Emotional Freedom: Phases in Recovery from Divorce

Emotional recovery from divorce happens in phases not stages.

After helping hundreds of people bounce back from the challenges of divorce, I have learned that recovery happens in phases, not stages. While most people talk about the various components of emotional recovery using different terms or labels, there appears to be a general consensus about these 5 emotional components: denial, anger, bargaining, depression/sadness, and acceptance. Some people, mostly Christian writers, emphasize forgiveness as a critical component to recovery and freedom, and I agree with them, so I have included included it here. More on that later.

These are phases of recovery from divorce, not stages. No one moves through this process one component after another in a rigid order. Rather, the primary emotional focus changes over time and like most things in life, it's more like waves than stairs.  Successful recovery requires riding, not fighting, the waves until the storm passes.

I was trained as a psychologist, so of course, I have developed a self-assessment, a rating scale for each of the 6 components of recovery. Here's an example of someone in the early phases where the highest wave peak is feeling angry:

In my divorce recovery seminars, I encourage people to rate themselves at least weekly on each of the 6 phases of recovery during their journaling time. This provides a nice visual thermometer for how they're doing on the road to recovery. As recovery progresses, the bars on the left get shorter, and the bars on the right get taller.

A note about forgiveness: it's a choice. A difficult one, but still a choice. The research is quite clear about this: people who forgive their "ex" are able to move on; those who don't remain stuck in bitterness or depression that affects their entire lives from then on. The Bible makes it clear that forgiveness is not optional for Christians, it's required. Where there is no forgiveness, there is no recovery, and God knows that.

A few relevant factoids about recovery:

• Most legal divorces take around 15 months to complete, at least in Texas. 
• The divorce recovery process takes most people 18 months to 2 years, from the time they start. 
• That usually means that the person who initiates the divorce has a head start of at least a few months over the spouse who gets the bad news. 
• 90% of men, and 60% of women don't really recover and grow emotionally, they just go back to the old way of living and relationships, because they never forgive their "ex".

Decide to recovery completely; forgive your "ex". Do it for you, not them.

Maximizing Christmas Joy: Tips and Tools for the Holiday Visitation

As the Christmas holiday approaches, most divorced families with kids will share   visitation time with the "ex". Here are a few suggestions to make that potentially awkward or even conflicted time turn out better for both the adults and the kids.

1. Confirm the time, place, and arrangements for the exchange in advance. By email. Get all the details straightened out far in advance, and then let the kids know what they are. Put it on the calendar or refrigerator or wherever you post important stuff.

2. Buy the other parent a Christmas present. A small but thoughtful gift. No snarky gifts with emotional bombshells attached. A nice gift. If you can't forgive your spouse and teach your kids to be kind and thoughtful givers, who will?

3. Be especially considerate about time. Be on time for the exchange. Make sure the kids get advance warning, and count down the time till the exchange so they are not surprised. Don't let the kids use Christmas as an excuse to generate conflict by being late--be on time, be polite, be considerate. Teach your children to do the same by following your example.

4. Let the kids take their new presents to the other parent's house. Kids will be excited about one or more of their new gifts and want to take it with them. Let them. Make sure they get back where they belong, by informing the other parent what they brought (by email if you can't talk politely).

5. Avoid the long good-bye and the "I will miss you so much over the holidays" tearful send-offs at the exchange. Make it fun, upbeat, and short. If you treat this as a normal event, so will your kids, and everyone will have a nicer holiday visit.

6. Use the time without the kids to take care of yourself. Read a book, go to the spa, go to dinner with friends, stay busy. Enjoy the holidays yourself so you will have stories to tell the kids when they get home and tell you theirs.

7. Make NO comments about how much the other parent spent (or didn't) on presents. Focus on teaching your kids to be grateful for whatever they got--it's a great opportunity to teach kids the value of family and relationships and to de-emphasize money and stuff.

8. Show modest interest in the family drama at the other parent's house. Listen, but don't interrogate. As someone recently said, "Every family has at least one crazy person in it. If you can't identify who that is, it's you!". Holidays mean that old family issues are re-played in virtually every family, including yours. Don't get overly involved in those dramas at the other parent's house. Teach your kids that everyone has their stuff, and teach them how to deal with it productively. In other words, model tolerance and understanding.

Have a very Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays).

Begin With the End in Mind (with thanks to Steven Covey)

(an excerpt from my upcoming book: What YOU Need to Know about Divorce: Before, During, and After)

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.-Jose Addison

Having worked with hundreds of clients as a therapist, marriage counselor, divorce litigation consultant, child custody evaluator, divorce coach, and divorce recovery facilitator, one characteristic is shared by all of them: they didn't know what they wanted, either from the divorce or from life after divorce. This lack of a personal vision and long term plan for their lives is certainly not limited to divorcing people, in fact, it's a common occurrence in the general population. Many, if not most, people kind of stumble through life reacting to life events or bouncing from one obstacle to the next like the ball in a pinball game.

Even those people who are goal directed, and successful, are frequently temporarily left directionless by divorce.  Whether they initiated the divorce or were blind-sided by it, divorcing people are quickly sucked into the legal machinery and taken for a ride by a system over which they have very limited control. This leads even the most strategic thinkers and long term planners to revert to short term micromanagement and sometimes, to poor decision-making. The emotional stresses and losses occasioned by divorce lead to the development "tunnel vision", an actual, physical reduction in perceptual focus to a very narrow part of the world, exactly like that experienced by rookie soldiers in combat. Events outside "the tunnel" don't even register, and consequently, can lead to very bad surprises.

Adding to the difficulties caused by stress-induced "tunnel vision" is the tendency of the most intelligent and successful people to try to bring their professional skills to bear on their lawyer and the legal system in their divorces. Unfortunately, unlike in their usual professional or business realm, these folks "don't know what they don't know" in the legal arena,  so they muster their "leadership" resources and experience to try and "manage" their divorce litigation and the process of the emotional divorce of their spouse and children. The result is NEVER pretty. It is, however, always costly and damaging to nearly everyone involved and legally ineffective or even counterproductive.

The antidote to this self-destructive tendency to over-control is to stop, think, and carefully consider  "the end" of the divorce. Here are a few guidelines to help craft a personal vision and plan for you.

Thinking ahead, 5 years AFTER your divorce is final, get a pen and a piece of paper and write down the answers to these questions:

1. What kind of relationship do you want with your children? What kind of relationship do you want the kids to have with the other parent? What do you need to do now to get there? (if you don't know the answers, then get a mental health professional to help you figure it out)

2. Where do you want to live? What will it take in terms of financial resources to make that happen? What is your plan for achieving those financial goals?

3.Visualize your home--what does it look like, and what "stuff" do you want to have in it? (this will help you decide about personal property division in your divorce too)

4.What do you want to do for a career? Do you love what you're doing or is this a good time to re-think your career path?

5.  Are you willing to forgive your spouse, regardless of whose "fault" the divorce may be? Or do you want to "get even"? (Divorce court is NOT going to help you get justice or fairness as it relates to your treatment by your spouse, regardless of what you may think)

6. Most importantly, what would you say is the purpose for your life? Why are you on the planet? What do you want your legacy to be?

To begin with the end in mind in divorce, one must step back from the chaos of divorce and divorce litigation and consider your life, the big picture. If you know where you're going in life, then making decisions about your divorce is MUCH easier.  In each of the important domains of your life, knowing where you want to end up will help you decide what to do in your divorce that will eventually get you there, and to avoid taking steps that will lead in a direction away from your goals.

Covey is right-begin with the end in mind, even in divorce.