Reasons, Seasons or a Lifetime
What the people who challenge us are here to teach us
April 3, 2026
This week I had a small moment of celebration.
It was my ex-husband’s birthday and, as I have done every year for the past ten years, I sent him a message. As he does for me. What I found myself marking was not the birthday itself, but the relationship we now have. We are friends. We are good co-parents to our two adult children. There is a mutual trust that if one of us is struggling, the other is there.
It was not always like this.
When we divorced, we each carried a sense of loss and, if I am honest, a strong need to locate fault. I saw the end of the marriage as a failure and did not want that failure to sit with me, so I was quick to cast him as the villain. That mindset kept me stuck for longer than I would care to admit.
Fifteen years on, I see it very differently.
I can now look back and understand that the marriage was not a failure. It was a period of my life that taught me things I could not have learned any other way. It shaped me into the person I am now.
Someone once shared the phrase “reasons, seasons and a lifetime”. At the time, I assumed marriage would always be the latter. What I did not understand then is that some relationships serve a different purpose. They are not lesser for ending.
They are simply complete.
There is one thing in particular I am deeply grateful to him for.
It is not the obvious things, although of course I value our children and the life we built. It is something far more subtle. He showed me a different way of perceiving circumstances, a different lens through which to meet what was in front of me. At the time, it irritated me enormously.
I first noticed it early in our marriage on a trip to Indonesia. We travelled to Jakarta to visit a friend and then set off on a long road journey towards Bali. It was not what I had imagined. The weather was poor, the roads were exhausting, and when we reached the ferry crossing for New Year’s Eve, we found ourselves in a queue that stretched for days. There was a real possibility we would see in the Millennium sitting in a car.
I was furious. Disappointed, frustrated, and convinced the whole trip had been a mistake.
What I could not tolerate was his response.
Faced with exactly the same situation, he was curious, engaged and even cheerful. He talked about the culture, the food, the landscape. He found interest where I saw only inconvenience. It led to a row that now feels almost symbolic of our wider dynamic. I insisted everything was awful. He held that there was still something to appreciate.
Looking back, neither of us was right or wrong. We were seeing the same reality through completely different lenses.
That pattern continued throughout our marriage.
If something fell short of my expectations, I wanted to change it immediately or walk away from it. He, on the other hand, worked with what was there. When we moved into a house with dark red walls and worn carpets that we could not afford to replace, I felt defeated by it. He spent weekends painting one wall at a time, improving things gradually, without drama.
When life felt difficult, he would step away, go for a bike ride, call a friend or tidy something small. He kept himself moving. I would stay in it, analyse it, get angry and try to negotiate with things that were entirely outside my control.
Over the years, and through a great deal of self-development, I have come to understand something that now feels obvious.
The quality of our experience is shaped far more by our perspective than by the circumstances themselves.
He was not better than me. He simply had a more useful way of relating to what was in front of him.
And in a way I could not see at the time, he was one of my greatest teachers.
In fact, if I am honest, I have become a slightly nauseating glass half full person as a result.
What I did not understand then is that this was not simply a personality difference. It was a way of seeing, and ways of seeing can be learned.
We often talk about identity as though it is fixed, as though we are simply “the kind of person who…” and that is the end of it. In reality, much of what we call personality is a set of practiced responses, reinforced over time.
Change the way you meet your circumstances, and over time you change the person you experience yourself to be.
These days, when I feel myself tipping into frustration or all-or-nothing thinking, I often pause and ask a simple question.
What would J do?
It reminds me that there is always another way to look at things, and that how I meet a situation will shape what it becomes.
What I have learned, often the hard way, is that life is not improved by perfect conditions. It is improved by the way we meet imperfect ones.
It is easy to overlook this in the people closest to us, particularly when relationships are difficult. Yet very often, the people who challenge us most are also the ones who have the most to teach us.
This is written with his permission.
And with genuine gratitude.
Happy birthday, J.
Name one person or situation you have found challenging. Write down what specifically frustrated or triggered you.
Ask yourself what that person or situation might have been showing you. What skill, perspective or capacity you were being invited to develop.
Choose one small way to apply that lesson this week. Do something differently, even if it is only a shift in how you respond internally.