P2YL | 7. You are the gatekeeper

Have you ever gone through a difficult time in life which felt as though you were clinging to a lifeboat? A bit like I did?

What did you do? How did you escape? 

Escape begins in the head

Escape for me begins with a mental attitude. I told myself firmly that, even if I couldn’t see it, dry land did exist. Maybe it was hidden by fog, but it was there. 

The next step was to believe there might be people on shore who could help me because they might have once been in the same boat and had made it to dry land. So I (metaphorically) stood up and yelled out to them.

In practical terms this means I cast around in my memory for women I respected, some of whom had gone through divorce, and made contact with them. 

Two women who had been through divorce were not only helpful and kind but exhibited a quiet dignity and self-possession from which I could draw strength. They shared sane advice. Both had established new lives and gone on to new marriages with good partners. 

Confiding in these women did me a world of good.

The third woman nearly did me a world of bad.

She had 'always known our marriage would be a disaster'

She was one half of a deeply religious couple who had befriended my husband a few years before we met. A dominant personality, she managed chronic ill-health with an upbeat bravery I admired. She came across as positive about us as a couple and played an active part on the day of our wedding.

Only one aspect struck a strange note. She was involved in 'deliverance ministry' and firmly believed in occult forces all around us. She would casually mention in conversation that she had sensed 'a dark Presence' passing through the walls of a B&B she had stayed in or that she had witnessed demon eyes staring at her through some french windows at night. Aside from this, she came across as cultured and warm and I looked up to her.

I was in for one of the shocks of my life. 

When I emailed her and told her what had happened, she replied she had 'always known' our marriage would be 'a disaster'. 

She thought my husband 'very sexy’, had been much better before he knew me, and she was 'appalled' when she saw us together. 

As I read, I almost stopped breathing. It was like being physically beaten up. Hurt and confused, I shared the letter with a couple of wise friends I trusted who knew both my husband and me. We were able to dismiss it as the ramblings of someone very wide of the mark and filed it vertically in the bin.

You have a choice regarding other people’s judgements

But through this experience I learnt an important life-lesson which has ultimately paid off. My confidants urged me not to allow her words headspace. Perhaps for the first time in my life I realised fully that I had a choice regarding other people’s judgements. I can listen but I will use my own sense and discretion as to what I take on board. I will firmly and emphatically shut the gate on the harmful and hurtful.