How to get a Divorce without all the Drama.
Chapter 1 WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL
“The time has come to lay that baggage down and leave behind all the struggling and striving. You can be set free as you journey forward into a balanced healthy and rewarding future.� Sue Augustine, When Your Past Is Hurting Your Present.
Step 0ne:
Unpacking The Emotional Baggage
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
When you first hear the words. I want a divorce the first reaction most people have is shock it is as if your whole world just came crashing down just before your very own eyes. You may have been in a good mood before you heard those words, but the person asking for the divorce obviously does not care if this is a good time for you or not they only care about there feelings, it is a good time for them to get it of their chest.( people are so selfish and self absorbed) time will just stand still for you as you replay this moment in your head over and over and over again.
It is the same feeling that a person who believes that they they are healthy goes through after they have gone to the doctor for a routine check up and is expecting to hear that all
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is well but your body and your family doctor a man you have known all your life, a man who did a pap smear on you every year for the last twenty years has betrayed you by telling you in a very sad way that he is sorry, very sorry but you have Cancer. Every one hates to hear the “C” word, just as much as they hate to hear the “D” word.
You leave your doctors office and you get into your car hoping that you make it home with out getting into an accident and killing someone. You go right to bed to deal with the shock of the word you just heard and all you can do is cry. Cry in disbelief because you are not sure why this is happening to you, you were so careful you thought that you were doing every thing right. You are healthy and excersied everyday, you also did everything in your power to avoid
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
stress, but the result is the same. You question yourself as to where you went wrong. You search your mind for answers. But you are unsure of the questions. Then you think maybe it is a family history if that is the case you could not avoid it, so now you have to deal with it, only your blessing is that your family will be right beside me and this gives you the greatest comfort.
Hearing the words I want a divorce is not any different, you made sacrifices to ensure that your marriage lasted forever. You always put yourself last when it came to your happiness, your children, your soon to be ex spouse, and your mother in law. You were hoping that being a team player you would have your life and your marriage forever, because that is how it is supposed to be after all you stood before God with witness and made that vow. Where did it all go wrong? Who is to blame or is there blame to go around?
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Can a marriage just fizzle or does it happen because someone injects themselves into your marriage, and what kind of a deplorable person does that, obviously it is a person with no morals or intergrity. How do you deal with such a person or thing and would you have the strenght to. All you can do is try your best to get through this for your childrens sake. Even though you are devastated your children needs you now. You are a mother and they are the only ones that matter. Even though you could not protect your marriage for the despicable interloper, you have to protect them during the divorce or they could be scared for life.
You are in shock so you place yourself in a self imposed isolation because your sadness and pain is so apparent that
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
you can not bear the thought of anyone seeing you when you feel so low as they will see right through your soul and see the pain, the hurt and the grief, you are not ready to share this private pain with anyone, not your best friend, not your sisters, not your parents, and especially not your children.
Your marriage has failed and your only concern is finding the strength to get your children through this difficult time to ease their pain of having a part time father or losing him completely. You never know what is going to happen in a divorce. I never thought that my ex would abandon his children but he did. I never thought that he could be that kind of a man but he is and was. My children do not receive, birthday cards, christmas cards, even if they are sick and I notify him through his lawyer he would not even send an
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email to say how are you doing. If that is not abandonment I am not sure what is.
Try not to end up with this type of a relationship because you will be the one who will be blamed for the outcome regardless of the age of the children. My ex did blame me even though it is his responsibility to call his children and to maintain a relationship with them. He blames me, he blames them. He assumes no responsibility for the destruction of the father son relationship, this he handled by saying our son is not his, yes he is not the biological father, but he has his last name and he raised him from the time he was five years old. If that is not being a father I don’t know what is. My children lost all the family members on his side of the family, and they did nothing wrong.
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
Divorce does not mean that family has to take sides where the children are concerned, they are already loosing their father to an interloper, and now the family they loved, tosses them in the garbage and welcomes the interloper who has destroyed their family. Is blood really thicker that water? I am not sure I guess it does not extend to nieces, nephews, or grandchildren once a marriage ends.
You have searched your mind for a reason why your marriage ended, but you can not find one, and if you do not know why your marriage has come to an end how will you be able to explain it to your children, your family or your friends. You are desperate for an answer.
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When you are over the initial shock of I want a divorce you become angry. You are at first angry at the person who said those terrible words to you “I want a Divorce” because you were not prepared this was unexpected. How could this be happening to me? Is the one questions that you keep repeating in your mind, but you can’t seem to find and answer to that question you will have to give up trying to find an answer for that question. If yo do not it will destroy you emotionally, you will continue to become angrier, and angrier………………
What will the children think of this? How will they handle this news?. How am I going to tell them?. You realize that you do not have an answer to any of the questions that you have. So your anger is now overwhelming and you are not
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
sure how to handle your emotions. The pain, the anger. How are you going to deal with your feelings especially the anger and bitterness, you are not sure how to deal with being that angry because you have never had to deal with any angry, traumatic or devastating feelings before. You find that you are not prepared. If you do not deal with your anger you will not be able to move forward with your life, so you need to know that it is ok to be angry you just have to do it in a way that is health and promotes healing.
I was speaking to one of my nursing colleague we once worked together in the Intensive Care Unit but she moved to psychiatry before she retired. In our discussion about dealing with your anger when you are dealing with a
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traumatic situation she told me that on psychiatry they used a jar method to help there patient deal with their anger. I have modified the technique a bit to fit the unexpected feelings of pain, anger and the end of a love cycle. I ask my clients to place all of their anger in a jar, and place it on a shelf, they are allowed to open the jar and release a little bit of the anger every day or every other day what ever works for them to deal with it. It is very important that they only release one issue at a time that they are angry about and they must decide how long they would deal with their angry feeling before they open the jar. You are not allowed to move to another angry feeling until you reslove the one you are dealing with. Once you put the jar back on the shelf you have to change the frequency of your emotions from being angry to bosting your happiness. If what you are angry comes to mind you have to find a catch phrase to get rid of it. I use the one from “The Secret by……….. which is
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
change frequency. That was good enough and it worked so I did not feel the need to make one up, but you can.
This way you have control over your feelings of anger, how long you are going to be angry about an issue, and how much time you want to spend in a day stewing. Once your time is up you place the jar back on the shelf until you are ready to deal with the issue again. Allowing yourself an amount of designated time everyday to deal with your feeling of anger will help you to not constantly think of the problem, you will not be living in your head, and you will be able to enjoy moments of happiness even when you are not happy at all.
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I have used this method in my coaching but I added another dimention. I ask my clients to also label a jar which they will fill with the pain that they are also feeling, the pain of sadness, the pain of loniness, the pain of losing your security, the pain of losing love, the pain of emptiness, the emptiness from losing all that you hold dear to you your family.. You will no longer as a family watch your children grow up, you will not be at graduations, weddings, or the birth of your grandchildren together these were all taken for granted because you were a family, now with a divorce you risk losing it all and there is nothing you can do about it or is there. The third jar I ask them to label love, and when they are ready and I grantee you that you will be after the seven step divorce recovery program they will fill that jar up with
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
love, love for themselves first, and then the love they now can share with someone in a new relationship.
If you do not deal with your anger it will turn into resentment. You become resentfull of all you put up with to make your marriage work to avoid the “D” word. You did it to protect your family and the outcome is the same. Your family has fallen apart. You resent yourself, You resent your exspouse for being such a coward for taking the easy way out instead of working on the vows he made to you and to GOD. You resent the reason why your marriage has fallen apart. It could be because of abuse, gambling, money issues, or the dreaded interloper, or simply your love cycle has ended. Regardless of the reason there will be pain and you will feel
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hurt but you will have to recover in your own way. No one can do this alone so you will need all the support that you can get to move from Resentment to Acceptance. You may choose a therapist or a coach, choose the best person for you. The person that will allow you to move forward with the “WHO� you are becoming.
It is not until you move towards acceptance that you are able to shift emotionally with hope to start a new life. So a drama free divorce is the furthest thing from your mind.
All you want to do is throw something at someone. You want to hurt the person who is the cause of the pain you feel, the pain of someone putting a knife through your heart
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
and pulling it out over and over again. You try to understand why this is happening, what have you done wrong but nothing makes any sense. But you have to move forward like it or not.
However, a drama free divorce is possible but not easy if both couples sit down and talk about how they are going to show up in the divorce for the sake of their children. Couples have to keep in mind that even though they are getting a divorce and going their separate ways they will be forever linked because they still have to co parent their children.
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If all you want to do is separate or uncouple and to move forward, with respect for each other you will be able to achieve a divorce without all the drama, and save on your legal expense. This is very difficult I know I have been there and experianced one of the most volitile divorces. A divorce that was so unpleaseant that I ended up in criminal court. I did nothing wrong but when you are dealing with an ex spouse who is filled with false pride and is with out gratitude and their only goal is to destroy you anything can happen.
You also have to keep in mind that your ex spouse now has a partner the dreaded interloper whose only mission in life is to hurt you even if she does not know you. The interloper feels that in order for them to be loved, to feel loved or to know for sure that your ex spouse loves them is by the way
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
he treats you. And that could mean that you are in for the worst journey of your life. So please do not try to understand why you and your children are being treated with disrespect, because your ex spouse does not understand it himself. He is now trying to find his place in his new love cycle and he has to please the person he is with he does not have a choice or else he would not be happy. The thing you have to understand is that, there is only one dominant emotion as humans we can not live in love and fear at the same time. Once your ex hates you he can never love anyone you control his emotions. The interloper is not smart enough to understand that. Remember you are in control so play fair, and play smart. Avoid trouble by trying to understand why you are being treated with contempt.
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You see it does not have to be your fault emotions will run high even from the leaver. Some times all they want to do is punish you even though they are the one who distroyed the marriage. You will have to put that behind you, and treat the divorce as if you are desolving a partnership.
In doing so you will as a couple be able to achieve fair and equitable division of property, child support, and spousal support. Keep in mind that most of the division of asset and child and spousal suppot is already set out by the family Law act. There is a guideline that tells you exactly how much you are expected to get for child support per child based on your income and your soon to be ex spouses income, the same goes for spousal support all you have to do is look up the spousal support advisory guidelines, it is what your lawyer is
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
doing. So all you are doing is paying a lawyer to implement it for you so the less drama or conflict you do it with the more you reduce your legal bills. I wish I knew that when I was going through my divorce. This is how a divorce coach can help you.
If you opt for a drama free divorce you will save yourself thousands of dollars and retain yourself respect. Who really wins in a costly court battle anyway and do you really want to air your families dirty laundy out in court for the public to have access to it. No one in their right mind would so be sensible. If you keep in mind that your children are your most important asset and their emotional well being is of the utmost importance then you will be able to work towards
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obtainting a drama free divorce especially if you implement my “Seven Step Divorce Recovery Process�.
Life is a journey that is filled with detours and we will all experience a few crashes at some point during that journey. Some crashes will be predictable and some will hit you like a ton of bricks and throw you off course. Anyone who has met with an unexpected detour knows that nothing is more destressing especially when you are left with out the direction to put you back on the road to complete your journey. So if you are put in the situation of an unwanted divorce you know first hand the devastation of knowing that your family life has fallen apart and your children now has to be parent by parents who do not like each other enough to stay together not even for the sake of the family. Someone
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
has destroyed your family values, and broken the bond of marriage.
Your emotions will continue to vacillate from shock to anger to resentment and no one can comfort you and your situation is made even worst because you can’t seem to give yourself permission to get out of the self imposed isolation that you keep putting your self in. Firstly because you are trying to figure out what went wrong, but mostly because you are to ashamed to let anyone know what you are going through or what you are feeling.
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Most nights you cry yourself to sleep and hope that the emptiness you feel inside will subside by morning, but morning after morning as you awake you feel the same emptiness. The way it feels when you have lost a loved one. You are greiving the loss of your marriage because divorce is a death - the death of your marriage, your family life, your security, everything you have worked hard for is over. You realize that that all your dreams has came to an end, and you now have to divide everything in half, and that includes your children. The dreams of your children going of to college with both parents, is not going to happen, your daughter may not have her father to walk her down the isles when she gets married if you can’t work out a family friendly divorce. Every thing as a family is going to change.
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
Not to mentions how insensitive your friends and family can be at this time because they feel that you should be capable of adjusting to the change and move on. As a person going through a divorce even though you are grieving the death of your spouse and the loss of your family you are treated very differently from the person who loss their spouse because he/she died. For some reason one grief takes presidence over the other even though the loss of a spouse through divorce is worse that through death.
You see both people lost a spouse and even though they may not have had a say in the matter. The decision for one was made by a Higher Power and the other was made by
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ego. You will need to give yourself time to heal to get over the initial shock and deal with the anger and resentment.
The anger you are feeling can be external or internal. You start to lash out at your ex spouse for destroying the family and at yourself for not seeing this coming. The “ever after has come to an end, and with it your security, dependable future and now you are being left with the full responsibility of raising your children part time or being kept away from your children as you might be denied visitation. You feel over whelmed and stupid because you are unsure of how to proceed with the divorce process there is so much to do right now. You may now have to be responsible for paying the bills, and you may have never done that before you end up feeling insecure about your financial future.
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
If you feel rejected, sad, lonely and afraid, express your fears and voice your anger holding in your emotions or trying to convince yourself you are fine when if fact you are not is very unhealthy. Go ahead and cry if you feel the need to. You have to release your anger to be able to move forward with your life. I can’t stress that enough. You will need to face the situation head on and accept the fact that your marriage is over.
To cope with the emotional pain start a journal many people find that journaling gives then a safe place to process
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their thoughts and express their feeling of anger and resentment.
For your journaling to be effective set aside a certain time of the day where you can write uninterupted this might be a time for self discovery and growth you can start your journaling by writing what you are unhappy about to release all of the negative thoughts. It might be a good idea to write down all of the advantages to staying married and the disavantages to staying in the relationship you might be surprised by the outcome. Put your journal in a safe place so that you alone has access to it.
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
Also be patient with yourself journaling will help you move forward a little to relieve some of the pain, and it may seem that you are taking one step forward and two steps backwards you will have some good days filled with laughter and some days filled with sadness. Allow yourself the time it takes to deal with the pain so that you can be healed emotionally.
Attitude is every thing. You do not want to be one of those people who allow the end of their marriage to destroy them. Do not hold onto painfull feelings, resentment, and fear or else you will spend the rest of your life stuck in the past. You can refuse to give into negative feelings by working through the Divorce Recovery Process in a pro-active way, you will
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find that divorce is not the end of your life but the beginning of your new life.
It takes determination and willingness to heal old wounds and you have to deal with them in a healthy way before you are ready to accept that you have to move on. By honestly dealing with the anger and resentment you have toward your ex, yourself and the reason your marriage fell apart will help you to forgive and move forward. I know this is easier said than done but forgiveness is a way to empty your heart of the negative emotions that will affect you emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically if you continue to hold onto them you can never move toward hope for a happy and healthy life.
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
Lets face it, it takes two to make a marriage work and two to destroy a marriage. Sure one might have played a larger role in the destruction of the marriage, but what you should focus on is coming to terms with the role you played accept responsibility for it then let go of the anger and move forward with your life.
When you are able to do this you will be ready to move on to step two, of the Divorce Recovery Process and you will be well on your way to a drama free divorce.
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Tools For a Drama Free Divorce:
ď ś Divorce Recovery Assessment to dertimine: How likely is it that you will recover from your divorce and find true love and happiness again. How you will show up during the divorce, How you will react when you are under stress.
ď ś Values Assessment
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
Journaling to document your journey during the process and to evaluate your progress
Embodying The “WHO”- I am statement
I am good enoungh
I am dignity
Developing ways to regain your emotional and spiritual strength and power.
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Home Work Assignment: List all the words that describe your feelings.
List all the words that describe your feelings of Anger
Who are you angry at?
What are you angry about?
List all the reasons why you feel resentment.
What are you most resentful of?
List your feelings of fear
What are you most fearful of?
List all the advantages of staying in your marriage.
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
List all the disadvantages of staying in your marriage.
What does happiness mean to you?
Describe your feelings of happiness.
When was the last time you felt those feelings?
List your Values Assessment
What are your Core beliefs?
Write your “I am Statements�
How do you want to show up during your divorce?
How to get a Divorce without all the Drama
To go through the other six steps call me. I am here to help you recover and move forward in a positive way.