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December 4, 2013 at 6:42 am #46187Sean BloomfieldParticipant
Sean Bloomfield believes truly in the idea of marriage..and every thing it stands for. To find that pure true love is to be given such an amazing gift, that it deserves every effort, every breath, every attention,and every ounce of honour you possess. The search for real genuine honest love “from”another human being is an expansive and exhausting lifetime search for most people. I believe in my heart I was one of the chosen few on this earth to have found such Love at some part in my life.
The 11th of August 2013 became the beginning of an unwanted journey that would end in the dismantling of my marriage and relationship of 16 years which has been brought about by not following the advice of a Mr Gerald Rogers ….
Who is Gerald Rogers …..he is a guy that on the day his divorce was finalised
15th August 2013 and after 16 years of marriage sat down and wrote his thoughts on advice he wished he had been given as a young husband.
On the following advice you are about to read, I fully accept that had I have had such advice, then perhaps the pain of this journey could have been avoided.My advice after a divorce following 16 years of marriage, by Gerald Rogers.
Obviously, I’m not a relationship expert. But there’s something about my divorce being finalized this week that gives me perspective of things I wish I would have done different… After losing a woman that I loved, and a marriage of almost 16 years, here’s the advice I wish I would have had
1. Never stop courting. Never stop dating. NEVER EVER take that woman for granted. When you asked her to marry you, you promised to be that man that would OWN HER HEART and to fiercely protect it. This is the most important and sacred treasure you will ever be entrusted with. SHE CHOSE YOU. Never forget that, and NEVER GET LAZY in your love.
2. Protect your own heart. Just as you committed to being the protector of her heart, you must guard your own with the same vigilance. Love yourself fully, love the world openly, but there is a special place in your heart where no one must enter except for your wife. Keep that space always ready to receive her and invite her in, and refuse to let anyone or anything else enter there.
3. Fall in love over and over again. You will constantly change. You’re not the same people you were when you got married, and in five years you will not be the same person you are today. Change will come, and in that you have to re-choose each other everyday. SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO STAY WITH YOU, and if you don’t take care of her heart, she may give that heart to someone else or seal you out completely, and you may never be able to get it back. Always fight to win her love just as you did when you were courting her.
4. Always see the best in her. Focus only on what you love. What you focus on will expand. If you focus on what bugs you, all you will see is reasons to be bugged. If you focus on what you love, you can’t help but be consumed by love. Focus to the point where you can no longer see anything but love, and you know without a doubt that you are the luckiest man on earth to be have this woman as your wife.
5. It’s not your job to change or fix her… your job is to love her as she is with no expectation of her ever changing. And if she changes, love what she becomes, whether it’s what you wanted or not.
6. Take full accountability for your own emotions: It’s not your wife’s job to make you happy, and she CAN’T make you sad. You are responsible for finding your own happiness, and through that your joy will spill over into your relationship and your love.
7. Never blame your wife if you get frustrated or angry at her, it is only because it is triggering something inside of YOU. They are YOUR emotions, and your responsibility. When you feel those feelings take time to get present and to look within and understand what it is inside of YOU that is asking to be healed.” You were attracted to this woman because she was the person best suited to trigger all of your childhood wounds in the most painful way so that you could heal them” and when you heal yourself, you will no longer be triggered by her, and you will wonder why you ever were.
8. Allow your woman to just be. When she’s sad or upset, it’s not your job to fix it, it’s your job to HOLD HER and let her know it’s ok. Let her know that you hear her, and that she’s important and that you are that pillar on which she can always lean. The feminine spirit is about change and emotion and like a storm her emotions will roll in and out, and as you remain strong and unjudging she will trust you and open her soul to you… DON’T RUN-AWAY WHEN SHE’S UPSET. Stand present and strong and let her know you aren’t going anywhere. Listen to what she is really saying behind the words and emotion.
9. Be silly… don’t take yourself so damn seriously. Laugh. And make her laugh. Laughter makes everything else easier.
10. Fill her soul everyday… learn her love languages and the specific ways that she feels important and validated and CHERISHED. Ask her to create a list of 10 THINGS that make her feel loved and memorize those things and make it a priority everyday to make her feel like a queen.
11. Be present. Give her not only your time, but your focus, your attention and your soul. Do whatever it takes to clear your head so that when you are with her you are fully WITH HER. Treat her as you would your most valuable customer, She is.
12. Be willing to take her sexually, to carry her away in the power of your masculine presence, to consume her and devour her with your strength, and to penetrate her to the deepest levels of her soul. Let her melt into her feminine softness as she knows she can trust you fully.
13. Don’t be an idiot…. And don’t be afraid of being one either. You will make mistakes and so will she. Try not to make too big of mistakes, and learn from the ones you do make. You’re not supposed to be perfect, just try to not be too stupid.
14. Give her space… The woman is so good at giving and giving, and sometimes she will need to be reminded to take time to nurture herself. Sometimes she will need to fly from your branches to go and find what feeds her soul, and if you give her that space she will come back with new songs to sing…. (okay, getting a little too poetic here, but you get the point. Tell her to take time for herself, ESPECIALLY after caring day in and day out for the kids. She needs that space to renew and get re-centered, and to find herself after she gets lost in serving you, the kids and the world.)
15. Be vulnerable… you don’t have to have it all together. Be willing to share your fears and feelings, and quick to acknowledge your mistakes.
16. Be fully transparent. If you want to have trust you must be willing to share EVERYTHING… Especially those things you don’t want to share. It takes courage to fully love, to fully open your heart and let her in when you don’t know i she will like what she finds… Part of that courage is allowing her to love you completely, your darkness as well as your light.
” Take off the armour, lay down your sword” qand DROP THE MASK… If you feel like you need to wear a mask around her, and show up perfect all the time, you will never experience the full dimension of what love can be.17. Never stop growing together… The stagnant pond breeds malaria, the flowing stream is always fresh and cool. Atrophy is the natural process when you stop working a muscle, just as it is if you stop working on your relationship. Find common goals, dreams and visions to work towards.
18. Don’t worry about money. Money is a game, find ways to work together as a team to win it. It never helps when teammates fight. Figure out ways to leverage both persons strength to win.
19. Forgive immediately and focus on the future rather than carrying weight from the past. Don’t let your history hold you hostage. Holding onto past mistakes that either you or she makes, is like a heavy anchor to your marriage and will hold you back. FORGIVENESS IS FREEDOM. Cut the anchor loose and always choose love.
20. Always choose love. ALWAYS CHOOSE LOVE. In the end, this is the only advice you need. If this is the guiding principle through which all your choices is governed, there is nothing that will threaten the happiness of your marriage. Love will always endure.
In the end marriage isn’t about happily ever after. It’s about work. And a commitment to grow together and a willingness to continually invest in creating something that can endure eternity. Through that work, the happiness will come. Marriage is life, and it will bring ups and downs. Embracing all of the cycles and learning to learn from and love each experience will bring the strength and perspective to keep building, one brick at a time.
These are lessons I learned the hard way. These are lessons I learned too late. But these are lessons I am learning and committed in carrying forward. Truth is, I loved being married, and in time, I will get married again, and when I do, I will build it with a foundation that will endure any storm and any amount of time.
If you are reading this and find wisdom in my pain, share it those those young husbands whose hearts are still full of hope, and with those couples you may know who may have forgotten how to love. One of those men may be like I was, and in these hard earned lessons perhaps something will awaken in him and he will learn to be the man his lady has been waiting for.
Be the type of husband your wife can’t help but brag about.As for me Sean Bloomfield in my position I have very few words of wisdom save to say…….not being a good husband draws negativity from all quarters especially when you are buckling under the weight of the emotional luggage you’ve been dragging around for most of your life surrounding the sexual and violent abuse you suffered for years in your childhood . Trust will always be the at the forefront of your conciseness , so when you do give your all in that bungee jump leap of faith into the relationship you believe is that holy grail you’ve always been searching for to help calm that raging heart, the person you entrust that heart with also has an absolute moral and loving obligation to follow the guidelines they themselves need and wish for….
“Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.”Being a good husband will be one the biggest roles you will play in life. Your children will learn from it and in turn will be good husbands and wives. More importantly, they will seek out good husbands and wives
Lastly, its not about who takes the blame for a bad marriage. Its about who takes responsibility for making it a good one.
It was a long read so thanks and welcome to the truth of what’s really important
I know all our views of life and relationships can be different ….this just happens to be mine..Thanks Sean
December 5, 2013 at 7:50 am #46250lostParticipantWow…wish I had read this before my last relationship
December 14, 2013 at 1:59 pm #46752RenéeParticipantWow! Is right. Beautifully written and poignant.
December 14, 2013 at 4:37 pm #46755daniella prattParticipantBeautifully sad and thought provoking x
December 19, 2013 at 8:14 am #47012DeeParticipantI am sitting here crying as I am that woman who had wished she had a guy who had read this and yet I am looking at the bottom of the barrel of what was a 16 year relationship and not just because my guy didn’t read this, but also because of my own short-comings and emotional baggage also due to a tormented childhood of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. This is exactly what I would have loved to have in my relationship with my ex, down to a “T”, everything is so raw, so true and I can’t stop the tears from falling.
December 19, 2013 at 11:24 am #47027Sean BloomfieldParticipantDee
While I was driving back to my moms where am building my emotional strength again ,I was listening to a guy called earl nightingale on the subject of how we think and more importantly what we think about internally reflects externally in our behaviour,oura ,or whatever word is used to discribe this truth.
It’s about what we think about and how it more than any other aspect of our life truly determins the outcome of our overall present state of being.
Now I have to be careful as there are far more eloquent writers and wordsmiths on this site than I , all I can do is speak from my heart.
I am 53 years old have one son at university doing a masters degree at the age of 28 after surviving what’s called a “subdural empiema”
He caught sinasitus through the airline airsystem whilst on holiday to Greece with friends at the age of 17. When the surgeon explained it had travelled through his eye ducts and came to rest on his brain and subsequently had spread vigorously behind his skull.,I was beside my self with terror not fear because to be told he may not survive the operation was the lowest point of my entire life and as I write this to you now Dee and relive that episode of true fear I am almost embarrassed at my unmanly weakness of falling almost apart by the breaking of a relationship where we all are in such good health,eyes to see,ears to hear,mouth to speak,
Limbs to work effortlessly, and above all a brain so magnificent and full of so much ” UNTAPPED ” ability and wonder it leaves me cold to feel at times so pittyful in my heart.
My Sean emerged 5 weeks later with a 4 inch titanium plate covering the hole in his skull from his ordeal of drips ,injections,monitoring equipment,24 hr vigilant nursing to go on and last year get a first in his university degree and now like I say studying for a masters degree. ” proud” and eternally gratefull does not even come close to how I feel but you get the picture (sorry for the photo reference )
My second son Ryan is 24 yrs of age and is holding his life together by thread sometimes it feels, as he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder this year after be sectioned against his will to a state of the art mental hospital. I spent today with him and every free day he will allow me. He and his brother are from a young relationship and when that ended it wasn’t long before I found what I thought was the holy grail of true love.
The following 16 yrs of life where driven by people pleasing, trying to prove I was good enough and compromise of my nature,intelligence ,honour, self esteme and ability not to loose or let go of the burning pain in my heart. All of this was driven by me ” me”
I could justify all day long the behaviours of myself and the manor in which I had no self control over the crutches I leaned on from alcohol , to self pity and to blame everyone and anyone ,this circumstance and that circumstance was always easier than to do what was truly needed…that was to do the right thing.
I guess in the end the powers that be …after 16years conspired to save me from myself and my wife and her 3 children from a tortured future.
(I have to include my wife introduced soul wrenching pain to our marriage but that is her burden and her demon to deal with.)
Believe me as I right this the honesty burns deep because we have a 14 yr old beautiful daughter to add to the collection.
So that’s 6 children between us .
I believe deep within all of us we want and crave one thing through out our existence here on earth and that is to be loved and to be able to share what we have learned through our life experiences what that true love means to us .
However unless we can love ourselves we will always come from the position of “do as I say …not as I do…”. and if we wouldn’t except that principle from anyone else , then why do we impose philosophy on others…Wow where did all that come from..sorry
I’m getting tired of my own self pittyful waste of the precious short lived time we have on this earth, and at present like you desperately pushing to unlock that self imposed emotional prison cell so I can once again strap on my armour and pick up my sword in the defence of this truly wonderful life we have been gifted with.
We are I believe exactly where we are supposed to be until we learn what it is we need to learn ….in order to find the wisdom and grace needed to be a true and honest part of this great existence ,we need to lead our children through the murky clouded waters of emotional trials and tests that they “will” encounter
By our own example of courage, determination,strength, will,and most importantly love of thy self….to end I realise why on an airplane they at the beginning of the safety instruction they explain when the cabin looses pressure and the mask falls from above, you should put your on mask on first before the child ..even though that goes against your instinct…fix you …then when they truly need it you can fix them.
I hope Dee my outpouring did not detract in any way from how you feel but I do hope you feel your journey is not so lonely
You matter just as much as everyone else
Warmth and love
Sean -
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