Getting beyond the pain
When you decided to get married, it is not likely that you planned to get divorced — who does? So you may not have chosen to be at this difficult impasse in your life, but you are here, and it is important to know that the support you and your family may need is available. Whether the dissolution of your marriage is either inevitable, already in the process or has already been completed, you may be struggling with how to move forward.
Divorce is a traumatic and painful process, even when it is amicable, and it is important that each family member has the opportunity to recover in a healthy way. Each person in the family has his/her own internal make-up and will be affected differently; therefore, each member of the family has the right to have his/her own feelings in response to what has transpired and each one deserves the chance to work through his/her pain in order to get beyond it.
Depending on where you are in the process, you might be faced with many uncertainties such as:
- How do we prepare ourselves?
- How do we tell the children?
- How do I cope with the loss of the marital home and feelings of displacement or conversely?
- How do I stay in the marital home with the absence of my partner/children?
- How do we help our children cope with their sense of loss, hurt, and their fears of change
- How do we help our children communicate their feelings about divorce?
- How does everyone get beyond their hurt and anger in order to continue to work well with each other?
- How do we co-parent when we have so much hurt and anger between us?
The support of a therapist, either during the divorce or after, can make a substantial difference in the emotional well-being of everyone involved, particularly children and adolescents.
Just because your family could not work together, does not mean that you have to continue the battle when you are divorced. After all, chances are likely that you opted to get a divorce because you were exhausted from the fighting and tired of being unhappy, so why not seize the opportunity to create the smoothest transition possible for everyone?
Rest assured that meeting together as a family to reconcile emotions while going through a contentious period will not be easy or comfortable at first.
The therapist will be working with you to establish a safe environment for everyone to express themselves. Once everyone is feeling comfortable, we can begin to work on: developing skills to effectively communicate feelings as well as needs; repairing emotional wounds; how to find forgiveness and acceptance as well as creating healthy and collaborative relationships while living apart.