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When I was going through my divorce, and writing a book about it, I created Seven Principles of Parting to help me get through the difficult transition. "Take Ownership" is my Principle of Parting #2. (You can read about my seven Principles of Parting here.)
Considering that my first principle is "Commit to Self-Compassion," this second principle might sound surprising. "What?!" you may be thinking. "Didn't you just say not to take the blame for my divorce, or what went wrong in my marriage?"
Yes, but taking ownership is not the same as taking blame. Taking ownership means seeing yourself as having control over your life, as having made choices in the past that led to where you are now—even if those choices weren't fully conscious, or didn't yield the exact results you hoped they would.
By seeing your contributions to the downfall of your marriage, you cast yourself as someone with agency. A feeling of agency correlates with resilience after loss.
When something goes wrong, it's easy to blame ourselves. We look for a reason or explanation, and often settle on our "faults" as the cause. This can be especially true in divorce. But we have to be careful not to wallow in self-recrimination in divorce, as I explain in Principle of Parting #1: Commit to Self-Compassion. While we don't want to judge ourselves overly harshly, we do want to take ownership of what happens next, and claim our role in our marriage’s demise.
What if your marriage ended after your spouse had an affair? I spoke to so many people whose spouses cheated; about half the people I interviewed for my book said their marriage ended with the revelation of an affair. The ones who had the easiest time moving forward were those who could see how they played some role in the downfall of their marriage—not causing the affair, but perhaps contributing to some of the disaffection or distance in the marriage.
Even if your previous efforts mainly involved sticking with your marriage long past its expiration date, you can focus on that, in a positive way. Reframe it as a positive example of the dedication you bring to your relationships and commitments. It’s easy to see ourselves in the worst possible light in divorce, but we all had good, noble reasons for many decisions that may later look deeply flawed.
William Glasser, a psychiatrist who pioneered a form of self-reliance therapy in the late 1960s, talked about how working at a veterans’ hospital in Los Angeles showed him that being cast as a victim paralyzes people, even if they’ve been truly wronged.
“What they taught, in effect, was that you aren’t responsible for your miserable problems because you are the victim of factors and circumstances beyond your control. I objected to that. My question is always, ‘What are you going to do about your life, beginning today?’”
Ownership of the past helps guide future choices. While a bad marriage can sap your personal power, divorce is a chance to take it back. Even if the divorce was not your choice, how you respond and the attitude you bring to your challenges is in your control. Finding some way to take ownership—not fault or blame but rather involvement—can help fortify your belief that you have the power to create a new life that you will love.
Check out Splitopia: Dispatches from Today's Good Divorce and How to Part Well to hear how others found a way to take ownership, even of really difficult events, such as an affair.
