Let me tell you a story about courage.
On a day not so long ago I walked into a lawyer’s office. She’d been hired by my lawyer to mediate an impasse between me and a man. I was literally shaking in my boots.
For I never saw this coming. He was a man I trusted with all my life. And he was forcing me to sell our home.
When the mediator, Diana, greeted me, I felt the presence of wisdom. The rough edges of fear in my body started to smooth out. I requested to not be in the same room with the man, to protect myself from giving myself away.
I knew I had to be strong on this day. And he had a power over me that was hard to resist. In his presence, I knew I’d slip back into the over-extended caregiver’s role. And he’d happily take what she would give.
When Diana beckoned me forward as she opened the door to her boardroom, she smiled. She told me she’d just hung the painting she’d had commissioned for the space, and I’d be the first woman in the room with it. This room would be mine for the duration of the day and I wouldn’t need to see my estranged husband.
A relief!
When I entered, I could smell the oil of the painting. I gazed upon the blue, green, red, and gold of a forest lit by sun.
“Into the light,” Diana said. “That is the title of the painting. Let us move in that direction today, shall we?”
I felt like hugging her, I was so grateful for the care she was bringing.
When my lawyer arrived, were told that the man and his lawyer were in a room at the opposite end of the long hall. There was plenty of distance between us.
Diana joined me and my lawyer at the table to brief us on how she planned to proceed. She then left the room to counsel the other party.
More than an hour passed.
When Diana entered our room again, she said, “I am embarrassed with what I have to present to you. It’s not even an offer.”
My lawyer looked at me and said, “Is it time to leave?”
My immediate thought was what kind of mediation would that be?
Then I indicated I was ready to hear what Diana had been given for me.
She proceeded. And she was correct. It wasn’t an offer. It was a stab in the back, an act of treachery that opened a well of shame within me.
For a moment I thought that this may be enough for me, this sitting in the presence of women who witnessed the abuse I was being subjected to would be all I’d need to call it a day, cut my losses, and walk away.
We sat together in an interminable silence.
If I wasn’t going to leave, then this would be an onerous process. He was treating me like I was nothing to him. But I decided to obey my inner resolve. I would persist.
I know my own resilience, integrity, and grit. If this mediation wasn’t successful, then I’d be heading to court. And whatever equity we had in our home would be spent on the legal process. There would be less than nothing left in my bank account. And for what?
During the next eight hours, Diana walked back and forth between the two rooms, mediating our dialogue. It’s telling that she only spent about ninety minutes in the boardroom with me. The rest of the time she was hashing it out at the end of the hall.
The afternoon dragged on. It became apparent that my husband’s lawyer was a friend of his family, and she was taking instruction from someone by phone. There were many issues he was ready to give way on, but his lawyer wouldn’t let him.
Suddenly understanding came to me. It was a striking flash of revelation: I was not in mediation with my husband. I was in mediation with his first ex-wife.
Earlier, Diana had claimed there was one person acting as an obstacle in this mediation process, and it was his lawyer. Now it was all making sense to me.
I was incensed. Nobody knew it by looking at me though. On the exterior, I was a sea of calm. But there was fire rising in me, and guiding me to stand in my own authority.
“I want to talk to him alone,” I said to Diana, noticing that my voice had dropped an octave.
The look on her face told me she approved. My lawyer agreed, too, but only if I was sure I wanted to face him.
“I’ll need to get his lawyer’s approval, and that may not be easy,” Diana explained.
So down the hall she went again, until finally the door opened, and Diana nodded her head in approval.
She walked me into the room she’d designed for just this purpose. In her experience, couples have greater success in mediation without lawyers, but it was too late for that now. I wished I’d had the opportunity to do this differently because it was evident that whatever money our house had earned in equity over the years could now very well be spent on lawyer’s fees.
But I’d always known this. It was his insistence that we involve lawyers. At the end of the day, we could both be homeless and penniless which would be a sorry state to be in after all that we’d worked so hard to accomplish. The five thousand dollars I’d had to borrow from my parents to meet his legal demands had just gotten this party started. The price tag for today alone doubled that!
Diana made sure I was comfortable. Then she left to get him.
When the door opened, he followed her into the room, and cautiously caught my eye. He was grey with fatigue. The smell of him repulsed me. We both sat down on sofas opposite each other, not directly, but at an angle as though facing one another directly would be too much.
Diana said to us, “Just remember, you are driving this boat. Your lawyers work for you. So whatever the two of you decide, don’t be afraid to give your instructions clearly.”
And with that, she closed the door. The two of us were alone.
There was silence. And then he said, “What do you think of her?”
Before answering, I returned the question to him. “What do you think of her?”
Without hesitation, as though he was bursting to tell someone, he said, “I like her. Not at all what I expected.”
I could see the relief he felt to acknowledge the goodness of Diana’s intention.
I agreed with him.
“We have two major issues yet to resolve,” I offered.
He nodded his head again.
Twenty minutes later he conceded to one of the issues because I challenged his self-perception of being fair when in fact, he was being extremely unfair. The man I’d known valued his integrity. I caught a glimpse of him in this moment of agreement. But it was quickly eclipsed by something shadowy.
And I realized I’d need to let the other issue go because there was something deeply distressing about what I was seeing in him now. A part of him was feeding on this antagonistic process. He was enjoying the fight. And I intuited this could be just the beginning of a very long process with him. I quickly concluded that I didn’t want to spend another moment of my life in whatever this cycle was. I wanted out.
But before I let it all go, I was tempted to find out why he had turned against me with such vehemence. How was he paying for this legal showdown?
“Your lawyer is from out of town. Why would you hire a lawyer from such a great distance?”
He instantly dropped his head to break eye contact with me, and looked away while he mumbled, “She was referred by a friend.”
His face was flushed. He was clearly ashamed. And his dignity meant more to me than proving what I already knew. It was blatantly obvious that he’d been seduced by the negative attachment to his first ex-wife. She’d referred the lawyer to him.
Death mother was in charge here — the archetypal force that lives in the collective unconscious of the human psyche. I didn’t stand a chance of winning this battle because her power was monetary. She was a wealthy woman and she must be paying for this legal fiasco. I knew he didn’t have the money.
To continue would mean dancing with death mother who is fueled by the fantasy that she controls the world through her material possessions and her peons exist solely for her benefit. She’d never emotionally divorced her ex-husband and she wasn’t about to any time soon. She was the one wielding control in this so-called mediation.
The man was acting against himself when he acted against me. He couldn’t look me in the eye. He feared his vulnerability and the tenderness of his survival more than he feared death mother coming through his first marriage.
The human soul is unconscious. Whenever two people enter into a loving connection, their coupling opens a portal into a new dimension of reality, through which unknown elements of the psychic field are invited into the light of their love. Redemption was not about saving my husband from the claws of death mother, or wanting him to behave differently towards me.
It was about realizing the source of all life is present in all encounters, and all beings are of the same source. He was of the divine even when he was acting to harm me. He was beguiled. And he was behaving abominably.
But if I couldn’t locate the goodness in him despite his actions, then how could I expect to realize the goodness in all of life outside of him, surrounding him? He was not separate from that good, or the good I could feel at the centre of my own being. My faith in life had to be greater than any fear — his or mine.
In this instant realization and without warning a warmth rushed through my body as I was bathed in the feeling of love pouring itself into me. A golden essence filled the room, and I realized I was the room! All pettiness washed away. The air became electric with compassion. It was both form and formless. In the clarity of this loving presence, I knew I must bless this man, walk away, and never look back.
Love never leaves the human experience, but it can be hidden from awareness by fear. And betrayal can only exist in a perceived state of powerlessness.
Having nowhere else to turn in this moment, I turned within to discover that faith is knowing there is nothing to fight. For I am always fully supported by something so present within me and all around me that when I fall into it, all questions about how dissolve.
In a flash I was overwhelmed with love and appreciation for this man who had loved me. Every moment of goodness that had ever come to pass between us, flooded through me now. I was more through all we’d been to each other. And I could feel the deep privilege of what it means to love. I would never truly understand his personality, but the soul of the man I fell in love with will never leave my awareness. And through the witnessing of his beautiful soul, he exists, regardless of circumstances. This is the truth I am now privileged to carry forward into eternity.
Saying yes to my own heart, and no to the patriarchal arrangement he was counting on, released my imprisoned feminine from our marriage, and integrated her into her rightful place — my wholeness. The price I paid was giving up the illusion that I was a disempowered woman. I surrendered to the infinite ways life could bring me what I’d require to survive this encounter with death mother and the wounded boy.
Don’t look to humanity for justice. It is the purview of the divine. There are times it is wise to turn the other cheek and reach for higher ground. A clear conscience is all one needs to live a good life.
***
Many women have been responding to the idea that the men in their lives have been “wounded boys.” I’d love to hear about your experience! I invite you to download this Story Form, use it to tell me about your experience, and email it back to me at [email protected]. Let us unite in the truth of our lives and rise!
—
This post is republished on Medium.
—