Book by Morrow, Randy

No More DIVORCE for you and me

By RANDY MORROW

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Randy Morrow
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-0806-9

Contents

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................1It's Just Plain Hard.....................................................................5Treat the Opposite Like a Friend?........................................................6Honest, Being Alone is OK................................................................7No Jumping Allowed.......................................................................9The Art of Making Someone Else Happy.....................................................10Insecurity, Mass Murderer of Relationships...............................................11Perfection is a 4 Letter Word............................................................12Love is Overrated........................................................................13Finding Your 'Big Why'...................................................................14Spend the Rest of Your Life Alone ... and Mean It........................................15Would Someone Want to Date You?..........................................................17Sex is the Devil.........................................................................21I Love You...............................................................................22Extending the disInvitation..............................................................23Daily Affection..........................................................................24A Little Preparation Might Be Nice.......................................................25You're Safe!.............................................................................26The Powerful Law of Attraction...........................................................27Freakin' Pitiful.........................................................................28I Have to Communicate?...................................................................30I'm So Alone. Hallelujah!!!..............................................................31Are You Nuts?............................................................................32Plant Your Own Darn Seeds!...............................................................34Don't Worry About Understanding Me, Just Understand This is How I Am.....................36Why Do You Need to Know Their Names?.....................................................39I Don't Have to Forgive Someone..........................................................41No Fault Divorce! BULL* *&%&$............................................................42You Have a Choice. Use It!...............................................................47Carol, I'll Never Forget.................................................................49Start Designing Your Future..............................................................52Practice Dating..........................................................................53Sublety Has No Place in a Marriage.......................................................54You Can't Make Someone With Low Self-Esteem Love You.....................................56My Definition of a Positive Attitude.....................................................57Maintain Some Independence...............................................................58The Different Looks of Divorce Success...................................................60Big No-No for Men........................................................................62The Common Thread........................................................................63Step Children and Natural Children.......................................................67Change Your Inside.......................................................................69How to Stop Loving Them..................................................................70The Hidden Emotional Costs of Divorce....................................................75Will There Be Laughter in Your Future?...................................................76How to Heal Emotional Divorce Scars......................................................79Share Your Ideas and See the Results.....................................................81Lonesome vs. Lonely......................................................................83Battle of the Heart vs. Common Sense.....................................................85I Love Them, I Just Don't Like Them!!....................................................87I Miss Him Randy.........................................................................88Your Life Has a Common Thread. Find It...................................................90Getting Divorced—There is No Gray Area.............................................93Divorce DEMANDS You Surround Yourself with Honesty.......................................95Divorce & Panic Attacks, I Hate Them Both!!..............................................97It Takes Guts to Face a Divorce..........................................................99Children Should NOT Be a Part of Divorce.................................................103What Footsteps Will You Leave During Your Divorce?.......................................104Are You Riding Shotgun to Your Fear?.....................................................105Don't Forget the Healing Power of the Small Things in Life...............................106Divorce Perspective......................................................................107Marriage and Divorce Are on the Same Road................................................108An End Means a Beginning.................................................................109It Was Just Cancer, Not Divorce!.........................................................110How Can I Be Mentally Tough When I'm Getting Divorced? Seven Tips........................119Why Me, You Ask. I'm a Good Person.......................................................122What Did You Do Today to Survive Divorce?................................................123I Accomplished My Impossible This Holiday!...............................................124Pity + Self-Pity. A Sure Disaster........................................................125Divorce is a Serious Business............................................................129A Funny Step I Used to Start Recovering..................................................130My Toughest Job is Not Taking Advantage of My Wife.......................................131A Couple of Tips When Ending a Relationship..............................................133Go Ahead, Play the Victim................................................................134Change Course IMMEDIATELY!...............................................................135Learn to Outsmart Yourself...............................................................137Battle of the Heart vs. Common Sense.....................................................139YOU Are a WINNER!........................................................................141Things to Avoid Saying During Your Divorce to Your STBX..................................143VERBAL ASSAULT. The Wounds That Never Heal...............................................146Final Words..............................................................................149

Chapter One

Part one

It's Just Plain Hard

There is something you need to hear and absorb and understand as you read through this book:

If you take even one piece of advice from me and start applying it to your life, it will not be easy. It was not easy for me.

TREAT THE OPPOSITE SEX LIKE A FRIEND?

Are you kidding me?

Deliberately pick out someone of the opposite sex that you feel an attraction to and make it a priority to make them a 'just friend'.

Men, I think this especially applies to us. However, the purpose of doing this is to know you have the 'power' to do so.

HONEST, BEING ALONE IS OK

Learn to be okay with being alone. This includes going out to eat. I overcame this by taking a book, magazine, or crossword to keep me occupied. Go to a movie (this was a tough one for me). Being alone is not the same thing as being lonely. For instance, when you can sit in your own living room and be comfortable with yourself as company—you are alone. BUT, if you are never comfortable with that and feel that you MUST have someone else around — that is being lonely, and it will get you into more trouble than you know what to do with.

Take up ballroom or swing dancing! And don't tell me you are too clumsy. No one was more terrified than I; and more than once I went to the lessons and swore I would never return. But I did, and eventually became a championship dancer. Oh, did I say that I met dozens and dozens of people who are still my friends years later?

NO JUMPING ALLOWED

Don't you dare jump right into another relationship. I mean it. I recommend that you take at least a year to figure out who you are and what you really want for the future.

I took a lot longer because I decided that I just could not bear the thought of going through divorce again and so began a journey of self-healing.

THE ART OF MAKING SOMEONE ELSE HAPPY

Understand this: you cannot (repeat cannot) make someone else happy. That must come from within themselves. You can make it to where they are happy to be with you, and vice versa. That's good and healthy.

INSECURITY, MASS MURDERER OF RELATIONSHIPS

Insecurity is the mass murderer of relationships.

An insecure person always doubts themselves and you. They are always seeing trouble lurking in every doorway. Insecurity breeds jealousy, massive jealousy. Insecure people want you to stay home or with them at all times because they see everyone as a threat to their partnership with you.

Take a long, long, hard look at yourself first. If you see these traits in yourself, stay away from relationships until you have it figured out what is causing you to feel insecure.

PERFECTION IS A 4 LETTER WORD

No one is perfect. We are human, which makes it impossible to be perfect. So, when you find someone that you really, really like, give the relationship time to mature so that both of your imperfections start to show. If they aren't so bad that you can't live with them, make up your mind that you are going to start ignoring those little irritations and concentrate on the marvelous traits of that person that make them so attractive to you.

The ultimate goal is not to find a perfect person, but to find a perfect person for YOU.

LOVE IS OVERRATED

Love is overrated as the reason to get married. Disagree? Allow me to state my case. Toward the end of almost every relationship, you still love that person, right? BUT, you don't much like them because of the things they are doing and saying. You see, you can LOVE the person you are dating, but not like the things they are doing. But because we have been brought up to believe that 'love conquers all', we will go ahead and stay in the relationship believing it will get better. BS! At least think about it, will you?

FINDING YOUR 'BIG WHY'

My friend Gary often talks about discovering your 'BIG WHY'; meaning what really motivates your life. Believe it or not, this is not an easy question to answer, especially if your life is in a whirlwind.

I thought for about a year after first hearing about it. Finally, I wrote Gary one day and said "I've figured out my BIG WHY. Everything I do will be to support and care for my wife Wendy". I was so excited and proud of myself! I had nailed it. Gary wrote back a short note saying that perhaps I should not place this kind of goal toward a person, and to keep thinking about it.

Deflation! What does he mean? But I went to work on it, the idea of what a BIG WHY truly is: The BIG WHY is that thing that gets inside of you with such a passion that it drives you to be bigger and better than anything you ever imagined for yourself. Knowing the BIG WHY will start knocking down all the mental limits we build up in our minds that stop us from achieving our true potential. The energy is always there to 'go for it'! I wrote Gary back after a good while and told him the above and what my BIG WHY is: To become the leading authority in Divorce Real Estate, a very rare specialty. I wrote this and more to Gary and he replied "Go for it!".

SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE ALONE.... AND MEAN IT

In March 1991, I hung up the phone from my kid's mother who had just finished ranting and raving at me to do something about the kids—they were 1600 miles away from me! I said these exact words to myself "I would rather spend the rest of my life alone than 5 more minutes with someone who doesn't want me around".

Sounds innocent enough doesn't it? But that one sentence turned out to be a monumental point in turning my life around. Life-changing event. Why? Because it was the first HARD decision I had ever made in my life and then STUCK to it! I determined right then and there to start cleaning my life of energy vampires, and I started inviting some people out of my life. It started to become a habit.

Then there are the other types: The people (usually family) whom you may not be able to completely disinvite. Here is what you can do: limit your time around them; and set some boundaries. What has been the result of this decision? Primarily, my quality of life has soared. More positive people started being attracted to my changed persona. Now what's wrong with that?

WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO DATE YOU?

New Year's morning, 1997. I find myself sitting on the sofa and started to think "Here I am alone, another New Year's Eve spent alone". I asked myself "Why"? That led to a second, and life turning point question "If I were a woman would I want to date me"? "No." "Okay, what are you going to do about it?"

What happened when I started thinking about it was that I had been so protective of myself that I had become almost anti-social. I wanted another woman in my life but I was still very afraid of repeating my mistakes. I made two extremely important decisions that day. 1. I decided to take dance lessons because in many articles and conversations I kept hearing that at the top of woman's preferences in a man is that he knows how to dance.

I decided that I had to do something that would terrify me; yet find the courage to do it anyway.

This is the short version of the two stories; but, by the next weekend I had signed up for dance lessons. I was terrified; and clumsy. And I kept forcing myself to go back. I gained more and more confidence and became addicted! I actually became a championship dancer!! Life-changing event!

By the next weekend, I had done something else too. I went to Skydive Orange in Orange, VA and signed up for skydiving. It took everything I had inside of me to get on that plane. But I did. After that I jumped again just to prove the first time wasn't a fluke. I jumped a third time for the pure joy of it. I've never jumped again. Why? Because I proved to myself that I had something in me that could conquer. And you know what? I've never again gone back to being afraid to confront obstacles. Life-changing event!

Chapter Two

Part Two

SEX IS THE DEVIL!!

Sex may get you into marriage, but it won't keep you there. As wonderful as it may be, sex alone is not enough to sustain a marriage. That doesn't mean it isn't important, because it definitely is.

I LOVE YOU

"I love you."

Three very nice words to hear UNLESS you or your partner must hear them constantly. If so, this is a sure sign of uncertainty/insecurity about themselves or the relationship.

EXTENDING THE disINVITATION

Disinvite the energy sappers from your life, and keep disinviting them.

We all have these people in our lives. If they are someone whom you cannot permanently disinvite, then severely limit your time around them.

You life......will.....IMPROVE!

DAILY AFFECTION

Daily affection. Get rid of the quick pecks when you leave in the morning and come home in the evening. Give them a kiss they can feel. Better yet, give hugs; multiple hugs. You say you aren't the affectionate type? GET OVER IT.

Listen, if you place a barrel in the middle of the yard, fill it with water, and then only occasionally put a little water back into it, the barrel will eventually dry up. Make sense?

And don't give me your bullshit about not being an affectionate person. LEARN!

A LITTLE PREPARATION MIGHT BE NICE

Start preparing, from the day the two of you decide to see if something is meant to be between the two of you, for the long-haul of the relationship. Starry eyes and sex alone won't cut it.

YOU'RE SAFE!

Institute a one-hour safe zone. When we arrive home, we often arrive with a lot of pent-up emotions; and the drive home was not enough time to decompress either.

The solution is to grant each other an entire hour to decompress from the day once we get home. There should be nothing so urgent to talk about that it can't wait for an hour until you have calmed down and aren't thinking with your emotions so much. This technique is to guarantee drastically lower chances of unnecessary arguments.

THE POWERFUL LAW OF ATTRACTION

I was who I attracted.

Now I attract who I have become.

FREAKIN' PITIFUL

Pity.....the worst four letter word in language. Self-pity.....the worst double set of four letter words EVER.

Self-Pity/Pity is like wallowing in quicksand; the more and longer you struggle in it the deeper you sink.

Think of pity like quicksand, the further into it you walk, the deeper you sink. The deeper you sink, the chances of your drowning in it are quite good!! I would say 99-100% good.

So let's talk about why I feel this way. (remember, I did not discover this from books). The human tendency when one of our family or close friends announces the word 'divorce' is to immediately go into that "oh, I'm soooo sorry" voice and then say "you'll be fine. I knew one couple who fought and fought and fought and fought. Oh, it was bloody." Sound familiar?

Before that, however, you have already started the process yourself—Why me? What did I do to deserve this? How could he/she do this to me, I was so perfect'? Cry, and cry and cry.

And you have every right to feel totally destroyed and without direction. You do. Unless one year, two years, three years out you are still feeling this way. That's not acceptable; it can't be acceptable. You have a life to live, and you owe it to yourself to shorten the amount of time you spend feeling sorry for yourself.

Self-pity can become a habit, a way of life. That will retard your growth, and what's worse, you will attract and seek out self pityers. Does that sound like what you want?

Rather than wallow in self-pity, why don't you think about this? You now have to wonderful opportunity to build a new life, learning from the mistakes of the old one!!!

I HAVE TO COMMUNICATE?

It really is all about communication.

Express yourself, but listen; a big part of love is listening, really listening.

Never forget it is a 50-50 partnership; if you are getting your way more than 50% of the time, you are looking for trouble. In a relationship you give up part of your freedom to do what you want.

Let him/her be him/her; don't try to change him/her; and don't denigrate who he/she is.

Lower your expectations; you are responsible for your own happiness; he/she cannot make you happy.

Figure out what his/her needs are in the relationship before you commit; and then figure out whether you are willing to meet those needs.

Expect him/her to change over the years in ways you cannot predict or control.

I'M SO ALONE. HALLELUJAH!!!!

Give each other some 'alone' time.

All of us need time alone to keep a sense of self-identity. I believe we get so wrapped up in each other's lives that we forget who we are as an individual. This can lead to a claustrophobic feeling of 'I don't know who I am anymore'. And that can lead to divorce.

WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THE EX?

ARE YOU NUTS?

Do you understand what 'Ex' means? It means was, used to be, gone, outta' here, no mas.

I know what many of you are already saying "But, the children, I have to talk about them". And you would be right. Where you would be wrong is if you are obsessively talking and thinking about them.

Believe me, if the ex is still a major obsession, the LAST thing a new person in your life want to hear is about the ex. It is guaranteed to drive a wedge between you.

That isn't the worst part though. The worst part is that if the topic is still such an obsession for you, it means you are NOT ready to be in another relationship because you have not finished the old one yet. And let's not mention the selfishness of it; you have no right to ruin or muddy someone else's life. You just don't. You don't want someone doing it to you, do you?

No children? You aren't off the hook on this either. Either the old marriage/relationship is over, or it isn't. If you can't leave your baggage behind, what does that do for your new chances?

Take the time to heal yourself BEFORE you get into a new relationship! It may take a week, a month, or years; but, take the time to heal.

PLANT YOUR OWN DARN SEEDS!

I spent waaaaay too many years of my life allowing the wind to determine my fate in life. Someone said 'Randy, you should do this', I did it. Someone said 'Randy, you will do this', I did it. Someone said 'Randy, you will not do this', and I didn't.

I'll let you guess how my life went. Ten truckloads of cement could not have filled all the potholes in my life. Oh, I made lots of hard decisions that I would or would not do something. The problem was I did not have the backbone to stick to those decisions. I was too busy bending over to kiss other people asses trying to plant the seeds that would please them that my own seeds got planted; they just never got decision that changed my life forever. I planted the seed in my head that I would rather spend the rest of my life alone than spend five more minutes with anyone who didn't want me.

This is a hard decision for a 'people pleaser'. Not a hard one to make, but a hard one to KEEP. I did though. And it is a seed that has grown into a full-blown, beautiful tree. I'm no longer blown in a direction unless Randy wants to go there. Best damn seed I ever planted.

Remember one thing: it doesn't happen overnight. Be patient and give the seed a lot of care.

Water IT!

Then, one day in 1991, in my early thirties and after my second divorce, I made the one hard decision in my life that I ever stuck to, saying to myself "I would rather spend the rest of my life alone than spend five more minutes with anyone who didn't want to be with me".

I started learning how to do that by severely limiting those people's time with me or near me. The quality of my life started soaring.

DON'T WORRY ABOUT UNDERSTANDING ME, JUST UNDERSTAND THIS IS HOW I AM

Hey Babe,

I know this is nearly impossible for you to understand why I resist doing something that would be good for me.

Thankfully, you and I have led very different lives. But, I have a deep, deep, deep resentment against any signs in me that resemble my father. VERY DEEP. I fight them very hard when I recognize them in me.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from No More DIVORCE for you and meby RANDY MORROW Copyright © 2012 by Randy Morrow. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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