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"I just read a powerful essay by an incredibly strong woman named Laura Munson, describing the way she handled her husband asking for divorce. When her husband told her that he wanted out, she reacted in a very unexpected way. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t love you anymore. I&amp;#039;m not sure I ever did.&amp;quot; His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t buy it.&amp;quot; Because I didn&amp;#039;t.   It takes a lot of courage to look at someone who&amp;#039;s hurt you that deeply and say &amp;quot;Nope. You&amp;#039;re not telling me the truth. You&amp;#039;re not telling yourself the truth.&amp;quot; She goes on to explain her reasoning: Let me be clear: I&amp;#039;m not saying my husband was throwing a child&amp;#039;s tantrum. No. He was in the grip of something else\u2014a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did. But I decided to respond the same way I&amp;#039;d responded to my children&amp;#039;s tantrums. And I kept responding to it that way. For four months. I read this essay through, and saw my husband in just about every line. I saw the dissatisfaction with where his life is in regard to where he planned it to be, the lashing out at me over his very personal unhappiness, the &amp;quot;wanting space&amp;quot; but not under the same roof. Peter had one glaring difference, however. He didn&amp;#039;t have the courage to tell me he wanted space or time or help from me (or a professional) to work through his issues \u2013 he just took a vacation from his marriage between someone else&amp;#039;s legs. Since this was a repeated offense, when he told me he thought it was best for us to go our separate ways &amp;quot;for awhile&amp;quot; I believed him, and told him &amp;quot;awhile&amp;quot; needed to become &amp;quot;forever&amp;quot;. I have fought that same battle as the author before \u2013 right before Anna was born. Even though the pregnancy was as planned as it could be, her birth seemed to hit Peter like a truck. He had visions of where he&amp;#039;d be financially, in his career, and in his life in general. He didn&amp;#039;t hit all those marks and suddenly he was turning into &amp;quot;Dad&amp;quot; and it overwhelmed him. He was so busy being miserable over everything he didn&amp;#039;t have or accomplish, he couldn&amp;#039;t be joyful about all he did have or was about to have. I refused to let him drown in that misery, and I worked hard with him and for him to get through it. I stuck with him and watched him harvest a good crop of joy out of fatherhood. I have never regretted that I stuck it out then, not even now after it all fell apart in the long run. Do you feel like you fought for your marriage? Are you glad you did, even if it didn&amp;#039;t work out? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a41350/ducking-the-punches-10759/>