My husband and I were involved in a bitter divorce. I hated him and hated me more for how I was acting in front of my kids. We became horrible people who became horrible parents. Winning or losing money was all we ever thought about. I attended all the arbitration meetings and negotiations. I took the counselling that was offered. I would do better for a few weeks. Then I would hear another story from our mutual friends about his new girlfriend. I would spin out of control again. I finally came unglued when I was advised to settle our financial war by selling our home. I was so angry that I went ballistic and made the decision to tell my kids about his infidelity. I blamed him for everything. I blamed his girlfriend for stealing their dad. I told them we were going to have to move into a tiny apartment so him and his girlfriend could buy a big house. I foolishly justified everything I did. Then came the worst moment of my life. My daughter’s school counsellor contacted me to let me know that another student had told him that my daughter was seriously planning suicide. Like always I leapt to verbally blaming her father and his girlfriend. The counsellor quietly stated the following. I will never forget this call.
“Your daughter is in my office. We are waiting for an ambulance to arrive to take her to the psych ward. She had collected up pills to kill herself tonight. She will have to be there for at least 3 days or until a doctor can discharge her. You will not be allowed to see or visit her until the doctor can determine if she is safe seeing you. Here is the doctor’s number. You can call for an update and make an appointment for the review. Until then please refrain from making any effort to contact her. We will be interviewing your other kids as well today. We need to determine if we must call in CPS for their protection as well. I advise you to get a lawyer; a family court lawyer who specializes in custody cases.”
For my kid’s sake I contacted the BSW Witness Prep Program. I heard about it from the school counsellor. The school had done a pilot project for the PTSD program for school shootings. At the beginning of the training, I was not a willing participant. I was just there to keep from losing permanent custody of my kids. I learn what I was taught. Then, I was told that the court was going to make my husband and I do co-parenting courses. I reacted and really lost it. My outburst caused my lawyer to tell me to look for a new lawyer. I told my BSW Coach. That is when she told me that it was one thing to memorize all of the BSW techniques. It is a totally different reality to love my kids enough to use the techniques whenever I need to be thinking of my children’s future. She said she knew I had never used the BSW techniques when I was angry or jealous or scared. If I did, I would have already grown enough to be able to voluntarily use the techniques to forgive my husband for my kid’s sake. She calmly asked me if I was going to wait until I lost custody of my kids or step up for them now.
Today, I am beyond thankful for this woman’s courage. I certainly know I was a deeply injured person who was so hurt that I couldn’t feel anyone else’s hurt. I thought I could and did. I didn’t hear how rapidly I went to compare my hurt to theirs. I kept my hurt to prove how horrible my husband was.
I did the 5-week BSW Crisis Intervention. Then I experienced my first time of getting rid of my pain. I had no idea it was possible. I had never considered my husband’s infidelity from a perspective of it being about him instead of about me and our marriage. This is what came to me when I used the BSW Intervention every hour on the hour for 3 days. No one had explained it to me. I just had the insight come to me when I looked back on our marriage. I saw our personal pain from our childhood controlled us. Our marriage destruction was inevitable. That’s when I signed up for all of the Powerful Parenting courses offered at the BSW Academy. A few weeks later I started the family program for learning to use the BSW techniques with my kids every day. I owe everything to this program. All of my kids have learned to understand what happened to their parents. I gladly signed a co-parenting agreement with my husband. We have agreed to do co-parenting for 2 years before we decide about getting a divorce. We also agreed to use the 6 BSW Techniques every single day for our kids and our self.