[Still]

A CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO SPOUSAL ABANDONMENT
Submitted By A Covenant Keeper


When a spouse chooses to walk away from a marital commitment, the
abandoned spouse can choose to put Christian principles to work
amidst the hurt and the pain by embracing and following this pledge.


1. I choose to honor my vows and commitments as a declaration of my
belief in the authority of scripture and as an expression of my own
conscience. I do not do so as a way of trying to control my spouse,
nor does this represent unrealistic wishful thinking. I do so in
order to maintain my own integrity before God.


2. I commit to pray that God's spirit would be active in my life
guiding me in all things - especially when I am confused and hurt;
and I continue to pray regularly for my spouse that God's Spirit
would be alive in his/her life.


3. I choose not to criticize my spouse for his/her actions but I
elect to concentrate on how God may be working in circumstances and
situations that I cannot see. I choose to identify a few close
friends to whom I can pour out my heart, but otherwise, I always
choose to speak positively about my mate.


4. I acknowledge that no matter how hard I try, there is so much that
is beyond my control. In fact, the harder I try, the more I realize
that I cannot control anything or anybody—except myself. So I choose
to let go and let God. Instead of interfering in the life of the
other, I work on myself, to search my own heart and to let God use
this experience to point out my dependence on Him.


5. I commit to demonstrating the meaning of faithfulness and family
loyalty to our children so that they have a model upon which they
can build their own marriage — realizing that the selfish decisions I
might make could harm them even further and that the pattern I set
will have an effect for generations.


6. I promise to do all that I can to maintain contact with my spouse's
relatives and our mutual friends while recognizing that they too may
have their own dilemmas and hurts. Without imposing myself unduly, I
aim to show kindness to them even when seemingly ignored or
forgotten.


7. I choose to maintain as many of my pre-abandonment patterns as
possible rather than running away. I want to show constancy in the
midst of trial and hurt so that I can deal with my life in an orderly
and prayerful way. Rather than becoming isolated or difficult to be
around, I work hard to be sensitive to the needs of others in order
to be a true friend in anticipation that I might earn their
friendship in return.


8. I choose not to dwell on unkind remarks or well-meaning but
misplaced advice, but I will listen closely to God's Spirit in my
heart and the advice of trusted friends. I choose not to develop
animosity towards those who hurt me but instead to focus on those
who help me.


9. I elect to fill my mind with positive and uplifting thoughts and
music so that my attitudes and moods will be more stable and others
around me will be uplifted. I acknowledge that discouragement and
doubts will come my way, but I bring these feelings to God and ask
Him to deal with them and lift me up and out of the pit by showing
me the good things around me, that in self-pity I too easily forget.


10. I recall regularly that God wants me to bring my requests to Him,
but my final prayer is, "Not my will, but Thine be done." I rest in
peace and calmness knowing that He is in control. I walk in humbleness
of spirit but possess an inner confidence from knowing that I am in His
will.


www.covenantkeepersinc.org

[Bewildered]

my friend sent this poem to me and wanted to share .. inb my opinion it serves as a powerful reminder or idea that we are what our thoughts are made of. What we consistently and persist in thinking, be it good or bad, sooner or later our thoughts will manifest into reality.

Mind is the master power that molds and makes,
And we are Mind, and evermore we take
The tool of thought, and shaping what we will,
Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills,
We think in secret, and it comes to pass -
Our world is but our looking glass.

B x

[Bewildered]

Another one I love ...........

Letting Go

    To let go doesn't mean to stop caring;
    It means I can't do it for someone else.
    To let go is not to cut myself off...
    It's the realization that I can't control another...
    To let go is not to enable,
    but to allow learning from natural consequences.
    To let go is to admit powerlessness,
    which means the outcome is not in my hands.
    To let go is not to try and change or blame another,
    I can only change myself.
    To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
    To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
    To let go is not to judge,
    but to allow another to be a human being.
    To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
    but to allow others to affect their own outcomes.
    To let go is not to be protective,
    It is to permit another to face reality.
    To let go is not to deny, but to accept.
    To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue,
    but to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
    To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
    but to take each day as it comes and cherish the moment.
    To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone,
    but to try to become what I dream I can be.
    To let go is not to regret the past,
    but to grow and live for the future.
    To let go is to fear less and love more.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Bewildered]

Sent to me by a friend:

Experts: Middle Age is Depressing
According to a comprehensive study of data from 80 countries, researchers at Britain's Warwick University and America's Dartmouth College have confirmed what people in their forties have known for years, middle age is indeed truly miserable. Researchers discovered that "for both men and women the probability of depression peaks around 44 years of age. In the US they found a significant difference between men and women with unhappiness reaching a peak at around 40 years of age for women and 50 years of age for men. "University of Warwick Economist Professor Andrew Oswald said:
"Some people suffer more than others but in our data the average effect is large. It happens to men and women, to single and married people, to rich and poor, and to those with and without children. Nobody knows why we see this consistency."
"What causes this apparently U-shaped curve, and its similar shape in different parts of the developed and even often developing world, is unknown. However, one possibility is that individuals learn to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses, and in mid-life quell their infeasible aspirations. Another possibility is that cheerful people live systematically longer. A third possibility is that a kind of comparison process is at work in which people have seen similar-aged peers die and value more their own remaining years. Perhaps people somehow learn to count their blessings."
"It looks from the data like something happens deep inside humans. For the average person in the modern world, the dip in mental health and happiness comes on slowly, not suddenly in a single year. Only in their 50s do most people emerge from the low period. Perhaps realizing that such feelings are completely normal in midlife might even help individuals survive this phase better."
Scientists have only recently begun to tackle middle age issues with the same vigor as the physiological changes of other periods. The changes of puberty and adolescence have been well documented, in part because the changes are so evident--even on an individual level. However only through studying large numbers of people, as was this study, do the
dramatic patterns of middle age appear. Charting happiness shows a "U-shaped curve" with relative highs at the beginning of life (the joys of youth) and at the end of life (the golden years), but with a very clear low period during middle age.
The research was aimed at identifying unhappiness patterns but it was not structured to pinpoint causes leaving researchers to hypothesize why midlife is so darn tough. One of theories is that middle age begins with the realization that one won't achieve all of one's aspirations and then ends after "seeing their fellow middle-aged peers begin to die" therefore kicking off a period where they value their own remaining years and embrace life once more. If true, this would explain why people who express gratitude and people who are goal-oriented (especially so-called "self-concordant" goals) generally record higher happiness levels.
Another contributing cause could be the large number of life changes that can happen during this period. In the span of just a decade individuals can experience empty nest, elder care/loss of parent, divorce/marital issues, forced job change, financial pressure, menopause/andropause, and possibly serious illness. This is also the time that looking in the mirror can highlight the effects that the passage of time has had on our appearance. We might have the psychological strength to handle one or two of these but the cumulative effect of too many of them might simply be too much.
The good news, and this was true across almost all 80 countries in the study, is that if you make it to aged 70 and are still physically fit, your are on average as "happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year old."

[LifeGoesOn]

I came upon these thoughts in my investigations of control, allowing, and letting go. I found them thought provoking. Same stuff, a different way .

Article found here

Freedom and Control
Does being in control really make us free?
Published on April 30, 2011 by John A. Johnson, Ph.D. in Cui Bono

I have been thinking a lot lately about freedom and control recently because . . . well, because my therapist suggested that I do this. (Yes, psychologists sometimes need to be in therapy as much as anyone else, sometimes even more so.)

It seems to me that people often equate freedom with having a lot of control over things. We think we would rather be the boss who has control over other employees than the subordinate or follower who is under the control of the boss. Psychologists reinforce the idea that control is a good thing. Research on locus of control indicates that people with an internal locus of control (people who believe they are in control of the rewards they receive in life) are psychologically healthier and more successful than people with an external locus of control (people who believe their fate is in the hands of external, uncontrollable factors).


Yet there is a downside to being in control when it involves trying to control other people, because other people don't want to be controlled by you any more than you want to be controlled by other people. In therapy, we often hear that if we do not like the way in which others are behaving, we are better off changing our own feelings about their behavior than trying to change their behavior. The reason for this is that behavioral habits are notoriously difficult to change, even when a person really wants to change his or her own habits; if people are not interested in changing their behavior, it is almost impossible to make them change.

In keeping with a theme I've developed in this blog, a theme of finding interesting and valid psychological insights in what some consider to be fringe science, I want to write a bit about what James Redfield said about control issues in his novel The Celestine Prophecy. Drawing on the work of Ernest Becker, an existentialist-psychoanalytic, cultural anthropologist, Redfield suggests that attempting to control another person's behavior is a type of neurosis, based on childhood feelings of powerlessness. Redfield referred to different strategies of attempting to have a hold over others as control dramas. Attempts to hold sway over others is more obvious in the two active control dramas, The Interrogator and The Intimidator. The Interrogator constantly questions and criticizes the behavior of others, throwing them off-balance and making them feel uneasy. The Intimidator uses violence or threats of violence to get others to comply with his or her wishes. Redfield also identifies two passive control dramas, The Aloof and The Poor Me. The Aloof acts distant and detached, speaking rarely and then only in vague and cryptic ways. This strategy makes others do all of the work in communicating and in coordinating activities. The Poor Me constantly whines and complains about not feeling well. This strategy is meant to make others feel guilty about asking the Poor Me to do anything, forcing them to take care of everything, including the Poor Me.

The ways in which people attempt to control others is not limited to the neurotic control dramas. Many of the ways in which people strive to regulate each others' behavior are regarded as perfectly normal and not at all neurotic. For example, people use flattery and do nice things for others, expecting that they will return the favor. Most of us hold standards of what we regard as appropriate behavior, and we try to change people who do not follow those standards. People will use negative labels such as lazy, foolish, and wrong in attempts to persuade people to change behavior they do not like. Often they claim they are trying to change others for their own good.

A truly free person, according to Don Miguel Ruiz, is immune to both the neurotic and normal attempts of others to regulate his or her behavior. The advice he gives us for accomplishing this is to make the following agreement with ourselves: "Don't take anything personally."
When we agree not to take anything personally, we regard all attempts by others to control us as statements about them, not about us. By refusing to take threats, criticism, evasion, complaints, praise, or disapproval personally, we act upon our own reality, not upon theirs.

I would add that a truly free person does not attempt to control others, either. Trying to control others, even people who, in our eyes, are misbehaving, is like trying to make water run uphill. Unless you can convince a person that listening to you is in his or her own best self-interest, you are wasting valuable time, which is antithetical to freedom.

Finally, I am beginning to believe that there's a lot to be said for giving up control sometimes, or "letting go and letting God" as they say in the recovery movement. I know that this flies in the face of research on the merits of internal locus of control, self-efficacy, and similar research. Nonetheless, it seems to me that such an attitude has a strong basis in reality. We are much more likely to achieve success and happiness if we allow ourselves to align with greater forces than to fight the flow and deny reality.

[Bewildered]

LGO

yes makes sense .. difficult to do ? however, but in some ways easy ...in MLC anyway if you detach and let go?

I think we all try and control a person based on life expectations .. and what we learn from them as we go along and get to know them. MY h was always sociable then he got moody and stopped doing the things he used to do and said he din not like our friends etc and this we then find hurtful as we expect our H/W to want to do the things a W?H should do .. attend parties, weddings, etc with us, When they don't want to it upsets and hurts us and we try (well i did) make my H see (when he suddenly got like this about 6 years ago ) how hurt it made me feel so to control him make him feel selfish and to try and make him come along - he didn't ..So I decided well if he could do it so then could I  BUT when I wouldn't do things with him that I had done to please him in the past (sports events, his University friends the horrible ones) that I didn't want to do well strange he didn't like that and would go on and on about me being miserable but never saw the hypocrisy of the situ.

I think however not control over our lives would make us very dull someone gently pressurising me to do or try something I thought I didn't want to try or do has given me many lovely experiences so ............ to quote my grandmother moderation in all things makes you happy?
Bx

[Still]

Not related to MLC per se, but some interesting stuff once I edited all the info-mercial gobbledy-gook.

I LOVE YOU BUT I’M NOT “IN LOVE” WITH YOU

Did your spouse tell you, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you?”

What does that statement mean?

A person who says, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you,” is making a distinction between 2 different feelings. But NEITHER of those feelings are love!

When a person says, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you,” they’re saying that I CARE about you but I’m not EXCITED about you.

CARING about someone is a good thing. It’s reflective of CONCERN. But it’s different than love. I care about the starving children in Africa, but I don’t love them.

Being EXCITED about someone is also a good thing. But it’s different than love. I might be excited to have a relationship with the President of the United States or a Hollywood star, but that doesn’t mean I love them.

While someone who says, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you” seems to be making a distinction between “different loves;” in fact, they are expressing their confusion about what love really is. And that’s why they’re having marital problems and maybe even an affair (because who are they IN LOVE with?).

Love is something we articulate in the vocabulary of ACTION. Love is a verb. It’s not a feeling you get from another PERSON; it’s an experience you receive as a result of DEEDS YOU DO for another person.

“I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you” is a cop out. It basically means that I have no clue how to make a relationship last LONG-TERM so I’m exiting to get high from another short-term romance. But whoever they’re IN LOVE with now will also eventually hear, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you.”

Warm regards,

Mort Fertel, Marriage Fitness

Author of Marriage Fitness

Marriage Coach

[Bewildered]

Maybe a politicain that really understands

David Cameron: Absent fathers are as bad as drink drivers

By Brendan Carlin

Last updated at 1:38 AM on 19th June 2011

    Comments (240)
    Add to My Stories
    Share

Fathers who run out on their families should be ‘stigmatised’ in the same way as drink-drivers, David Cameron said last night.

In an impassioned appeal to mark Father’s Day today, the Prime Min¬ister called for ‘runaway dads’ to be made to feel the ‘full force of shame’ for their actions. He insisted that it ‘simply isn’t acceptable’ for single mothers to be left to bring up their children on their own.

He added: ‘We need to make Britain a genuinely hostile place for fathers who go AWOL.

‘It’s high time runaway dads were stigmatised, and the full force of shame was heaped upon them. They should be looked at like drink-drivers, people who are beyond the pale.’
Father and son bond: David Cameron, seen here with his late father Ian, says single mothers should not be left to raise their children on their own

Father and son bond: David Cameron, seen here with his late father Ian, says single mothers should not be left to raise their children on their own

Mr Cameron, who has three children with wife Samantha, also admitted he ‘could be better as a parent’, and acknowledged how much he owes to his own father, who died last year.

 
More...

    I don't know how he does it! Meet the superdads who come to the rescue of their families

Condemning the effect of absent fathers, Mr Cameron said: ‘They need the message rammed home to them, from every part of our culture, that what they’re doing is wrong – that leaving single mothers, who do a heroic job against all odds, to fend for themselves simply isn’t acceptable.’

It was not clear last night if the stern message will be followed by specific new measures to crack down on errant fathers.

In a newspaper article, Mr Cameron also delivered a moving tribute to his own father, Ian Cameron, who died last September, aged 77.
Family man: David Cameron, with wife Samantha and baby Florence, says fathers should not be able to shirk their responsibilities

Family man: David Cameron, with wife Samantha and baby Florence, says fathers should not be able to shirk their responsibilities

Mr Cameron has previously spoken of how his father, who overcame the disability of being born with severely deformed legs, was such a powerfully influential role model for him.

But in his article, Mr Cameron wrote: ‘On this day, the first Father’s Day since my own father died, I want to acknowledge just how important dads are to laying the foundations.’

He added: ‘From my father, I learned about responsibility. Seeing him get up before the crack of dawn to go and do a hard day’s work and not come back until late at night had a profound impact on me.

‘My dad, who was disabled, taught me about optimism – that no matter how bad things are, you can overcome them if you have the right frame of mind.’

But in singling out the role of fatherhood, Mr Cameron signalled he ran the risk of protests by equality campaigners.

‘We live in an age of equality, where people don’t like to see the differences between the sexes,’ he said.

‘But it goes without saying, two different people, nurturing the same child, will bring different things to the table.’

He reaffirmed his determination to introduce tax breaks for married couples. This was a General Election pledge which some Tories have feared was being ditched to appease the Lib Dems in the Coalition.

‘I want us to recognise marriage in the tax system so as a country we show we value commitment,’ he wrote.

The Prime Minister issued a strong defence of traditional family life as the ‘cornerstone of our society’, calling for a new drive to ‘bring fathers back into the lives of all our children’.

Even when parents were separated, fathers had a duty to support their children ‘financially and emotionally’ – spending time with them at weekends, attending nativity plays and taking an interest in their education, he insisted.

Mr Cameron, who with wife Samantha is bringing up his young family in Downing Street, admitted he could better as a father.

‘I don’t for one minute claim to be a perfect father to my kids. Just ask Sam.

‘But this is too important an issue to remain silent on.

‘This is about our children’s futures, and with that, our country’s future too.

‘We owe it to them to be there for them, however hard we
may find it.’



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005402/David-Cameron-Absent-fathers-bad-drink-drivers.html#ixzz1Pj7uv78e

[justasking]

This is an intersting look at adulterous affairs.........

It was on Radio 4 and called A forensic look at Infidelity http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b011vhsn

The programme lasts for 30 mins.

[MelanieB]

3 of the best articles that I have read on the why's and with whom's of Midlife Crisis in the journal "Manzine":

From his book The Inner Man, psychotherapist Dr Peter O’Connor discusses how it is usually death which characterises the mid-life transition and provides the opportunity to initiate men into adulthood. (The Inner Man can be purchased through the Manzine merchandise section as can Peter O’Connor’s other best-selling book Understanding Mid-life Crisis.)
 
Mid-life, that period between 35 and 45 years of age in a man, is, above all else, a psychological return to adolescence. Because adolescence involves a reworking of the Oedipal themes, this earlier stage of psychological development is also present in a man in the mid-life transition

Death and the Midlife Crisis:
http://www.manhood.com.au/manhood.nsf/3d17d03aceb6903f4a256a74002329aa/7df614a6dc8a235f4a256a7b002356fc!OpenDocument

On the Midlife Rage:
http://www.manhood.com.au/manhood.nsf/3d17d03aceb6903f4a256a74002329aa/8205f8cc133d69994a256a7a004f103e!OpenDocument

On Mothers and Midlife Crisis:  Reworking the Oedipal Complex
http://www.manhood.com.au/manhood.nsf/3d17d03aceb6903f4a256a74002329aa/e0ba1c49c1fac39c4a256a7a004e398c!OpenDocument