It may become very traumatic to accept that you have been rejected or replaced. It leaves you feeling as though you have been rejected and affects your self esteem, especially where you’re the partner who has been left behind. Feelings of anger and resentment need to be diffused to allow you to reclaim your life as a single person again. A sense of emptiness when looking into the future can overwhelm you. Worries about ever sharing your life with someone again are naturally pervasive but can blur your ability to recover. Feeling wounded, sometimes very deeply and not wanting to open up to anyone else about any of your emotions. Your sense of trust can be shattered.
Know your legal rights. It is important to know your rights and how to enforce them in relation to property settlement, maintenance, and custody. Knowledge can help to keep you calmer and more at ease about what is happening to you. Find a lawyer you click with. Don’t settle for the first one if that lawyer doesn’t feel right. Sometimes the strain of divorce can be more than matched by your irritation with your lawyer’s antics, so be sure you’re happy with this person before agreeing to retaining them. The more aggressive and “take-all” the attitude of your lawyer, the less amicable the settlement process will be, so bear that in mind when choosing one. Consider a mutually lawyer-free divorce. Recognize that a bad divorce lawyer’s interest lies in smoothly, calmly sucking you in to a war. Divorces are largely boilerplate; a Google of “divorce for” returns “divorce for dummies” as the first hit. Unfortunately, if you have children divorce may be too complicated for the “do it yourself” approach. Good divorce lawyers are not interested in sucking you in to war. They make more money in the long term by providing fast, quality service that leaves you happy with them and willing to refer them to your friends, family and even total strangers. While reading up on how divorce works is a good idea remember that book like “divorce for dummies” are written for a national market. They are not State specific. If you and your spouse are able to reach an agreement on every single aspect of your divorce you can draw up your own paperwork using a form found on the internet but you should at least pay for an hour of an attorney’s time to have them review it. This could save you time by having them point out minor mistakes that could prevent the judge from signing your decree. If you have children the situation is even more complicated as there are numerous additional requirements that the State may impose on you that a lawyer can make sure are there and done property. Paying a lawyer for an hour of their time to review your document makes more sense than spending 2 hours at the courthouse just to have the judge tell you there is a flaw in your decree and that she isn’t allowed to tell you what it is because that would be giving legal advice and she can’t do that.
Have all the facts and figures in hand to assist your lawyer in building a sound financial case and to convince your spouse without arguments and assumptions being involved. Use receipts, documented evidence, and other reliable sources of information to back up your wishes. This could include writing out a complete financial history of your marriage that reflects the resources you have, estimated value of shared property, individual assets, and liabilities. While this may sound calculating, it is no more than being factual and facts are your best approach in keeping emotions down. Give your spouse the option of what to take from the house. You may be extremely surprised at how little discussion is required to divide a household when you free up the taking. For many couples, it becomes clear that there always were “his and mine” or “hers and mine” divisions in the house and it is only when arguing that these evident divisions are used as weapons to wound one another. Take away that chance by simply offering your spouse the opportunity to take what they please. Their own sense of responsibility and guilt will do some of the sorting for you! Toss a coin for items you have each paid half for. It will even out in the end. Are your belongings so worth the angst otherwise?
Watch out for transference of emotional abuse from an abusive parent onto the children. Neither do this yourself nor allow the other spouse to do it. Signs include “You’d choose to live with me if you loved me. " That is classic manipulation and when done to children, it is unkind and places the children in a bind they can’t win whatever they say or choose. Use a consultant or mediator to assist with determining custody arrangements if you don’t feel you’re able to do this yourself. If the custody arrangements have to be agreed to by a court, or you end up in court anyway, a court that can see the parents already trying hard will be impressed by the teamwork and consideration given to the children’s needs first of all. Be prepared to trial a few systems before settling on the one that works for both of you. You can’t possibly know what will work out best until you’ve given different arrangements a chance. Take into account the children’s impressions too. For the greatest peaceful transition, both of you should be prepared to share the major decisions about the welfare of children and to continue to interact with one another in relation to the children’s lives.
Avoid expecting your friends to take sides. If you don’t speak ill of your ex-spouse, they have less ground to do so either. If you reassure them that the divorce was amicable and that the two of you are still friends, sometimes this may ease the tension with friends (provided what you say is true). Equally, don’t bring up your spouse at all; this breaks the connection for both you and your friends and allows everyone to move on. For more ideas about how your friends see the situation, read How to be a good friend to both parties in a divorce.
Give yourself time. Initially you will probably feel fragmented, vulnerable, broken, low in self-esteem, and various other emotions depending on your gender, whether you initiated the divorce or not, and what has happened through the course of the divorce. For some, there may be an absolute sense of relief! Whatever the feelings, coming to terms with your new life requires time and the formation of new routines and habits. In order to keep your own inner peace, avoid self-blame. Relationships require two people and the consent and involvement of both. If you try to blame yourself for what has happened, then you will feel guilty, angry, and helpless. Blame is a useless emotion and when it is related to the end of a marriage, it simply causes you harm. Accept that the marriage has ended and that there are new things to do in life now, including finding a new sense of purpose. Take up yoga, meditation, or a martial art to give you the chance to develop your inner focus and as a source of relieving stress.
Treating future interactions in a professional, business-like manner. You still need to talk for the sake of the children? Act like you’re in a business meeting at work, with the well-being of the children being the business at hand. End any conversation with your ex-spouse that turns into a shouting match or where you’re constantly interrupted. Explain that you’ll talk again when everyone has calmed down. Make it clear in future meetings that should your spouse interrupt or explode, you will end that meeting too. Never use children to relay information to your ex-spouse. Use emails or the post for this. Avoid texts; they’re too personal, intimate, and too connected. Depersonalize all of your communications. Keep your points simple (it can help to write down points of discussion first) and keep everything neutral. Cut the ties. Don’t talk to your ex-spouse for advice, help, expertise, or anything of the sort unless you have no choice in a work context. Find new places for advice, such as your accountant, doctor, lawyer, paid home handy-helpers, or someone else in your spouse’s profession or line of work. If you need more money for the children, work it out as a business proposal with your ex-spouse and do not beg, cry, manipulate, or show yourself as a victim.
