Chewing Off Their Own Paw....

I was talking with an old friend today and part of the catching up was my divorce.  We discussed the complexities of marriage...how it's easy to lose your identity or try to force the other person into a tight box...so that they fit the picture of what you believe you both should be.   The conclusion...no matter what...it doesn't work that way...the very beauty that draws us to another is often the aspect that we attempt to change or expect to change once vows are exchanged....and in the end we resent that they have changed...we hate ourselves for changing....and we both stop seeing the forest for the trees that are in our way.....

And...so it was for my marriage...it was something wonderful once....and we each changed....one of us went one way and I the other...so then the question is...why didn't we change together?  There were many things that blocked our transitions...some were others....some were situations...some were us...

The literal division of our marriage came through infidelity...on his part...and for awhile it was easy to point my finger at him and say...why did you do this to our marriage?  But...then...as I was philosophizing with my friend today....it occurred to me that I tell my clients daily that we set things up for ourselves.  We ask for things and the universe complies.  Sometimes we feel trapped in our own lives and become desperate to escape.

Maybe it is the other person...maybe it is the conditions...maybe it is the discovery that we might be meant to do something else....not necessarily greater than the other person...but beyond what they are willing or capable of handling....and what do we do?   What do we do when we feel trapped...hemmed in...choking on what has become the banality of daily life?  For the mature and like-minded partners...we work through the rough patch...we find a common ground.  For the rest of us...most of us...we prepare for an exodus...

So...this left me...today...wondering out loud...how much of his leaving was just him and how much was me...what did I do to help the exodus of what was a beautiful thing at one time....do I not have animal instincts same as he?  Sometimes when an animal is caught in what it believes to be a trap....no matter what that trap looks like they will move to desperate measures to find release...

If two wolves are caught in a perceived trap...they might do it differently...but they will both escape by chewing off their own paw...