Responsibility      
          After taking a DIVORCE CARE class and reading several books on the subject, I believe that after a relationship has failed we owe it to GOD, ourselves, and others to gain healing before dating. It was funny my mother had told me that morning before one of my divorce care classes that she had wished her father, my grandfather, had learned to be confortable in his own skin (learned to love and accept hiself) before he jumped back into another relationship. My grand father had been married 5 times and for the majority of the relationships he had just blamed it on “picking the wrong person”. That night I asked the instructor of the class how soon was to soon to date. He said that the class and his experience has told him 1 to 3 years maybe more. I was devastated I have to just get back out there and move on with my life, I thought. He said that when we move to quickly and don’t deal with our pain and don’t work on our part of the relationship failure we are destined to fail again and end up in the exact same place. I looked at my own life and realized that I had started dating my second wife one month after my first divorce was final. The man setting next to me in the class also shared that he was on his fourth divorce and the pattern was the same for him. Once a relationship had failed we had dove right back into dating to gain acceptance and to try this time to not “choose the wrong person”.  All these things were no coincidence. GOD was sending me a message loud and clear. The pathway 2 peace is a relationship with Him where I gain my acceptance through him. It is stopping long enough to see my part in a Divorce instead of using the cop out “I just keep choosing the wrong people.” I had also talked to a counselor from a crisis center. She had told me that no one deserves bad treatment no matter what they do, but the majority of the time they do play a role in their dysfunctional relationships.

       The road of recovery is a lot longer and more painful alone for me, but I don’t want to stay on the same path of dysfunction. I am now not afraid to look in the mirror and work on my part of the dysfunctional relationships I have been in and quit copping out and running from my responsibility by the cliché avoidance of “Poor me I just keep choosing the wrong people." Safe People by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend showed me how to find and become a safe person. If you are reading this and are noticing a PATTERN and you truly desire to get out of the PATTERN in YOUR life. PLEASE, Pray this prayer GOD please show me the way you and others view me.  Then ask your friends, family, and close acquaintances how they view you and what is your role that they see. What are your strengths what are your weaknesses. You may be very surprised that the way to START CHOOSING THE RIGHT PEOPLE is by first becoming one YOURSELF.