What To Do About An Unreasonable Ex

BITTERNESS AND BETRAYAL go hand in hand in relationship dynamics when things have ended poorly, but it is often surprising who is most embittered; it’s not always the betrayed. A lot of the time it’s the betrayer that feels the stinging assault of bitterness all over them, particularly in the context of time – months and years after the separation or divorce. This sort of stinging assault mystifies their sense of consciousness for such oppression.

In short, the person who inflicted the reason for bitterness in the other actually becomes the one afflicted.

Such is the case of the swinging saloon doors of justice!

Justice, like the Lord that owns and institutes all justice, is no favourer of persons. Play by the rules of justice and justice is your friend. Disobey the ancient way and you only have yourself to blame. These rules of justice comply with the same tried and tested cycles of sowing and reaping that have existed through all eternity. These rules are not about to change now.

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What do we do with an ex-partner who is spewing poisonous and corrosive sulphuric acid all over you?

It’s not their fault that they are reacting in the fear of attack. Fear causes us to do silly things without thinking of the consequences. Their actions might be regrettable, even though they may never show remorse.

What are you to do in the midst of such an attack?

Well, we all ought to know this: It is impossible to defeat a “foe” who won’t return fire. By love we suffer daily injustices very well and we cannot be defeated. Against a former partner there is no defence or attack that is warranted as worthy; no, not one.

We are to respond in the wisdom of love, by failing to attack, by holding safe ground, by losing the initiative, by letting them win the conflict. When they win, so do we: that’s got to be our mentality.

The action with most value is the action of inaction, but an inaction that discerns the very thing that flushes the fire of abuse with something cooling to take the heat out of the exchange.

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Unreasonable people don’t respond well to counterattack. The best weapon to fight any war with is love. Loving our ex-partners employs the wisdom of God to ensure neither they nor we lose. It is impossible to fight with someone who won’t fight back. Active forgiveness has strength about it that can only come from God.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.