Posts by Dr. Karen Finn
How To Win Your Next Co-Parenting “Conversation”
These 5 tips will help you feel victorious!
Making the transition from one half of a married couple with kids to being a co-parent is tough. One part of you never wants to see – much less communicate – with your ex ever, Ever, EVER again!
But another part recognizes that your ex is your kids’ other parent. And this part knows that your co-parent will be part of your life F.O.R.E.V.E.R…
You’ve got (at least) these two different perspectives warring within yourself every single time you have to interact with your ex. Every contact is a battle for you. And it’s got you completely stressed out.
You flinch when you hear your phone notify you of a new text. Your blood pressure soars when you see an email from your ex in your inbox. And when you know you’re going to see your co-parent you hardly recognize yourself.
The unhappy truth is that even though you’re not married any longer, your ex is still controlling you. And because they’re controlling you, they’re winning and you’re losing. Losing is not what you need right now. You’ve already lost enough with the divorce.
So it’s time to take control back, to get strategic about your co-parenting conversations, and to start winning again!
These 5 tips will help you feel victorious when you need to interact with your ex:
- Limit conversations to only those necessary for conducting the business of co-parenting.One of the most difficult parts of communicating with your ex is the emotional toll it takes on you. And the more you communicate the more painful it is. So limit your conversations to ONLY discussing co-parenting issues.
- Decide on how you will communicate with your spouse.
There’s no way you’re going to get out of communicating with your ex because it’s a critical part of co-parenting, but you can choose how you will do it. Not every conversation needs to be through text or by phone. Decide what types of information sharing needs to happen by text, by phone call, by email, or in person.Ideally, you’ll make this determination with your ex. However, if you need to do this on your own, do it today. Then, politely and firmly inform your ex of what you’ve decided. (They might test your resolve on holding to your decision and they might honestly forget what you’ve told them, so be ready for these situations.) - Decide when you will communicate.Unless there’s an emergency, there’s no need for you to jump to respond to your co-parent right when they reach out to you. You can choose when it makes sense for you respond. For example, you might want to set up a separate co-parenting email address and only check that inbox once a day for messages from your ex.And if you’ve already implemented the first tip you’ll know when you have to respond to something immediately.
- Be business-like in your communication with your co-parent.
Choosing to interact with your ex in a business-like way and only for the purposes of co-parenting will go a long way toward helping you feel more in control of yourself and the communications.(Business-like communication means that you’re brief, informative, friendly, and f To learn more about BIFF communication, check out Bill Eddy’s book on the topic.) - Visualize how you want to behave before you interact with your ex.
You probably go over every interaction with your co-parent that you feel like you’ve lost a millions times thinking about how you could’ve or should’ve said or done things differently.And what happens when you do this? You feel like sh*t.
Instead of beating yourself up for what has already happened, start imagining yourself behaving differently the next time you have to interact with them.
You might picture yourself using the irritating way s/he looks at you as a positive trigger instead of the negative one it is now when it makes your blood boil. Instead, imagine that when they look at you that way you feel thankful you’re not still married to them. Then you can see them as just your children’s other parent who needs to be as good a parent as they’re capable of being because your children deserve that. And once you see them like that, you can easily imagine yourself interacting with them in a business-like manner because you’re doing it for your kids.
Repeat your visualizations of how you want to interact with your co-parent often. The more you imagine them the more natural it will be for you to behave that way.
There’s nothing easy about learning how to co-parent. You’ll still have “conversations” with you ex as you begin using these 5 tips. And you may still feel like you’re losing some of them.
But persevere and be patient with yourself as you develop the skills to fully adopt each of these new ways of communicating with your co-parent. The rewards for doing so are that you’ll start feeling like more victorious and in control. But even better, your kids will win big because they’ll have at least one parent who sees themselves as a co-parent and not a battle-weary ex who is also a parent.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach who helps clients successfully parent after separation or divorce. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more tips about parenting after divorce or separation? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Coparenting.
This article originally appeared on YourTango.
5 Reasons Staying Together For The Kids Is The WORST Idea Ever
Are you REALLY thinking about their happiness?
Deciding if divorce is the best solution to the troubles you’re facing in your marriage is never easy.
In fact, it’s gut-wrenching.
You’ve invested years in building a life together and the thought of starting over really isn’t appealing. It’s frightening!
But you’re not happy. You know you deserve happiness and so does your spouse.
And your kids deserve it too … especially your kids.
That’s the biggest problem: Your kids deserve happiness.
And right now, your belief is that they will never be happy if you get divorced.
Many couples decide that they can’t divorce because of their children. They believe that their kids deserve to grow up in an intact family, and that anything less will destroy them.
These couples choose to remain mired in their miserable marriages, for the sake of the kids.
Unfortunately, choosing martyrdom for the kids is a really bad decision.
If you choose to stick things out just for your kids, you can expect to face a number of problems.
Here are five reasons to reconsider staying together for the kids:
- Your kids will learn that marriage is about separateness, not togetherness. By staying together for their sake, you’ll be teaching them that marriage is about being miserable and disliking your spouse. You’ll also show them how to live separate lives and still be married.
- You and your spouse can continue to be lazy. Yes, you read that correctly – LAZY. Instead of putting in the really hard work to try to fix things or to divorce respectfully, you can both just go with the flow and accept your unhappiness as a fact of your life.You’ll be choosing mediocrity, and teaching your kids that’s what they can expect from life, too.
- You’re choosing to live in fear. Divorce means that you’ll have to live differently. Different could mean living on less income, in a different home, or having to get a job outside of the home.But one thing divorce absolutely means is that you’ll have less time with your kids, because you and their other parent will be sharing time with them.
But that doesn’t have to be the worst thing that ever happened.
The thing about living in fear is that fears are usually much, much worse than reality.
- Your kids will be unhappy because they feel your unhappiness. Children are more perceptive than we give them credit for. It’s as if we’ve forgotten how much we understood when we were their age.No matter how much you try to hide it from them, your kids will know that you’re not happy, and that your life isn’t fulfilling or fun.And that’s no way to spend the next years of your life while you wait for your children to finish high school or college (or whatever end date you have in mind).
Your kids also take cues from you about how they should feel.
So instead of being happy they’re growing up with both of you, they’ll be just as unhappy as you are.
- Your kids will model the type of marriage you and your spouse have. Unless your children do a whole lot of work on personal awareness, they’re going to grow up to be pretty much the same type of people you are. They’ll accept the same or similar types of situations, and have the same or similar outlooks on life.
This means they’ll accept the same type of marriage you do.Is this what you really want for them?
So, the question isn’t “Should we stay together for the kids?”
The real question is “Is this the life I want for my children?”
Just because staying together for the kids is a horrible idea doesn’t mean that divorce is automatically the best answer for you.
You could choose to roll up your sleeves and get to work on changing your marriage for the better.
Will it be easy? No.
Are there any guarantees that you’ll be able to work things out? No.
But the effort you put in will be a shining example to your children that sometimes it takes hard work and careful deliberation to make the best decision you can.
But that work is worth it in order to achieve happiness – for your sake, your spouse’s, and theirs.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach. I help people just like you who want support in dealing with the pain of affairs and miserable marriages. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And, if you’re ready, you can take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach by scheduling a private consultation.
Looking for more information about infidelity? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Surviving Infidelity.
This article originally appeared on YourTango.
The 5 Best Tips For Surviving Infidelity Triggers
Despite the trauma, you can beat the triggers of betrayal.
Discovering that your spouse has had or is having an affair is one of the cruelest betrayals you can ever suffer.
The person you chose to trust implicitly threw your trust away as if it meant nothing to them – as if you meant nothing to them.
Whether you decide to work on repairing your marriage or to divorce, you must figure out how to heal.
Surviving infidelity isn’t easy.
Probably one of the most difficult parts is the unexpected way seemingly innocuous situations can catapult you into chaos because something about it triggers you.
In these moments, the emotions and memories of your spouse’s infidelity come flooding back and everything else fades into the background. You’re hardly aware of how you’re behaving because your sole goal is to stop the pain and fear and to simply survive.
And living your life in fear of being triggered this is no way to live your life long-term. You need to have a way for dealing with the triggers that allows you to heal and move forward.
Here are the five best tips for surviving infidelity triggers:
- Accept that triggers are normal.
Until you’ve completely come to terms with your spouse’s betrayal, you’ll have flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and triggers. Everyone who discovers their mate has been unfaithful suffers through the same traumatic responses.But just because triggers are normal, that doesn’t mean they need to become your new norm.
You can cope with them, then control them, and finally, you can overcome them.
- Choose your mindset.
Mindset is critical for surviving infidelity triggers.When your spouse is unfaithful, there’s a tremendous temptation to view yourself as a victim. And in a lot of ways you are a victim.
HOWEVER, the longer you see yourself this way, the harder it will be for you to overcome your triggers because you’ll feel helpless.
The most powerful realization you can have right now is that you can control your mind and your thoughts.
And this realization allows you to know you are strong enough and capable enough to overcome your triggers.
- Identify your triggers.
Unfortunately, this is one of those things that you can only do after the fact. So you’ll suffer through the trauma of the trigger before you can name it.But once you can start naming your triggers, you’ve found the beginning of your trek to triumph over them.
- Develop your plan.
Each time you discover one of your triggers, it’s time to get strategic. Figure out how you can either prevent yourself from being in a similar situation in the future or how you will change your response to it the next time. - Ask for help.
Surviving infidelity triggers is difficult and everyone needs help with at least one of the tips. So be brave and seek the assistance you need and
As you’ve already realized, these tips aren’t something you do once and expect to have immediate victory over your infidelity triggers.
You’ll need to revisit these tips often (maybe even multiple times a day). Eventually, you’ll discover that you’re consistently capable of surviving your infidelity triggers until you’re completely healed from the betrayal.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who want support in dealing with the pain of affairs and miserable marriages. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more information about infidelity? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Surviving Infidelity.
How Couples Survive Infidelity
If you and your spouse possess these 6 characteristics, you’ve got a good shot at making it.
Most people assume that if a spouse cheats then their marriage is doomed. And these people are right – some of the time divorce is the answer.
The surprising truth is that marriages can bounce back from an affair (or affairs) and become stronger than ever.
However, how couples survive infidelity and strengthen their marriages is not by following a simple set of instructions.
The couples who make it fight hard for their marriages. They’re willing to fight together as a team more often than as adversaries. They love each other and are totally committed to doing what it takes.
If cheating has shaken your marriage, you’re better off doing some serious soul-searching separately and together rather than making a knee-jerk decision about your marriage.
To help you to figure out if you’re one of the couples who can survive infidelity, you’ll want to evaluate whether you and your spouse each have (or are committed to developing) the following 6 qualities and abilities:
- You must be willing to work really, really hard for what you want.
The effort needed for a couple to survive infidelity can’t be underestimated. The best way to sustain the energy necessary to maintain the required effort is to have a compelling vision for the result you want.If you want to have an even better marriage than the one that ended because of the affair, then you need to get really clear individually and together about what your new marriage will be.
- You must possess courage.You’ll both be under pressure from others about your decision to save your marriage. Remember that most assume that a marriage is immediately over once a partner strays. You may have even believed this at one point. However, you’ll both need to weather the opinions of others by holding tight to your goal of saving your marriage.You’ll also feel pressure internally as you struggle with feelings of betrayal, guilt, revenge, remorse and many others. When you feel the internal pressures, continue to hold tight to your goal of a better marriage.
- You must be willing to go way outside of your comfort zones.
The conversations, transparency, patience and empathy required to overcome infidelity will take you both way beyond your normal levels of comfort. However, for your marriage to survive an affair, both of you need to change if you’re going to create a new marriage together.(Yes, both the one who strayed and the one who was betrayed need to change.)
- You must pursue common interests together.Healing your marriage from infidelity isn’t all about hard work. You still need to have fun together – just like you did when you were dating before you got married.
- You must be open to professional help.
Odds are this is a situation you’ve never been in before. And surviving infidelity as a couple isn’t an intuitive process.However, there are professionals available to help you each individually and together as a couple work through all the tough and courageous conversations you need to have on your way to surviving the infidelity that has fractured your relationship.
- You must love yourselves AND each other.
Love and respect are necessary for any relationship to flourish. You must each love and respect yourselves and each other.Seeing yourself as worthy of and capable of love is critical to conquering the emotional turmoil cheating brought into your relationship. This is work that you need to do and that your spouse can support you with by being loving.
You will also need to support your spouse by being loving to them as they struggle with their own self-esteem issues. Seeing your spouse as lovable and capable of being loving to you will help you to express your love for them.
Chances are that if you both possess these 6 characteristics and are willing to face the facts and each other’s fears together as you fight to save your marriage, that you’ll be successful. And that would certainly be something worth celebrating.
However, there are no guarantees. Because you might put in a tremendous amount of work together and decide that you’re not capable of creating the marriage you each want. And that’s OK because now you’re both much clearer about what you do want and are willing to work toward so you’ll be more likely to find it with someone else.
The bottom line here is that couples can survive infidelity and strengthen their marriage in the process. If you choose to put in the effort, remember it’s not simple, it will require a lot of hard work, and no matter how it turns out you’ll be a better off.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you deal with infidelity. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more information about infidelity? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Surviving Infidelity.
How To Survive Infidelity And Restore Your Relationship
It doesn’t matter which side of the infidelity you were on, you’ve got to work to fix things.
One of you cheated…and one of you was betrayed.
Surviving infidelity isn’t an easy thing because it strikes to the core of what every relationship needs – trust.
Yet, you’ve made it through the initial pain and guilt of the discovery. You’ve tearfully talked through the options and decided together that you want to make your relationship work.
You both know that the affair was a symptom of something else that wasn’t working and you’re committed to resolving things because what you have (or can have) together is worth saving, worth fixing, and worth working on yourself for.
Yes, both of you will need to work on yourselves to survive the infidelity and restore your relationship, but what you need to do will depend on your role.
If you are the one who strayed, your tasks revolve around completely ending the other relationship and loving your spouse. Specifically, your five high-level tasks are:
- Cut all contact with the other person.As long as the potential for temptation exists, your partner will never, ever be able to relax or trust you being around the other person. Without doubt, the best thing you can do for yourself and your marriage is to cut all contact with the other person immediately.Block them from your social media and phone. Let your spouse have full access to all of your email and social media accounts. Let your spouse have full access to your phone.And in case you have a “private” phone or tablet that your partner doesn’t know about, cut service to that technology right now. Then, let your spouse have possession of it.
- Commit to complete honesty.Answer every single question your spouse has about why and how the affair happened. They need to understand why and how so they can begin to grasp what needs repair in your marriage on a visceral level and so they can truly survive your betrayal instead of suffering with unanswered questions.However, complete honesty does not mean that you share every detail of what you and the other person did because that would only cause your spouse unnecessary pain.
- Take responsibility for your actions.
This is not quite as simple as it sounds because it also means that you can’t blame your spouse for your straying. You need to assume 100% responsibility for the choices you made and the actions you took in betraying your spouse.Anything less will only cause resentment and undermine trust on both of your parts. And resentment and mistrust can prevent you from achieving your goal of restoring your relationship.
- Be sympathetic, loving, and patient.
Your spouse is going through a lot – a whole lot – with learning how to trust you again. No matter how much they want to, they won’t immediately become your ideal mate.They’re going to have lots of questions, lots of fears, lots of anger, and lots of confusion. Your job throughout all of their efforts to come to terms with what you’ve done and to move forward with you is being sympathetic, loving and patient simply because you know that they and your marriage are worth it.
- Be willing create a great new marriage that works for both of you.Your previous marriage didn’t work. If it did, you wouldn’t have strayed. So you and your mate are actually creating a new marriage.Keeping your goal of a wonderful new marriage with your loving mate in mind throughout the entire process will help you do whatever it takes for you and your spouse to survive your infidelity and restore your relationship.
If you are the one who suffered the betrayal, you’ve got work to do as well. It isn’t all up to your straying mate to fix everything. In fact, you also have five high-level tasks to tackle as you work with your spouse to survive their infidelity and restore your relationship.
- Be willing to put in the effort and energy.
As much as you may feel like the victim in this situation, the simple truth is that by choosing to make your marriage work you’ve committed to doing your part. And doing your part means you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you too. - Be transparent with your spouse.In order to restore your relationship, you must be totally transparent with your spouse about what you’re thinking and feeling. The goal of this open and intense communication is to problem-solve together – NOT blame or punish your partner for what they’ve done to you.
- Release the betrayal.The longer you believe that your spouse’s infidelity is the worst thing they could have done to you, the longer you’ll suffer. It’s only by letting go of the pain of betrayal that you’ll be able to move on together and restore your marriage.
- Make time for intimacy.
Although you might not feel like being close to your spouse immediately, make the effort anyway. Intimacy is a way to foster trust which needs restoration between the two of you.Intimacy is also a critical part of a vibrant marriage. And isn’t that what you want to have again?
- Be willing create a great new marriage that works for both of you.Your previous marriage didn’t work. If it did, your spouse wouldn’t have strayed. So now you and your mate are doing more than restoring your relationship. You’re creating a new marriage which may be based on how great things were at some point in the past or it may be something completely new.Keeping your goal of a wonderful new marriage with your loving mate in mind throughout the entire process will help you do whatever it takes for you and your spouse to survive their infidelity and restore your relationship.
Although you’ve each got specific high-level tasks to complete as you struggle together in surviving infidelity and making your marriage work, that doesn’t mean it will be easy or that there isn’t more for you to do.
These tasks are just the starting point for restoring trust and creating your new marriage. They will help you to get started. They will also serve as reminders when things get tough (because they will) of what you can and should do as you struggle together and separately to survive infidelity and restore your relationship.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor who helps clients survive infidelity. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more ideas about moving past betrayal? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Surviving Infidelity.
How To Survive Infidelity And Divorce
These three tips are exactly what you need so you’ll heal and survive the betrayal.
Finding out your spouse cheated (or is cheating) leaves you breathless with shock and starts your whole world spinning wildly as you try to make sense of things. And just as you start to catch your breath, your thoughts explode and you’re bombarded with a million questions.
How could they do this?
Doesn’t s/he love me?
Why wasn’t I enough?
What’s wrong with me?
…
And then, almost before you know what’s happening, … you’re getting divorced.
You struggle to make sense of who this person, who was your beloved and now is your opponent, is. How could they behave in such an abhorrent way? It’s as if you never really knew them.
Of course, you already lost your trust in them when you found out about their affair, but now you’re starting to mistrust yourself. Shouldn’t you have seen the signs? Can you tell the difference between someone telling you the truth and lying? Do you even know what’s real anymore? Are you capable of ever trusting someone again? Can you trust yourself?
Now you struggle daily with mistrusting just about everyone, but especially men, if your husband had the affair, or women, if your wife cheated.
It’s because of this mistrust that divorce is so much more difficult for you. You’ve got to cope with all of the same divorce challenges everyone else who gets divorced faces, but all the while you’re having to make sense of the intimate betrayal you’ve suffered too.
For you, divorce recovery is a bit more difficult. But difficult doesn’t mean impossible.
The trick for learning how to survive infidelity and divorce is, in addition to doing the normal divorce recovery work, to do these three things too:
- Focus on the solution.
Hopefully, the solution is to move on from this experience as a whole and healed person. The problem is that moving on and healing is impossible when you stay focused on the fact that your spouse cheated.You’ve got to put your attention on healing. - Know that this isn’t the worst thing that could have happened to you.As horrible as this experience is, it’s not the worst thing that could have happened to you. What if you didn’t find out and you continued to live with someone who continually lied to you and didn’t love you the way you deserve to be loved?
Now that would be too sad and horrifying for words to describe. - Accept that you must move out of the negativity.It’s not easy to start looking for the positive in your situation. But you need to find it every single day – sometimes even multiple times a day. The reason why you must find the good is that the longer you stay negative and focused on your hurt and confusion, the longer the pain of the betrayal will last.
There’s nothing easy about these three tasks or learning how to survive infidelity and divorce.
In fact, these are great big tasks that will take energy and effort for you to do them. They might even (actually, they probably will) require you to reach out for help and support to do them.
However, the sooner you can start incorporating these tasks into the rest of your efforts to recover from divorce, the more quickly you will be able to heal and put all of this behind you.
And isn’t that what you really want?
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you survive infidelity and divorce. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more ideas about how to deal with your spouse’s (or your) affair? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Surviving Infidelity.
What Infidelity Does To A Marriage May Not Be What You Think
It isn’t quite as cut and dried as you might think.
If you’re like most people, you got married with a certainty of two things:
1. You will be one of the lucky ones who made it to “happily ever after”
2. If your new spouse ever cheats on you, your marriage will be O.V.E.R.
Being certain of two ideas that seem completely opposed to each other seems a bit strange. But that’s the truth of how most of us enter marriage – idealistic and protective.
These ideas reflect the society we live in. We’re taught from an early age to believe in fairy tales filled with Princes and Princesses that fall in love and live “happily ever after.” Yet we’re also taught that not everyone is to be trusted. So if someone betrays you in any way, the relationship with must end immediately.
Now that you’ve discovered your spouse has cheated, these two certainties aren’t quite as clear cut as you thought they were when you married. That’s at least in part because the idea of something is WAY different from the reality of it.
Maybe divorce isn’t the only answer after all. But that doesn’t mean your marriage can simply be repaired.
What infidelity does to a marriage is destroy it – at least the way it was. But that doesn’t mean infidelity destroys your relationship with your spouse.
It’s from the foundation of your relationship that you can create a new marriage.
It’s important to recognize that you will have to forge a new marriage because the old one simply didn’t work. (If it had worked for both of you, your spouse wouldn’t have cheated.)
It’s also important for you to know you’re not alone. According to conservative estimates, 25% of all marriages deal with infidelity. Not all of these couples divorce. They find a way to create new marriages that work better for both of them.
But what makes a wronged spouse willing to put in the enormous effort required to make things work?
The motivation for putting in the work to create a new marriage varies greatly. Some choose to stick it out for social and/or financial reasons. Others out of a fear of being alone or of raising the children on their own. And still others choose to work through the betrayal because they deeply love their wayward spouse.
If you choose to work things out, the success of your decision will depend in large part on your wayward spouse’s willingness to work things out too.
Luckily, many couples do find a way to salvage their marriages, but it’s not an easy decision to make or follow through on.
Creating a strong marriage after an affair is really a matter of both spouses becoming transparent emotionally and being willing to support and nurture a new marriage.
What infidelity does to a marriage for the long-term isn’t the same for every marriage because every marriage is as unique as each spouse is.
If you make the decision to work things out after you discover your spouse has had (or is having) an affair is just the beginning of the transformation that must take place if you’re to have a meaningful marriage. But by understanding there’s lots of hard work ahead for you and your wayward spouse, you’ll have a much better chance of creating a new marriage.
If you make the decision to follow the path you set for yourself on your wedding day and divorce, you’ll find that this is just the beginning of the transformation that must take place so you can be successfully single.
Either way, the work you do will help you find your way to your revised version of “happily ever after.”
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who want support in figuring out if their marriage can or should be saved. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more ideas about how to deal with your spouse’s (or your) affair? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Surviving Infidelity.
How To Overcome Your Post-Divorce Financial Fears
Your financial fears are a warning that you need to start thinking and doing things differently.
One of the biggest fears people facing divorce have is not having enough money after their divorce is finished. This fear strikes people of all income levels.
Now, the fact is that at first you won’t have enough money to continue living the lifestyle you had when you were married. That’s just what happens when you get divorced and you divvy up the assets and debts.
And being fearful of that change is natural because money represents important things power, security and freedom.
But your fear of not having enough money is about more than just not wanting your financial status to change. It’s also a call to start doing things differently.
And that’s because in general, fears are warnings. They alert us to the fact that there’s a risk or threat we’re facing and that we have an opportunity to do something about it.
No doubt you’ve heard that the fear response is fight, flee or freeze.
If you choose to flee or ignore your changing financial situation, chances are your financial situation will be much worse than necessary because you’ll attempt to continue to live as you did before your divorce.
If you choose to freeze and just keep saying things like “I don’t know what to do” and “this is so horrible” you’ll remain a victim of circumstances. You’ll find yourself trapped in feelings of scarcity.
However, if you choose to fight or get into action, you’ll make it through your financial fears feeling capable because you’ve changed your life for the better.
Hopefully, you recognize that the best response to your financial fears is to get into action to change your situation and mitigate the risk you’re facing.
So how do you do this? By following these 3 steps.
- Change the story you’re telling yourself.
Fears become scary when you focus on the negative what-if’s: What if I wind up living on the streets? What if I don’t have enough money to feed my kids?You don’t have to continue dwelling on the negativity and the easiest way to change the story you’re telling yourself is to come up with 5 positive what-if’s for every negative one. What if I find a reasonably priced place to live that I love? What if I find a great job? What if I win the lottery? What if I start a side business that’s amazingly successful? What if I discover that living within my budget is super easy? - Act to start making one of your positive what-if’s a reality.
Your action could be creating a plan to achieve what you want, asking for help, or getting back to doing what you already decided to do. It’s amazing how quickly working to make what you do want to happen a reality will decrease your fears. - Be thankful for what you do have.
You might think this sounds cheesy, but by choosing gratitude for what you do have instead of living in fear of what you don’t you’ll completely change your mindset. You’ll realize that you have more than a lot of other people do and know that if they can make it on less you can certainly make it on what you’ve got now as you continue to work to make your situation different.
Now these three steps might sound like mind games. And in some ways, you’re absolutely correct – they are mind games.
The thing is that continuing to live in fear of your financial situation post-divorce is a mind game too. A BIG FAT HORRIBLE mind game that will make you positively miserable.
So, what can it hurt to challenge yourself to take your fear and use it for good by changing the way you think about it so you can get busy creating the post-divorce financial situation you want?
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who are looking for advice and support in healing after divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And, if you’re ready, you can take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach by scheduling a private consultation.
Looking for more divorce advice? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Healing After Divorce.
This article was originally published at DivorceForce.
What Life After Divorce For Men Over 40 Is Really Like
These 4 steps will help you get over your divorce and on with your life.
Life after divorce for men over 40 is very different from what their married friends think it is. Their friends think that a divorced guy should immediately get out there and sample as many different women as possible and that will automatically help them get over their divorce.
In my more than 10 years’ work with men over 40, I’ve yet to meet one who can immediately jump from being what he thought was happily married into the fabled life of a playboy. (No, not even the men who cheated on their wives can easily do this.)
Men over 40 need time to shift from being a family man to being a single dad because you can’t just erase the lifestyle you’ve had for years as easily as flipping a switch. It’s more of a four-step process.
The 4 steps for embracing life after divorce for men over 40:
Step 1: Figuring things out
This is the time when you make all the big adjustments and learn to live on your own again. You’ll rediscover how to do the things that your wife used to do – like laundry, paying the bills, making doctor appointments and cooking.
The other big adjustment you make during this period is figuring out how to be a single dad and coparent. For most men, they miss their kids terribly. It isn’t easy to live without the sounds of your children at home every day or to be the only parent when they’re with you.
But you will figure out a way to make the basics of your new life work for you.
Step 2: Trying out preliminary dating
At some point, you’ll try dating. I call this first round of dating preliminary dating because you’re not really sure what type of woman you want – maybe you want someone to listen to you and provide emotional support, maybe you want someone to make your ex jealous, or maybe you just want someone you can have sex with – and because you’re still hurting from your divorce you’re not ready to enter into a relationship.
Most men use this period of preliminary dating to get in shape and update their wardrobe a bit as the remember how to put their best foot forward in the dating world.
Step 3: Getting over your divorce
Divorce is one of the most hellish experiences anyone can have. It takes time and effort to heal from the end of your marriage.
Most men don’t complete putting their grief and the emotional turmoil of divorce behind them until after they’ve started dating. There’s something to say for knowing you’re still desirable that goes a long way toward rebuilding your confidence.
Step 4: Moving on with your life
Once you’ve put away all (or at least most) of the baggage from your marriage, you’ll be able to start really living your life. You’ll have figured out how to take care of you and your kids, you’ve already experimented with dating, and you’re ready to start experimenting with relationships or become that fabled playboy.
Whatever you choose to do with your life now you’re choosing because you’re ready for it and not because it’s someone else’s idea of what you should be doing.
Putting your former life behind you takes work, but it’s effort well invested. Everyone will see you as one of those guys who knows how to make life after divorce for men over 40 really work. And you know what? You’ll see yourself that way too.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping men just like you who want support in figuring out what life after divorce for men over 40 will be like for them. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me as your personal coach, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more ideas about having a great life? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Life After Divorce.
How Long Will It Take To Get Over Your Divorce?
Knowing these 3 phases of divorce recovery will help you understand exactly how long it will take.
The pain and confusion of divorce is so intense that at times you wonder if you’ve lost your mind. At other times, you worry that this agony is just how life will be from now on.
In less tortured moments, you know you’re still sane and that life will get better. But then you wonder when because you aren’t sure how much more of the misery you can take.
A quick Google will show you there are plenty of people who will willingly tell you exactly how long it will take you to get over your divorce. What you need to know is that they’re ALL WRONG.
These authorities are all wrong because they base their guidance on averages, observation, personal experience and personal bias. There’s no way any of that will be able to predict exactly how long it will take YOU to get over your divorce.
Divorce recovery is a process. You’ll get through it on a timeline that’s unique to you – not according to someone else’s.
So instead of looking for an exact time when you’ll be over your divorce, it makes more sense to look at other indications that you’re over your divorce.
One of the best ways to gauge how far you’ve come and how much more you have to do is to look at your primary motivation for how you’re living your life.
There are three different phases of motivation that people go through as they heal from their divorce.
1.Make the pain stop.
This the is the most difficult part of divorce recovery. Living in pain and confusion is the only constant amidst the chaos of your divorce.
You struggle to figure out a way to stop hurting so much as you go through all the phases of grief. You are greatly tempted to medicate the pain away in this phase. You might ask your doctor for a prescription or you might self-medicate with food, alcohol, other mood-altering substances, and/or sex.
The biggest challenge here is to not over medicate yourself so you avoid feeling what you need to experience to actually heal so you can move on to the next phase as you fight to move on with your life after divorce.
You’ll also look for guidance form just about anyone for ideas to make the pain stop. The challenge is that not everyone you’ll be tempted to ask for help will be able to really help you. They’ll each have their own reasons for offering help which may or may not have your best interests as reason #1.
2.Focus on others.
As the pain starts to subside, you’ll feel numb compared to the tumultuous emotions that were besieging you in the previous phase. You’ll look outside of yourself to keep moving on.
You might start to real focus on your kids or work or your pets or even your friends. This external focus allows you to re-establish and redefine the relationships and your responsibilities that suffered the most as you were dealing with your pain.
Looking at life through this lens of connection and contribution can be extremely motivating. The challenge is that it can also lead to burnout because you’re not necessarily taking care of yourself.
3.Creating the life you want.
Eventually, you’ll get your relationships and responsibilities stabilized. You may not have everything exactly the way want it, but you’ll accept the way things are with the important people and activities in your life.
This is when you start becoming motivated by what you want in your life. You’ll find it easy to take the steps necessary to make your life great.
This shift in focus doesn’t mean that you start ignoring what you’ve built up in the last phase, but that now you are motivated on making your life really work for you. The goal now is to feel fulfilled and happy.
And when you reach this phase you’re over the bulk of your divorce recovery work. You may still have a few triggers that hurl you back to the first phase of pain and confusion (like when you find out your ex is in a serious relationship, or when your anniversary rolls around), but you won’t stay there for long.
You know that what lies ahead of you is so much more motivating and appealing than what happened in the past.
As much as knowing these phases will help you get a feel for how much longer you’ll be dealing with getting over your divorce, they can also make it more challenging if you’re one of those people who like to push to accomplish things.
Super-achievers will be tempted to start focusing on what they want to create in their life NOW instead of allowing themselves to thoroughly work through each of the phases.
If this is you, remember that completely recovering from divorce is a process. You can certainly accelerate the process by focusing on the best ways to get through each phase, but not by short-circuiting or skipping any portion of one.
So allow yourself to progress through each of them with intention. As you do, you’ll find that you’ll have dealt with the pain, confusion and outward focus to the point that you’re able to truly create an amazing life for yourself post-divorce.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are struggling with divorce and don’t know how to stop the pain so they can move forward with their lives. You can join my anonymous newsletter list for free weekly advice. And, if you’re ready, you can take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach by scheduling a private consultation.
Looking for more support and ideas for feeling better after your divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Healing After Divorce.
This article originally appeared on The Good Men Project.