I wrote a post here a couple of years ago that "Therapy is for women only".

Well, a year after that, I decided to give it a try.

I've been with 4 different therapists now and I can tell you some things I learned from them, not just about divorce but also in relationships after the divorce.

  1. In my marriage I was very controlling. I made the money and she was a SAHM. Since I made the money, I called ALL the shots. Where we live, where we go on vacation, what cell phones we have, everything.

  2. I thought since she was SAHM and didn't have to pay for rent or food, that she was loving it. But then I was told that rent and food are free in prison as well and nobody wants to live there.

  3. I basically created a prison for my ex wife, while thinking I was providing her with a life that many women would envy. She was not a very good communicator and never let me know this, so after 19 years of marriage she had enough and left.

  4. Now this hurt my self esteem. Why did she leave me. Am I ugly, am I fat, am I boring? The thing is, she is just one person. Her opinion only matters to her. It doesn't affect me or how I see myself or how others see me.

  5. In the moments I missed her, I just thought about the 6 month period where I begged her to stay and she screamed at me like a banshee. I still shudder when I think of it.

  6. I was so angry with the money I had to give her in settlement, plus alimony. But she did raise the kids while allowing me to focus on work and advance my career and get raises. I really believe I was further ahead in my career than if I was single. I also have 2 kids now thanks to her. It helped me diffuse my anger over alimony.

  7. When she got a new boyfriend and movie in with him I was devasted. But then I went out with other girls and I stopped thinking about her in a way that she was still my wife. She is a single person as I am and can do whatever she wants. I don't control or own her as she doesn't control or own me.

  8. Starting dating was tough. As somebody who called all the shots it was tough to go and date women that were single for 10-20 years and did whatever they wanted. It also was tough not to talk to them about my divorce and use them as my therapist. This is when I decided to get a therapist again.

  9. The issue with dating was that I was very needy. I basically wanted an instant replacement wife. Most of the women wanted to take things really slow, which I took as a rejection. I went on a ton of first dates because I thought "You never know what the connection will be like in person". What a mistake that was. Not a single person that I was not sure about on the app actually turned out to be cool in real life. Not a single one. So I just went on stupid dates that went nowhere which depressed me even more.

  10. I finally decided to tighten up my standards. No women with kids. No tattoos. No weed. I met a cool woman, but she lived like a mile from the airport and woke up at 4:30am and kept the house at 60 degrees, with a ceiling fan on. I couldn't sleep over at her place, ever so I broke up with her.

  11. Then I dated a night shift nurse, which was a huge mistake.

  12. Then I dated an office manager. She was a disaster.

  13. Then I dated a lawyer. She was obsessed with sex which I loved, but super mean.

  14. Then I dated a teacher who was very nice. We hit it off. It was great, until she started hanging out with her ex bf (they didn't speak for like 5 years after breakup, but just started hanging out again). When I said I don't like that she's talking to him she called me controlling and insecure. That's the third time I started going to therapy. The therapist got me to realize what are my boundaries. My boundary was that I don't want my gf to hang out with any guy who saw her naked in the past. I just couldn't do it. It caused a huge fight but she agreed to cut that ex bf loose. I also wondered why did it make me insecure in the relationship. Since she dated a few guys before me, I was insecure that she was comparing me to them. I don't even know them, but it just didn't feel right. The therapist would ask me 5 whys. Why do I think they are better than me, and is there any evidence. There was never any evidence, and in the end, she was with me and not them.

I also fixed my insecurity by not being needy and not making her the center of my world. I started kickboxing. I started a happy hour group at work. I started walking my elderly neighbor's dog and I met a few people in my neighborhood with whom I've hung out. I fixed up my back yard. I started renovating my house little by little with DIY youtube videos. I quit kickboxing but started going to the gym 3x a week. All of this took away time from her, and now she was chasing me! I was also more pleasant to hang out with because I wasn't needy and I had things to talk about. I was also in much better physical shape, other woman where glancing at me, and I didn't feel insecure anymore.

  1. In therapy I learned to not assume and not accuse. If something is fishy or doesn't feel right, I would just ask her a question. I always accused my wife and she grew to resent it and it always ended in a big fight. And 100% of the time there was a good explanation for it. For example she gave me her phone to send myself some photos that she took during the day, and when you send photos it suggests a few people. One of them was a contact named Maman. In the past, with my ex wife I would go crazy, and ask who is this Maman guy!!! But instead, I calmly said, hey it suggested Maman, I haven't heard you mention him, do I know him? And she'd say, oh Maman is my mom, it means Mom in Farsi. And it would be resolved without any drama.

  2. I also learned to give the benefit of the doubt. All of us are dealing with crap, and imagine how nice it would have been if our ex wives gave us benefit of the doubt and some compassion instead of being thankless harpies.

I know a lot of people here are jaded, just like how I was. But it's not a way to live life. I feel like my life is a lot better now than it was before therapy. The current relationship that I'm in would have ended if I didn't learn the skills in therapy, mostly about how to communicate. And I feel like I'm a lot better partner to her, much better than I was to my ex wife.