Divorce Recovery Needs A Road Map To Follow – Here It Is: 10 Steps To A Full Divorce Recovery

Poor Track Record of the Most Common Approaches to Divorce Recovery

The three most common approaches to facilitating divorce recovery are divorce support groups, individual psychotherapy, and simply passing time.

The success of these three approaches is abysmal. Sixty-six percent of second marriages and 75% of third marriages also ended in divorce. Furthermore, long-term mistrust and animosity between ex-spouses are common, which doesn’t bode well for the hoped-for trauma-free effects of divorce on your children.

Obviously, something is wrong with the way divorce recovery is currently practiced.

The problem of not knowing what the problem is

The core problem stems from a confused understanding of the problem faced by divorced people. Is it the mental problem of depression? Is it an emotional problem to be overwhelmed by a mixture of witchy feelings, including sadness, anger, disappointment, fear, hurt, abandonment, resentment, bitterness, rejection, shame, humiliation, embarrassment, worry, etc.? Is it impatience with how long it takes to forget the painful event?

Individual psychotherapy attempts to treat the nebulous problem of “depression.” Divorce support groups try to address the nonspecific problem of “emotional upset.” And adherents of the time-passing approach treat the vague problem of “not enough time yet” by prescribing “let more time pass.”

None of the three approaches specifies a clearly defined problem or a clear action plan to solve it.

What is needed is a clearly defined road map or plan that specifies the steps to be taken to resolve the problems inherent in recovering from divorce.

A new approach to the problem

Recent work by this author has identified the central problem as an almost universal tendency for divorced people to resist making the changes necessary to thrive in the new life situation that divorce imposes on them. That is, the problem is resistance to change.

This are good news.

We know about resistance to change and there is a roadmap to follow to dissolve it. Additionally, the process of dissolving resistance to change also addresses the emotion-based issues posed by the other two approaches to divorce recovery.

Divorce recovery occurs in three stages:

(1) STABILIZE your emotional reactions to your divorce and your ex;

(2) RELEASE your fear of an unknown future and your anguish over your losses; and

(3) PREPARE for your next committed relationship so you don’t get divorced again.

Within these stages are the 10 steps in a roadmap to recovery. Each step is designed to identify and address a core issue unique to the divorce transition process that threatens your recovery. Here is a brief description of each of the 10 steps.

The First Stage: Stabilize Your Reactions to the D.divorce

At this stage you start dissolve emotion-based reactions she is having with the divorce, with her ex, and with her current life after the divorce. You also start to reduce your attachments to “how life used to be.” The steps of the first stage are:

Step 1: Untangle yourself from your ex. You are entering a new and exciting stage in your life. Now is the time to take stock of your reactions to your current life after the divorce and begin to separate your life as it used to be from the life it is now becoming.

Step 2: Acknowledge the trauma caused.Divorce is a traumatic incident in your life. You must identify what was injured and treat it to prevent it from defining the rest of your life. As Marcia Salmon points out, “divorce is an incident, not a lifestyle.”

Step 3: Accept your ambivalence. You didn’t marry your ex because you hated him. There were good times. There were also not so good moments. Getting divorced causes ambivalence and doubts that need to be identified and dealt with.

Step 4: Clarify your goals for the transition. In the vast majority of cases, people choose divorce recovery goals that are virtually guaranteed to fail. What you need are goals that lead to a successful life after divorce.

The second stage: dissolve the reluctance to accept your new life situation

At this stage you remove the barriers to a successful transition. A barrier lodged in the past is his reluctance to give up the good things he enjoyed in his past life with his ex. The other barrier, linked to the future, is the fear of the unknown, the fear of not knowing what the future will bring. Working together, these two barriers create extraordinarily strong resistance to change. At this stage, you dissolve this natural resistance and remove your reluctance to accept and embrace your new life situation. The steps of this stage are:

Step 5: Dissolve the Effects of Fear. The fear of an unknown future keeps us trapped in the past. You must reduce that fear so you can embrace your future with hope and happiness.

Step 6: Dissolve the effects of the loss. All life transitions, desired or unwanted, result in some loss. divorce is no different. However, almost all of us think that we have lost more than we really have. Don’t be sad if you didn’t lose it.

Step 7: Complete the relationship with your ex. All relationships end with important things left unexpressed. Finding out what those things are and dealing with them frees you up to move forward without the baggage that divorce creates.

The third stage: prepare for your future

In this stage you take what you have learned from the divorce process and imagine a new life it is satisfying and rewarding. The steps of this stage are:

Step 8: Prepare for a relationship. A successful relationship requires that you get what you need. You must engage your head as well as your heart if you want your next committed relationship to succeed.

Step 9: Recalibrate your life and create the new you. Divorce offers you an unprecedented opportunity to redefine who you are and how you want to experience the next chapter of your life in the most personally meaningful way. Your challenge is to take this opportunity to start over with a clean slate.

Step 10: Use the past to plan your future. Now is the time to take what you have learned and lay out your map for a happy and productive life after divorce. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

So what is the point?

You have been given an unprecedented second chance at a happy and fulfilling life. Statistics tell us that without a roadmap to guide you through your resistance to change, that opportunity is doomed. However, if you follow the roadmap outlined in the 10 steps above, you have an excellent opportunity to turn what was the worst experience of your life into the best thing that could happen to you.