You Are Not Your Past

One of the most inspiring ideas I have discovered is that you are not your past.

This one statement means so much. Way too often men stay stuck in the past and stuck doing what they have always done.

You do not have to be that way. You can change. You can change massively. You can change ins huge ways in an instant.

The type of changes I have made in my life are astounding.

You Are Not Your Past

You are not your past. Within the last slightly more than 4 years I have:

1) Left a verbally abusive wife and finalized a divorce.

2) Gone bankrupt.

3) Had the house we lived in together be foreclosed.

4) Had the children awarded to my ex-wife by the court.

5) Taken my son from his mother because he needed to get away from her. No attorneys, no judges, no courts, no permission.

I just did what was right.

6) My daughter ran away from her mother to live with me. Now I have both children with me.

7) Dealt with my ex with firmness and kindness. I deal with her from a position of strength, not weakness.

8) Lost weight.

9) Started lifting weights after at least 14 years of not lifting and have made outstanding gains.

10) Spent a lot of time in the sun and actually have a nice tan and I look like a healthy, vibrant man, not a pale, white, flabby old man.

11) Written 5 books.

12) Started websites. I decided that I will make my living on the internet in the future. You are not your past, especially in the way you make your living.

13) Increased my testosterone levels.

14) Increased the size of my penis.

15) Learned how to be better with women.

16) And the biggest change of all was thinking that I matter.

These changes in my life have been massive to me. I went from being pushed around by my wife to not being this way. You are not your past was the idea I kept in my head. I do not have to continue to take her verbal abuse, I do not deserve to be treated this way. I decided not to deal with her so I do not as much as I can. It is my life to lead the way I want, not hers to tell me what to do.

I left my wife and hoped the kids would not hate me for it. The lesson I taught them has been priceless. They know that staying with a person who is not good to them is not how they are going to live. It took me a long time to come to terms with that idea. With them, it did not take so long. With you, that is what I am trying to stress. It is your life to live as you see fit. You matter. You are not here to be pushed around by anyone, including your wife.

You can make these types of massive changes. You just decide and do it. You do not need anyone's permission to do it either.

If you want to leave your wife, you do it. You do not need her permission. You do not need the courts permission. You do not need your church's permission, or her families, or your families or your children's permission. You do what you know in your heart you need to do.

The trick is to spend enough time determining what is in your heart. Far too many men do not do this. They are busy at work. Busy with chores, errands, activities, tv, watching sports and all kinds of other things that steal tremendous amounts of your time. These things do not serve you when you cannot even spend enough time to determine if you are happy.

Now I know a lot of people will ridicule my ideas. They will say that I should have stayed and worked it out. I should have gone to counseling. I should have done this and I should have done that. They will wonder what kind of a man leaves his wife and family. They will say that a man should just grin and bear it and be tough. A man needs to be there for his wife and if mama ain't happy, nobody is happy.

This type of thinking is all wrong. All wrong because the only one who is not in the mix is the most important one, you.

It is your life and if you made a bad choice of wife or she has changed in a way that you cannot accept or if you have changed in some way that makes you two being together no good, then you just leave her. It is as simple as that.

My idea on all this is that you matter. Just as much as anyone else, even your wife. If being married to her is not making you happy in whatever way, then you must leave.

It is difficult to leave. It can be the most difficult thing ever. When I left it was a disaster. It was not just a pleasant exchange like in the movies. It was a messy, painful disaster that hurt everyone involved.

But we have all lived through it. I would do it again in a heartbeat. The only thing I would have done differently would be to leave years earlier. Water under the bridge. I left when I could bear it no more and I am a better man for it. The side benefit is that the kids are much better off. Hopefully, my ex-wife will some day be better for it. She deserves a good life, in spite of what she put me through.

The thing I want to get across is that once you start to think you should leave, get your thinking done fast and make a decision. If you decide to leave, leave as soon as possible. The longer you stay married the harder it will be on everyone, especially you.

Staying days, weeks, months or even years beyond when you know you should have left will not help you. It only prolongs the pain and makes it even more difficult.

There is never a good time to leave either. Any time you leave it will be hard, it may be too hard to even imagine. But realize that you are not your past, you do not have to continue to live in a way that is not good for you.

But that is what you must do. You must imagine it, think what it would be like to be free of her. Think of all the possible scenarios. Play them out in your mind. Write them down. This is why you need to have lots and lots of free time for this mental work. You will not be able to do this during commercials or while you are waiting in the car for something. You need massive amounts of time to actually think about your life.

You are not your past. You do not have to keep doing things that are not helping you.

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