A letter to you before we go further

Dear friend,

Before we go further, we want to say something directly to you.

What follows in the next two phases of this site is the hardest material we cover. We call it the hard stuff because it is — it addresses the pain portion of our name. We have lived it. We know what it costs to read about it, let alone to have experienced it.

It may be difficult. It may trigger memories you have worked hard to move past. It may bring back pain you thought was behind you. It may cause flashbacks, or sleepless nights, or conversations you weren’t ready to have.

Or — and we genuinely hope this — it may do something else entirely. It may resonate with you in ways that finally feel true. It may give you language for things you have felt but never been able to name. It may help you understand what has actually been happening in your relationship — and why. It may help you feel, perhaps for the first time, that you are not crazy. That what you experienced was real. That you are not alone.

Both of these things are possible. Both have been true for us. We share this material not to reopen wounds but to help you understand them — because understanding is the beginning of healing.

So before you go any further, we want to tell you the most important thing we know. We said it in our very first post. We will say it again here. And we will keep saying it, in every hard post that follows, for as long as this site exists: there is always reason to hope. There truly can be peace after pain. We have lived this. It is not a slogan. It is not a comfort we offer because we don’t know what else to say. It is the most certain thing we know.

We want to be specific about why, because hope without a reason is just wishful thinking.

The first reason is this: you have more control than you think. You cannot control other people — what they do, how they feel, whether they change. But you can control yourself. Your responses. Your focus. Your choices. And that, it turns out, is the only thing that actually determines your level of peace, joy, and happiness. The circumstances of your life do not determine how you feel. Your relationship with those circumstances does. This is not a small thing. It is everything.

The second reason is one we speak of from personal experience: the peace the Savior promises is real. We have felt it. It required humility — a willingness to look honestly at ourselves, not just at the people who hurt us. President Russell M. Nelson has taught that “the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” We have found this to be deeply, personally true. Peace is not a function of your circumstances. It is a function of your focus. And there is real power in peace — a power we have witnessed in our own lives and in the lives of people around us who have chosen it.

We want to tell you what peace actually feels like, because we think it is often misunderstood. It does not feel like the absence of difficulty. It does not feel like everything being resolved, or fair, or healed. It feels like being okay anyway. It feels like setting down a weight you had forgotten you were carrying. It feels like being able to look at your children — or your circumstances, or your future — and seeing possibility instead of only pain.

We found this peace, both of us, in a place we didn’t expect: in letting go of what we could not control. We have several adult children, each at different stages of life, some navigating real difficulties. For a long time we carried the weight of worry for each of them — the particular, exhausting weight that parents know, of wanting to fix what you cannot fix. And then we made a choice. We realized that worry was not helping them and it was not helping us. If we could not change their path by worrying about it, why hold onto something that only brought us pain? So we let it go. And in that moment — in the simple act of releasing what was never ours to carry — we felt a peace greater than anything we had experienced before. It was, genuinely, liberating. We began to see our children not as people in situations that needed fixing, but as people in the middle of their own lives, their own growth, their own stories. And our relationships with them grew warmer, because they could feel that we were not judging them anymore. Only loving them.

That is what peace feels like. And it is available to you. Right now. Not after everything is resolved. Not after the other person changes or apologizes or finally sees what they did. Now.

We want to offer a caution here, and we offer it with genuine love. If you go through the next two phases looking only for validation that you are the victim — or for ammunition to use against someone else, or for ways to change another person — you will be disappointed. You may find some validation, and that is not nothing. But if you stop there, you will not find what you are really looking for.

The only person you can change is yourself. The only mirror worth looking into honestly is your own. This is what we mean when we talk about “mirror work” — the hard, necessary, ultimately liberating practice of turning your attention from what others have done to you, toward what you can do with what remains. You can set boundaries. You can remove yourself from harmful situations if necessary. But you cannot force anyone else to change. And the sooner you stop trying, the sooner your own healing can begin.

We also want to gently ask you not to use what you find here to assemble a tribe — to rally people to your side, to build a case against your former or current spouse, to recruit allies in a conflict. We understand the impulse. When we are in pain, we want to be believed. But tribalism — the us-versus-them gathering of forces — causes profound damage to families, to children, and ultimately to the person doing the gathering. We will return to this in a dedicated post because it deserves more than a passing mention. For now, we simply ask: use what you find here to understand yourself, not to build a case against someone else.

The most powerful tool you have is not anger. It is not justice. It is not the vindication of being believed. It is love — for yourself, and for everyone around you. Including, eventually, the people who hurt you.

We have come to believe something that sounds almost impossibly idealistic until you have lived it: you cannot be happier than you are willing to allow others to be. The degree to which you can genuinely wish well for others — even those who have hurt you deeply — is directly connected to the degree of peace and happiness you are able to experience yourself. Psychologists have a word for the joy we feel at another person’s suffering: schadenfreude. And a word for the joy we feel at another person’s happiness: freudenfreude. We have found, in our own lives, that the presence of one and the absence of the other is one of the most reliable indicators of how much peace a person actually has. We want freudenfreude — for ourselves, and for you.

Another person cannot make you happy. That has always come from within — from your relationship with yourself and with God. The good news is that means it is always available to you. Right now. Regardless of what anyone else does or doesn’t do.

Before we close, we want to say this clearly: nothing in the next two phases — or anywhere on this site — is a recommendation to divorce. That is one of the most personal, sacred, and consequential decisions a person can make. It belongs between you, your spouse, and God. We will not make it for you, and we would not presume to try. What we will do is help you understand what may be happening in your relationship — clearly, honestly, and without judgment. What you do with that understanding is entirely yours to decide.

We know there are moments when hope feels not just distant but naive. We have been in those moments. We have felt that specific darkness. But we are on the other side of it now. And from here, we can tell you with everything we have: it is real. The peace is real. The happiness is real. The life that is waiting for you on the other side of this pain is more beautiful than you can currently imagine.

That is what we are here for. That is why this site exists.

Now — whenever you are ready — let’s go.

With love and hope,

Val & Bruce

We also wrote a letter for those on the other side of this pain — for those who wonder if hope applies to them too. You can read it here →