Avoid the roadblocks

  • Numbing and addictive behaviors such as: alcohol, drugs, sugar, spending, internet, porn, gaming, gambling

  • Isolation: there is no accountability when you isolate

  • Dating when you’re not ready

    Hurt people, hurt people. Dating out of loneliness keeps you back where you started, but with new dating norms. You are not healed and will bring all your baggage with you. it won’t last long because it couldn’t hold up to the weight of the unhealed burden. And you will be using a person to fill a void, a need for closeness, in an attempt to ease your pain. It may become short term relief for long term pain resulting in more pain and loneliness. The chance of these relationships lasting is less than 10%. If you date before you are ready, before you have done “the work,” you WILL repeat your past relationship patterns and you’ll go through pain and heartbreak all over again. Think open heart surgery, if you push too hard to recovery, it sets you back.

Signs of progress

  • Feel less overwhelmed and are accomplishing tasks

  • Separating the process from the why. The why is “the work” after the process, the why didn’t I see the red flags; why did I wait so long to end it; why did I want to be chosen; why wasn’t I good enough for him.

  • Focusing on YOURSELF, using "I” sentences, instead of focusing/obsessing on your former spouse.

  • Keeping your children in mind in deciding how to respond to and interact with your former spouse

  • Seeing the positive in life and spotting glimmers

  • Building community

  • Setting boundaries and enforcing them! They are the key to a happy healthy life! 

 
 
 
 
 

Divorce is its own process after which it may feel easy to “fall toward” the other, especially if you have fond memories or you are co-parenting, because the other is familiar. The other is the person you once had a life with and previously turned to for help.  But you are in the process dissolving the marriage or are already divorced. You are no longer with the other. And at least one person in that former marriage doesn’t want to be a couple with the other anymore.

Many people divorce but not everyone DECOUPLES. It is critical that you decouple from the other in order to create your own life. It is critical in order for you to focus on YOU, YOUR values and YOUR boundaries … not on the other. DECOUPLING and setting BOUNDARIES are key to thriving during your divorce process. and setting yourself up to thrive moving forward.

If you are decoupling for someone with a personality disorder or who is high conflict, know that their behavior is not based on logic, so don’t try to understand it. It will however become predictable and nothing will change. You were a value-add energy source to them. Do not supply them through your time or reaction or you will not move forward with your healing and your life. Make your interactions purely transactional – only what is absolutely necessary. Don’t chat, engage or justify. You are NOT going to be friends with someone with a personality disorder or part of a high conflict divorce. Let the relationship die and bury it.

After all, the divorce process is about working on ourselves. It’s helpful to surrender control, which we never had, and trust the process. We decide what we are creating and what we are not creating, no one else does!