The Powerful Impact Of Childhood Programming

My first wife and I were never ones to go out much with others, but as her substance abuse problem worsened over the years, I became increasingly reluctant to accept any invitations (or have others around to our house), because I never knew what state she’d be come the time.

Sometimes, however, you simply cannot easily avoid going to events, and on one occasion, a work colleague and her partner invited a bunch of people from the office to her home for a social gathering. (I’m thinking it might have been around fireworks night, but I could be wrong.)

We were one of the first people to arrive – a habit of mine – and by the time others had turned up, my wife was already beyond tipsy.

I was beginning to wonder how I could get her home before she caused a scene, when out of the blue, she told me she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to leave, so I made our excuses, and we headed out to our car.

My colleague lived in a small village miles out of town, and it wasn’t long after we’d navigated our way out of the narrow country lanes and got back on to the main road into town when my wife, completely unexpectedly, said, “I want a divorce.”

To say I was shocked would be a huge understatement.

Somewhat dangerously perhaps, although I did check the rear-view mirror, I slammed on the brakes and pulled in at the side of the road.

I assumed that, to a degree, it was the alcohol talking, but since alcohol is known to help to loosen your inhibitions, I considered the possibility that this was more than simply a drunken outburst.

Not surprisingly, I asked her the reason why, but could not get a sensible answer – or any real answer, in fact.

I was pretty pissed off by the way and time she’d chosen to say this, and even more so when it turned out she’d already mentioned this to her mother over the phone.

When I felt calm enough to drive again, I set off and the rest of the journey home was in total silence, a silence that continued until bedtime.

And then, the next day, it was like it had never happened – she never broached the subject again.

Looking back, after all these years, it has made me realize how powerful the programming is that we are fed when we are young.

I may or may not have mentioned this in other articles, but in the depths of my depression, when I was looking for relief and ways out, the idea of divorce never once crossed my mind.

(At the time the above event took place, I was already depressed, albeit not diagnosed as such yet, but not at my lowest point, which came some time later when I became seriously suicidal.)

Given my situation, which nobody else knew about at that time, most people would probably have jumped straight to divorce as a way out.

It’s worth noting that during the previous few years I had done what I believed to be everything in my power to help my wife deal with her problem, but once I realized that people don’t change unless they want to, and she apparently didn’t, I had nowhere left to go, so choosing divorce at that point would not exactly have been a case of my bailing out without even trying to fix things.

So, the question is, why did I not react to her suggestion with relief and glee?

After all, she had been the one to raise the divorce issue, not me?

I have never enjoyed confrontation, or even the possibility of it, so raising the subject myself would have been extremely difficult.

Her saying she wanted a divorce should have been an easy get-out for me – and yet I didn’t take it.

I actually went in the completely opposite direction and fought to dissuade her from the idea of us splitting up.

This is what I think was going on.

I do not recall my parents arguing – ever.

They had what used to be called a traditional marriage – my mother had been brought up to do whatever her husband wanted, and she more or less did. And my father, on the other hand, was your old-school male chauvinist (amongst many other prejudices).

I’m not sure you would call it a happy marriage – not seen from my perspective, at least – but it was a stable one.

So the possibility of them divorcing was a non-issue.

I think my position on divorce comes from something my parents (and maybe my maternal grandparents) said when I was still quite young.

My aunt (who was my mother’s sister) had been married and then divorced before I was even born, but the way they talked about that had apparently coloured my views on the subject.

My mother’s family were all Roman Catholic, although none of them were practising during my life-time, and of course, in theory, divorce is not an option for them. At the very least, it’s frowned upon.

But it’s not the religious angle that got in the way of my considering divorce to be a way out of my marriage, because I am not, and never have been a believer in any deities, regardless of the religion or denomination.

It all happened too long ago for me to recall the exact words, but I suspect it was the manner in which they talked about the whole divorce thing. I’m pretty sure I was so young at the time that I probably didn’t even know much about what marriage or divorce was.

But obviously something stuck in my mind – the idea that divorce was “bad”.

As I grew older, I saw the number of marriages that failed increasing, and I do remember thinking that I didn’t want to be just another statistic. (It never occurred to me, of course, that we are all part of innumerable statistics all the time.)

So, by the time I had been married for well over a decade and it was clear my situation was desperate, the word “divorce” simply wasn’t in my personal vocabulary.

Sure, it happened to other people, but the idea simply never occurred to me.

I know, looking back, that this seems hard to believe, because I’m not unintelligent, but this is, I think, a good example of how powerful that early programming can be.

Maybe it’s strong because it’s implanted before you can rationalize the ideas being presented to you.

I mean, if my parents had had that discussion about my aunt’s divorce when I was older, say in my early teens, I would probably have asked all sorts of questions to dig deeper into the problem and why divorce was bad.

I would likely have concluded that just because their religion was against the idea of divorce did not mean it was an intrinsically bad thing to do.

But because I was so young, and hadn’t developed the critical thinking tools and the right vocabulary to use, the concept of “divorce is bad” somehow just sunk in, and sat there.

Eventually, after over 23 years of marriage, and about eight to ten years of being badly depressed, a friend I was talking to online asked me the obvious question, “Why don’t you get a divorce?”

And that’s when it hit me – that it was an option, a difficult one because of that confrontation issue I mentioned earlier, but it was definitely a way out.

There would be things to deal with, and, as it turned out, a lot of anger (mainly on my wife’s part), but those would pass.

And while the divorce process was indeed ugly, the minute I stepped out of my front door for the final time, I immediately felt a huge wave of relief wash over me.

Conclusion

If there are any lessons to be learned from this personal story, then I think they are:

1. Question everything, especially the things you think you know. Beliefs are incredibly powerful, even when there is no evidence with which to back them up. (I actually have a free report about uncovering your limiting beliefs, which you can find here if you are a member, and here if you are not yet a member.)
2. As a parent, you need to be very careful about what you say to and around your children, because they may end up with beliefs that cause them problems later on in life. Sometimes this is done accidentally, as I’m sure was the case with me and divorce, but it’s also often done on purpose, and the prime example here is how religious beliefs are passed on from one generation to the next.

In either case, the key task is to look for evidence that your belief is accurate and factual – and if you can find no evidence to substantiate that belief, then maybe it’s a belief you need to throw away.

There’s one final point I’d like to make, and that is, if I’d realized my belief regarding divorce was unfounded, then I might have got out of that first marriage a lot sooner and spared myself many years of depression and pain.

But here’s the thing – if I had done so, it’s extremely likely I would not be where I am today, and where I am today, even though my second wife died unexpectedly just over a year ago, is somewhere I am happy.

This is why I don’t consider having regrets to be a useful practice, because you never know, if you had made a different choice in the past, whether your life today would be better or worse.