.

The creator of the new meaning for PMS, has developed a process to help someone with PMS get unstuck and move on with their life. This healing process is based on these truths:

• much of our sense of self or self-esteem is set in stone before we reach kindergarten
• many of us have an immature understanding of love, and
• there really is an inner child that remembers early life and is effecting how adults behave

The healing process leads one to rethink their personal belief system related to each truth and decide if there is a need to adjust their current belief system. It also takes the learner through a three step process of integrating these truths to create a new truth or truths.

The process utilizes the pain people in PMS feel to create their change or healing. Another truth, not mentioned above, is that … until those with PMS feel the pain in a healthy way, the pain will not end.


Related Tags: relationships, love, marriage, divorce, self-esteem, infidelity, divorce recovery, inner-child

Mary Johnson-Gerard and her husband Walt have operated a home internet business for over 8 years. When their long-time hobby of collecting items from the 50s to the 70s started to run them out of house and home, they decided to try their hand at selling on E-bay. After 8 years and over 2,000 items sold, they have written an E-Book that describes 9 steps to successful selling on E-Bay.

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