About explaining yourself for so long that you eventually realise this, too, can become a way of losing yourself.
In the previous chapter, I wrote about a door.
The door could remain open.
But I no longer had to stand in front of it waiting.
At the time, I felt that I had taken an important step.
I could still love someone without putting my life on hold. Feelings could continue to exist without automatically deciding which direction my life had to take.
And afterwards, I tried to actually live that.
The door did not remain open only in a symbolic sense.
We saw each other again.
We spent weekends together.
There were outings.
Conversations.
Moments of closeness.
We even went on holiday together again.
Not because I had forgotten what had happened.
Not because all the problems had suddenly disappeared.
But because I did not want to make a decision based only on pain or anger.
I wanted to see what would happen if, for a while, we stopped putting the conflict at the centre of everything.
To see whether something still existed when all that remained were two people who had shared more than twenty years of history.
And yes, those moments were still there.
Sometimes we could laugh together again.
Sometimes things even felt familiar.
That did not make me blind to everything that still needed to be resolved.
But it did show me that, strangely enough, love and conflict can exist at the same time.
And perhaps that was exactly why what happened afterwards affected me so deeply.
After more than a year and a half, what I wanted most was clarity
Meanwhile, there were still other matters.
Legal ones.
Financial ones.
Practical ones.
Things that, after more than a year and a half, had still not been definitively settled.
And for me, it had less and less to do with winning or losing.
What I mainly wanted was for the actual situation to finally be put down clearly on paper.
Where does everyone stand?
What still needs to be formally arranged?
What can finally be brought to a close?
So that we would not continue for another few months in the same uncertainty.
During the hearing, I did not speak myself.
My lawyer spoke on my behalf.
And what stayed with me afterwards was precisely how little conflict there actually was in what he said.
He made it clear that what we were mainly looking for was a smooth and workable solution.
Financially as well.
The financial situation was difficult on both sides. That was acknowledged.
So for me, there had never been any intention to use the proceedings as a way of gaining financially.
Quite the opposite.
If practical solutions were possible, they could be discussed.
If something temporarily had to be arranged differently because resources were limited, that could be talked about too.
But after more than a year and a half, I did want reality to finally be recorded properly.
Not to take something away from anyone.
Not to put someone in financial difficulty.
Simply because remaining indefinitely in an in-between situation is good for no one.
So when I walked out of the courtroom, my expectation was actually quite simple.
Good. It has been said. We made it clear that we are not looking for a war. Maybe now we can finally move forward.
But once I stepped outside that room, I suddenly heard a completely different story.
When the same event takes on two completely different meanings
Where I had experienced the hearing as:
Let us finally bring this to a close.
what came back to me was:
You want to start a war again.
Where my lawyer had made it clear that financial gain was not the point at all, I heard:
For you, everything is about money.
Where I thought:
Certain things simply need to be clearly put on paper at last,
it became:
You are attacking me.
And almost automatically, something very familiar started happening inside me again.
I wanted to explain.
No, that is not what happened.
That is not what was said.
That was not my intention.
I felt that urge again to go through everything one more time, point by point, even more precisely.
Until one thought suddenly crossed my mind:
How many times do I still have to explain who I am before I realise that explaining it even better may no longer change anything?
An image of myself I do not recognise
That question eventually went far beyond that one court hearing.
I have been carrying it for much longer.
I have often wondered how someone who was once very close to me could eventually hold an image of me in which I barely recognise myself.
How can you have such deep conversations with someone?
Understand each other in a way you rarely experience with anyone else?
Feel safe enough to share things that would normally remain hidden?
And then, at some point, be looked at almost as if you had become a completely different person?
I tried to understand that for a long time.
And gradually, I began to recognise something similar elsewhere.
Some people who mainly know me through stories from my old environment can sometimes already have a certain image of me before they have ever really spoken to me.
And sometimes something strange happens afterwards.
They actually get to know me themselves.
And then I hear:
“I have to admit, I had a completely different image of you.”
On the other hand, there are the people who meet me completely outside that whole history.
On holiday, for example.
People who know nothing about legal files.
Nothing about a divorce.
Nothing about who supposedly is right or wrong.
They simply meet the person standing in front of them.
And there, I have nothing to explain.
No past to justify.
No defence to prepare.
No file to open.
They look for themselves.
They feel for themselves.
And they form their own impression.
For a long time, that contrast confused me.
Because when two groups of people can look at the same person in such different ways, eventually a question appears:
Then who am I, really?
Maybe the greatest danger was not what other people thought
For a long time, I think I believed the problem was that some people might have the wrong image of me.
But perhaps the real danger was somewhere else.
Inside me.
Because when you hear often enough that you are selfish…
that you run away…
that you only think about yourself…
that there are hidden motives behind your choices…
something begins to happen.
At first, you try to convince the other person.
Then you begin to question yourself.
Am I seeing this wrongly?
Am I really like that?
Am I forgetting something?
Do I have a blind spot that everyone else can see except me?
Self-reflection is important to me.
I absolutely want to remain someone who is capable of looking honestly at himself.
I want to be able to acknowledge the moments when I have hurt someone.
The moments when I lost myself.
The moments when I should have acted differently.
But self-reflection can also go too far.
Then it turns into self-doubt.
And self-doubt can eventually begin to erode your sense of self-worth.
At that point, you are no longer simply trying to understand what you may have done wrong.
You begin looking at yourself through someone else’s eyes.
And perhaps that is where I have lost myself even more often than when I was taking care of other people.
Taking responsibility is not the same as accepting every judgement
I do not want to swing to the opposite extreme either.
This story does not mean:
I no longer listen to anyone.
Quite the opposite.
If someone who matters to me tells me that I have hurt them, I want to be able to hear that.
If I am wrong, I want to be able to acknowledge it.
If someone shows me something about myself that I had not seen, I want to reflect on it.
But I am beginning to see a difference.
There is a difference between:
taking responsibility
and
turning every judgement about yourself into truth.
I can make a mistake without being a bad person.
I can disappoint someone without that defining my entire character.
I can set a boundary without that boundary automatically being selfish.
I can ask for legal clarity without hating someone.
And I can still love someone while saying:
I cannot go along with this.
Perhaps that is the distinction I learned far too late.
The hardest question about love
Because of that, my question about a relationship has changed as well.
It is no longer only:
Do I still love this person?
That has almost become the easiest question.
Feelings do not simply disappear after more than twenty years.
There are memories.
Children.
Familiarity.
Beautiful moments.
Those moments when, despite everything, you still find each other.
But another question has now become at least as important:
Who do I become when I remain in this dynamic?
Can I continue to be myself?
Can I set a boundary without having to defend my character for hours?
Can I make a decision without an entire story immediately being created about what that supposedly says about me as a person?
Can I love without love meaning that I have to swallow every disagreement?
Because if I constantly have to prove that I am not the person someone thinks I am, even love eventually becomes exhausting.
Not because there are no feelings left.
But because there is less and less room simply to exist.
Taking distance is not always running away
I have blamed myself often enough in my life for running away.
And sometimes that criticism was probably justified.
But that created another danger.
The danger of automatically seeing every form of distance as escape.
As if staying is always more courageous.
As if one more conversation is always better.
One more explanation.
One more attempt.
One more weekend.
One more chance.
But perhaps there also comes a point when continuing to explain yourself is no longer courage.
Perhaps at that point, it simply becomes another way of abandoning yourself.
Sometimes taking distance can also mean:
I have explained what belongs to me.
I have looked at my own part.
I have tried.
I am not going to spend another three hours proving that my intention was different.
That does not have to be running away.
Sometimes it may be precisely a way of standing your ground.
With yourself.
Not everyone needs to have the same story about me
I cannot control what someone says about me.
I cannot control what other people choose to believe about it either.
I cannot be present every time my name is mentioned and say:
Wait, I would like to give my version as well.
And even if I could…
is that really how I would want to live?
Always managing my reputation?
Always correcting?
Always proving myself?
No.
People are allowed to look for themselves.
Anyone who meets me may have their own experience of me.
Some people will like me.
Others will not.
Some will misunderstand me.
And perhaps I misunderstand others sometimes too.
That is probably part of being human.
My task is not to make sure everyone has exactly the same image of me.
My task is to make sure I do not lose myself again simply because someone else sees me differently.
The door I was still standing in front of
In the previous chapter, I wrote that I no longer wanted to stand in front of an open door waiting.
At the time, I thought that was about someone else.
Waiting for someone to come back.
But perhaps I was still standing in front of a second door.
The door of recognition.
With my explanations in my hands.
My good intentions.
The mistakes I was willing to admit.
My evidence.
Waiting for someone to finally open that door and say:
I understand.
Now I see who you really are.
Maybe that will happen one day.
Maybe it will not.
But I no longer have to remain in front of that door either.
I do not have to slam it shut.
I do not have to hate anyone.
I do not even have to declare that someone else is wrong.
I can simply keep walking.
Because my self-worth does not have to remain on the other side of that door.
Reflection
Maybe we do not lose ourselves only because we give too much to others.
Maybe we can also lose ourselves by constantly explaining who we are.
Because we want so badly to be understood correctly.
Because we find it difficult to tolerate someone telling a story about us in which we do not recognise ourselves.
Because we believe peace will only come when everyone finally understands our intentions.
But perhaps peace is not there at all.
Perhaps it begins when we ourselves have looked honestly enough.
When we have taken responsibility for what belongs to us.
When we are willing to acknowledge our mistakes.
And when we then dare to leave where they belong the things that are not ours.
Someone else’s interpretation.
Someone else’s judgement.
The story someone else needs.
For me, self-worth increasingly means less:
I know I am right.
And more:
I dare to look at myself honestly without tearing myself apart every time I discover something uncomfortable.
Final reflection
I want to keep questioning myself.
But I no longer want to constantly defend myself.
I want to listen.
But I do not want to automatically turn every judgement into a truth about who I am.
I want to love.
But I no longer want to lose my self-worth in order to preserve that love.
In the previous chapter, I stopped waiting for someone to come back through the door.
Today, I realise I was still waiting somewhere else.
For someone to finally say:
I see you for who you really are.
I can leave that place too.
Without anger.
Not because I believe I am always right.
But because I am slowly beginning to understand that not everyone needs to know exactly who I am.
As long as I no longer forget it myself.
Psychological perspective
Reflected appraisal – in psychology, this refers to the idea that our self-image can be influenced by how we believe other people see us. When a certain image of ourselves is repeatedly reflected back to us, it can eventually begin to affect our own perception of who we are.
Self-concept clarity – this refers to the extent to which our sense of who we are feels clear, stable, and internally consistent. When the person we believe ourselves to be continually clashes with very different images reflected back to us by others, it can create uncertainty about our own identity.
Cognitive dissonance – this is the tension that arises when two beliefs are difficult to reconcile. For example: I experience myself as someone who tries to act honestly and with care, while another person interprets that same behaviour as selfishness or self-interest. Our mind naturally tries to resolve such contradictions, which can create an urge to explain again and again what we truly meant.
Self-esteem – having self-esteem does not mean ignoring criticism or believing that you are always right. It means being able to examine feedback without making your entire worth as a person dependent on someone else’s judgement.
Psychologically, this may be where the most important boundary lies for me today: self-reflection helps me grow, but when self-reflection turns into a constant need to prove myself, it can once again become a form of losing myself.
A spiritual perspective
From a philosophical and spiritual point of view, the distinction between what belongs to me and what does not has existed for a very long time.
In Stoicism, an important distinction is made between our own choices and actions on the one hand, and things such as reputation and the judgement of others on the other.
That does not mean other people’s opinions have no value.
It means that I can take responsibility for my actions without also trying to control how everyone interprets them.
A related idea can also be found in existentialism.
A human being is not only what others say about them or the role assigned to them.
Our identity is also shaped, again and again, by the choices for which we ourselves accept responsibility.
Authenticity does not mean having to defend one fixed and unchanging version of our “true self”.
It means daring to recognise our own life and our own choices as truly ours.
And perhaps there is something spiritual in that for me today—something much simpler than being proven right:
I do not need to decide what story another person needs to tell about me.
I can only try to live in such a way that my actions increasingly reflect the person I want to be.
Closing line
I do not need to be seen correctly by everyone in order to stop losing sight of myself.