Living Well Is The Best Revenge

Once upon a time there was a divorce group for men and women that was a small part of a non-profit organization called Second Chance in Fremont, California. It was an extraordinary divorce group because the man who led the group was an extraordinary man. His real name was Skylar Moon. He had a Masters degree in psychology and a Masters degree in education, including post graduate work at the Kempler Institute of Psychology. When Skylar walked into a room, people turned around and stared at him with fascination because he had an immediately commanding presence. He was over six feet tall, he usually wore a leather sports jacket, dress shirt (but no tie) and jeans, and he always wore the same jaunty flat leather cap which partially covered his bald head. He often had a cigarillo either between his lips or held between his fingers as if he was about to smoke it. But he never lit it. Skylar looked like a skinny, bald, clean shaven version of Jimi Hendrix. His remarkable personality had a significant positive impact on everybody who had the good fortune to meet him.

New members of the divorce group were always in various stages of emotional devastation. Skylar was very gracious when he welcomed people into the group and he made them feel comfortable by introducing them to the other members and letting them know that they had just joined a group of new friends. But Skylar was a unique group leader because he fearlessly crossed over the line that the psychological profession has drawn in terms of restricting a therapist's interaction to non-judgmental and unemotional empathic listening. He practiced a kind of emotional shock therapy that worked time after time. Typically, he would interrupt a regular group member's sad tale of woe and say, "We've all heard this same old story one too many times. You're like an old record that's stuck in a groove and repeating the same line over and over again. You're STUCK. You're standing in your own bucket of excrement and complaining about how much it stinks. Do you want to know why you don't get out of that bucket? (not waiting for an answer) It's because you're petrified with fear of what's outside the bucket. You've grown accustomed to your own stench and you're comfortable with it. When are you going to make a decision to change your life?" The usual reaction to his confrontation was stunned silence. People did not know how to react to something like that. But the next time they spoke, they would give Skylar all kinds of reasons why it would be so difficult, if not impossible, for them to resolve their financial, emotional, and legal issues. Skylar would interrupt their defensive maneuvering and say, "Be quiet. Just think about what I've told you. I'll come back to you when you have something positive to say.”

Men often complained bitterly about the horrible things their spouses were doing to them and about how badly they were being hurt. Skylar would say, "Why does that surprise you? She hates you. She doesn't even like you. She won't even walk on the same side of the street with you. You're acting like a maladjusted child who is clinging to its mother's leg. I'll tell you what she is doing to you. She is kicking you, and she is going to continue to kick you harder and harder until you hurt so badly that you stop clinging to her leg and let go of her. Your marriage is OVER. You need to understand that because you will not be able to move on with your life until you do." Long term group members always told the new members, "Listen to Skylar, he knows what he's talking about. It took me (x number of years) to figure all this out but I'm very glad that I followed Skylar's advice." Skylar told everybody, "The best thing you can do is create a new and better life for yourself. Nobody is going to do that for you. You can never go back. Unless you're a masochist and you actually enjoy pain, you have no alternative but to go forward. Most of you are going sideways and unfortunately you're not going to move on with your life until you reach the point where you wake up one morning and say to yourself 'I can't stand this pain. I simply cannot go on doing what I've been doing for one more day.' That's when you will begin to make the changes in your life that you've been afraid of making. But here's the good news. Create a new and better life for yourself and someday you'll discover that living well is the best revenge.”

There is a transcendent truth underlying Skylar's concept that living well is the best revenge, but living well should not have revenge as its primary motive. Living well by enjoying each and every day to the fullest possible extent is one of the important things that life is all about, and that concept requires no justification. However, when your ex finds out that you are living better than you did before you were ejected, the knowledge will usually cause them great discomfort and if you have any residual feelings of anger, you will feel even happier about how well you are doing. Living better than you did before does not necessarily require a lot of money. One way to do it is to move to a nicer location than the one where you lived when you were married. It's a good idea to move away from a place that contains too many bad memories. Consider moving to the place where your ex always wanted to live, or consider relocating to somewhere you always wanted to live. Treat yourself well. Eat well, Have fun. Make new friends. Enjoy life in every possible way. The information about how well you are living and how much fun you are having will filter back to your ex and you will know it. One last bit of Skylar's advice is worth mentioning here. He used to tell people "Fake it 'til you make it." That's an expression used by Alcoholics Anonymous but it applies to this situation as well because even if things do not work out for you immediately, that's information your ex does not need to have.

Skylar Moon died in 2004. There are countless people who will never forget this man, and they will also not forget how much they benefited from being in his divorce group. This author is one of those people. He is currently living happily ever after in paradise.

By: Peter Cross

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Peter Cross is a singer/songwriter/producer/Web Master. You can find this article at: Living Well is the Best Revenge and his home page at: Rock and Roll with an Immortal Soul. The "best of” Peter Cross CD is entitled A Hard Day at The Orifice. All work protected by Library of Congress Registration No. TXu1-257-177.