Posts by Dr. Karen Finn
Happy Wife, Happy Life: Here’s How To Make Her Happy
Just be her friend.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Happy wife, happy life.” The problem is it’s hard (and it can feel impossible) to know what makes her happy because, let’s face it, we women are way different from you guys.
What I want you to know is that your heart is obviously in the right place. (If it wasn’t you wouldn’t be reading this.) You just need to stop assuming that your wife thinks like you do. (And us ladies need to stop assuming you think like we do too.)
And yet it’s natural to think that your spouse thinks like you do. After all it sure seemed like you did when you first fell in love, right?
Well, here’s the thing, after all of the love potion wears off and you start living your real lives as husband and wife you stop being hyper-focused on each other. And when you stop being hyper-focused you stop thinking alike because other things, people, events and experiences now claim some (or maybe most) of your attention.
Hopefully, you’re getting the idea that it’s going to take a little work on your part to get things turned around in your marriage to the point where she’s happy and you’ve got your happy life with her. But don’t worry, the work isn’t onerous because all you have to do is be her friend.
Now before you start claiming that you already are her friend, remember that you’re assuming she thinks like you do. She doesn’t. Friendship to her means understanding and supporting her in a way that makes sense to her – not you.
So here are 7 ways you can improve your friendship with your wife:
- Respect her. Respect her thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, priorities, values, work, hobbies, wants, needs, and time as much as you want her to respect yours. Believe it or not, most men quickly discount their wives’ thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, priorities, values, work, hobbies, wants, needs, and time when these things in any way conflict with what they want.
For most men, it’s not on purpose because it’s how they would treat another man. They expect another man to tell them no. But, remember, your wife doesn’t think like you do so she feels disrespected when you continually push your agenda ahead of hers.
- Pitch in without being asked. Have you ever noticed how busy your wife continually is? (OK, not all wives are like this, but most are.) She’s always got something she’s working on and it’s rare to see her sit down and relax. She assumes that you notice how hard she’s working to take care of the kids, the pets, the house and the meals. And you probably do.
The problem is that she needs help taking care of the kids, the pets, the house and the meals. Taking care of your house and family requires both of you because they’re both of yours. So pitch in without being asked. Notice what needs doing and just do it. Oh, and don’t expect her to praise you for doing it any more than you praise her for getting things done to maintain your family and household.
- Spend quality time together. Now her idea of quality time might be different than yours, so be sure and do things that she really enjoys doing and not just things that she does with you to please you. (The secret you need to know is that she probably enjoys talking with you and connecting with you on an emotional level.)
- Honor her need for emotional security. I’ve read that women value emotional security more than financial security. I don’t know if that’s or not, but I do know that women need to feel safe to express themselves. Most of us women emotional beings and need to know that our husbands respect this about us.
(We also need our husbands to know that we are sensitive to their emotions too.)
If we don’t feel safe emotionally, we start to shut down and look to others to satisfy our need for emotional intimacy. Now I’m not saying that we’ll look for another man (although some women do), but we will start spending more time with people who do fill this need for us – like our friends and family.
- Know that she can’t just turn off her thoughts and feelings. I know this seems weird to those of you guys who can put things out of your minds pretty easily, but most women can’t do that. We tend to have a bazillion thoughts and emotions streaking through our minds all the time.
I’m sure you’ve heard the joke about the couple who are in the throes of passion and all of a sudden she says, “Blue.” He’s trying to maintain his focus, but he doesn’t want to ignore her so somewhat distractedly he asks, “What?” She responds, “I think I’ll paint the bedroom blue.” Well, that ruins the mood for him, but she’s still ready to go because she finally solved a dilemma that she’d been struggling with for quite some time! And that, gentlemen, is how a woman’s mind works.
So give her time if she’s caught up in a thought or emotion and isn’t able to just put it aside. Patiently talk with her about it to help her process it (DO NOT TRY TO SOLVE IT FOR HER) and as soon as she does, she’ll be back to herself again.
- Know her love language and use it to your advantage. Hopefully you’ve heard of Gary Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages before. If not, you need to order a copy right away. Chapman’s premise is that we all naturally experience and express love in at least one of five different ways. It’s important that you express your love for your wife in the way that makes most sense to her instead of the way that makes the most sense to you.
For example, let’s say your love language is physical touch and you love it when she spontaneously gives you a hug and kiss in public. And let’s say her love language is gifts. If you assume she’ll feel loved by you spontaneously giving her hugs and kisses in public, you’ll be very, very wrong. She won’t feel that you’re showing her love, she’ll feel that you’re just getting your needs for love met and ignoring hers.
- Build her up. This is one place where you both need the same thing. The problem is that culturally men do this less frequently than women do. So take the time to let her know how much you appreciate her (and more than just sexually).
The more you encourage and appreciate her, the more energy and ability she’ll have to encourage and appreciate you. It’s one of those things where if you lead by example she’ll easily be able to follow your example.
I wish that I could give you an iron-clad guarantee that by consistently doing these 7 things that your wife will be happy and your life together will be amazing, but I can’t. All women are different, but almost all of us respond to having our husband put forth the effort to be our best friend. And given that the reward is a happy life with her, I’m guessing you’ll be happy being her best friend.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach who believes that choosing divorce is a last resort. 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 help to make your marriage better? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Unhappy Marriage?
This article originally appeared at Marriage.com.
Letting Go Is The First Step Of Divorce Recovery
This exercise will jump start your divorce recovery.
One of the most difficult parts of getting over your divorce is letting go.
Letting go of the past, letting go of the hurt and confusion, along with letting go of the dreams and plans you had for the future together seem to require Herculean efforts. And yet you know it’s necessary to let it all go if you’re ever going to move on from your divorce.
Even though your marriage ended, I’ll bet that not all of your memories of being together are bad. You’ve got plenty of good ones that are worth holding on to, but not if remembering them causes you to question again and again and again why your ex decided to end your marriage. All that does is keeps you stuck.
And this is where the hurt and confusion comes from. How could your ex decide that divorce was the answer? How could they throw away everything you had together? Learning to find your own answers to these questions is another part of what you need for divorce recovery.
And if the pain of the past and present weren’t enough, there’s the pain of all the future dreams and plans that just won’t ever happen now. This pain is often some of the most difficult to release because you’ve invested years working toward and believing that you’d see those dreams and plans become real.
The trap most people fall into when they’re dealing with their divorce recovery is believing their hurts about the past, their hurts about the present and their hurts about the future can only be dealt with separately. That just isn’t the case.
One of the most effective ways to let go of all the pain is through an exercise I call the Goodbye/Hello Letter. This is a letter that you write just for yourself. No one else ever needs to see it, but you might choose to talk about it with a trusted friend, family member, or helping professional.
To do this exercise, you’ll need some uninterrupted time by yourself, paper, something to write with, and some tissues. (Yes, you might end up shedding some tears.)
First, you’ll want to start off with the goodbyes. Say goodbye to everything you can and need to as a result of the end of your marriage. Yes, this includes things from the past, the present and the future.
To give you an idea of what you might choose to say goodbye to, below is a goodbye letter a woman wrote as part of her divorce recovery work:
Goodbye to everything I thought my life was and everything I thought my life would be. Goodbye to perceived financial and emotional security. Goodbye to my home, my nest, my home base. The place that I brought my babies home and thought we would send them off to college; hand in hand – smiling at each other that we were alone together again. Goodbye to trust and the belief that a man can be faithful and unselfish. Goodbye to trusting my heart fully to someone else. I will always be skeptical and know that love is temporary. When things get tough – you run to someone/thing easier, prettier, more fun. Goodbye to feeling so lucky that my kids would grow up with a “real” family. Goodbye to walking my kids home from school, being homeroom Mom, and being close friends with their teachers.
I thought you were someone you weren’t – loyal, respectful, proud of me. Goodbye to excusing your annoying habits and condescending behavior. Goodbye to shopping for cars you spent more time with than me or your kids.
You broke my heart, my reality, and my dreams and now I will use the broom and dustpan to gather them up, see what’s left, pick out what I want of what’s left, and learn to mosaic them with something new.
What’s especially great about this goodbye letter is that this woman was able to say goodbye to some things that she didn’t like too.
The second part of the letter (which you need to write immediately after finishing the goodbye portion) is the hello section. This is where you start taking inventory of what is positive about your newly single situation. You might not believe that you have a lot to say in this section until you start writing it. You’ll probably be surprised that there are some good things about your divorce – even if they’re small right now.
One of the almost universal things that people wind up saying hello to is themselves. When a marriage ends in divorce there’s usually been a period of unhappiness or at least unease. When the marriage ends, it frees you up to start getting to know you again instead of continuing to figure out who you must be now so the marriage can continue to limp along.
Now, writing the first part of this letter isn’t easy, but you probably guessed that when I said you needed to have tissues. However, writing the goodbye/hello letter is one of the most cathartic things you can do. It will allow you to express concretely what it is that you’re grieving and then allow you to start to realize there’s hope and the rest of your life waiting for you.
Identifying the hope immediately after experiencing the grief (and closure) is what will jump start your divorce recovery.
Don’t worry if you aren’t able to purge all of your grief and find lots of hope the first time you do this exercise. The point of writing the Goodbye/Hello Letter is that you allow yourself to let go of what you can now. You can always write another one when you’re ready to take another giant leap toward your divorce recovery.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and personal life coach helping people just like you who want to survive and thrive 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 help getting over your divorce? Read more advice for Healing After Divorce.
This article originally appeared at DivorceForce.
Divorced? How To Stop Feeling Like A Failure
You really haven’t lost your identity along with everything else even though it feels like it now.
The losses you suffer when you divorce can seem never ending. Each realization of loss sends you deeper and deeper into grief. At times it can feel as if you’re drowning in the sadness (or maybe it’s just your tears).
Yet permeating through all of the losses is one that you just can’t shake. That’s the loss of you – or at least your identity as a spouse.
Unfortunately, your old identity is readily replaced with a new one, a painful one, an awful one. You now believe that you’re a failure. Feeling like a failure after divorce is fairly normal because it has its roots in lessons you learned from a very young age.
When you first started school you were taught to view tasks, tests and homework as things you either passed or failed. To pass, you just had to do things well enough compared to the rest of your class. To fail, you either had to ignore the assignment or display a complete lack of effort and/or understanding.
When you overlay this training on a failed marriage, it’s way too easy to reach the conclusion that you must be a failure because you’re divorced. And that’s where feeling like a failure and the accompanying shame come in.
You look around you and you see all these people who are making marriage work. But you weren’t able to do it. You assume that everyone around you can sense your failure and are judging you to be less than they are. But the truth is that you’re imagining most of it. (Sure, there may be some really cruel people in your life who are calling you a failure, but they’re WRONG.)
Although it can seem almost impossible to extract yourself from feeling like a failure, it’s not impossible.
You can move past the misery of feeling like a failure by changing your perspective.
Changing your perspective can only be done by changing your beliefs about failure in life. And changing your beliefs requires you to open yourself up to other thoughts.
If you’re genuinely willing to stop feeling like a failure because you’re divorced, here are some new facts and ideas to help you shift your perspective.
- It takes two. It takes two people choosing to make marriage work on a daily basis for a marriage to make it. It also takes two people for a marriage to not make it. So you’re not alone in having responsibility for the failure of your marriage. (NOTE: Taking responsibility for your part in the failure of the marriage is completely different from being a failure.)
- A marriage exists between two people. A marriage is a connection between two people. It is not either of them; it’s outside. When a marriage ends in divorce, it’s the relationship between the couple that’s a failure not either of the spouses.
- You have always been more than a spouse. Your role as a spouse was just a small part of who you are as a person. As a person you have all kinds of roles you fill every day already that you can choose at any moment to define your identity: father, mother, daughter, son, employee, manager, volunteer, driver, etc. You can also choose a new identity for yourself now that you’re no longer a spouse especially if you remember that “you are powerful beyond measure” and you’re so much greater than a failure.
- There are no grades for how you live your life. You’ve always done your best with the resources, ability and understanding you’ve had each and every moment of your life. There’s no way you or anyone else can change the fact that as a human you’re predetermined to do your best. That doesn’t mean that as you learn and experience more that you would have done things differently if you were to face the same situations today. It just means that you’re being perfectly you all the time. And there’s no way that you can be a failure.
- You become what you think about. You can absolutely make sure you’re miserable by focusing on how miserable you are or should be. You can absolutely make sure that you become a failure if all you focus on is feeling like a failure.BUT you’ve heard stories of how people facing horrible situations (worse than divorce) have been happy and become inspirations despite their circumstances. The fact is that millions of people get divorced every year and yet somehow with all these failed marriages these same people are going on to live fulfilling lives post-divorce. You can too. All you have to do is start focusing on how you can and then do what you can to make your life better. (HINT: you can start by deciding to move past feeling like a failure.)
Shifting your belief away from feeling like a failure because you’re divorced is a necessary part of divorce recovery, but that won’t (necessarily) make it easy to do. Recognize that your divorce will still mess with you every now and again and then come back to these facts to remind yourself that a failed marriage has the ability to make you wiser, but never has had the ability to make you a failure.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and personal life coach helping people just like you who want to survive and thrive 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 support as you navigate life after divorce? Read more great advice in Healing After Divorce.
Conquering Depression Post-Divorce
Like all good plans, this one is extremely simple and effective.
Divorce really takes it out of you. It’s an f-ing life changing event that’s thrown unexpectedly your way by the one person who promised to love you for the rest of your life. But…Surprise! (in a really horrible way) They don’t love you anymore.
You’ve spent years of your life investing in them and a marriage that didn’t work out. You can’t help looking at those years as wasted. And it’s this perspective, this view of your life that allows the situational depression of divorce to take root deeply and invade not only your life, but your soul.
I know you know you need to get this weed out of your life and yet the depression itself makes it difficult to do much about it.
But don’t worry. You can conquer the depression. You will feel happy again. And you can do it very simply. (Simply, yes. Easily, not necessarily.)
- Breathe – Yes, I know you’re already breathing but hear me out for a minute.
Our breathing changes when we’re feeling depressed. We breathe more shallowly and hold our breath.
To compensate for the lack of oxygen, we sigh or yawn frequently which both trigger us to remain in a depressed state.
Instead of sticking with the same old breathing, change things up and take breathing breaks throughout the day. Sit or stand tall and take in as much air as you can. Then, exhale forcefully. I mean I want everyone within 10 feet of you to know you’re exhaling. Take 3-5 of these deep breaths each time you take a breathing break. (Ideally, you’ll take a breathing break 4-8 times a day.)
And if you really want to up the ante on using breathing to help you conquer your situational depression post-divorce try this: Put your arms straight out in front of you at shoulder height with the back of your hands together. As you breathe in, raise your arms (with the back of your hands still touching) until they’re directly overhead. Then, as you exhale, make fists and pull your arms down until your upper arms are level with your shoulders. (Yeah, you’ll look like you’re posing for a body building contest.)
The beauty about moving your arms around like this as you breathe is that you’ll release some of the tension in your shoulders and upper back. (I do this move just about every day.)
- Walk – Take at least one break every day to walk – ideally outside and without your phone. Pay attention to all that’s going on around you as you stroll. For most of us there’s something extremely healing about being outside and disconnected.
Besides the change of scenery, there are other benefits to walking. Getting your body in motion helps with digestion. Walking will also help you to maintain a healthy weight, strengthen your bones and muscles, improve your mood and improve your balance and coordination. The Mayo Clinic even says that the faster, farther and more frequently you walk, the greater the benefits you’ll receive.
- Eat – Most people in the throes of divorce use food to help soothe their feelings. Some over eat while others under eat. (I was definitely an under eater when I was going through my divorce depression.)
However, by succumbing to the different and, frankly, bad eating habits you’ve developed to soothe yourself for the long term you maintain an environment for your post-divorce depression to thrive in. If you’re not feeding yourself well, you mess with your ability to think clearly which means that you’ll continue thinking the same depressing thoughts.
So choose to eat better for at least one meal each day. Maybe better means adding some more vegetables to your plate. Maybe better just means eating something. Whatever it means to you, do it.
Admittedly, these 3 tips are just the beginning for moving fully out of your post-divorce depression. But they’re a critical starting point for sustained changed because they are so achievable. And once you have success with these, you’ll be able to move on to more success in conquering your post-divorce depression.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and personal life coach helping people just like you who want to survive and thrive 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 support as you navigate life after divorce? Read more advice about Healing After Divorce.
This article was originally published on DivorceForce.
How To Stop Settling And Have A Great Life After Divorce
In order to surround yourself with what you love you have to stop settling for what you don’t.
One of the realizations you’ve probably had as you’ve been healing from your divorce is that you learned to accept less than you wanted during your marriage.
Obviously, you accepted less honest communication, less meaningful connection and less unconditional love than you wanted and deserved or else you’d still be married. But in the name of compromise (or keeping the peace) you also accepted other things that you didn’t really want or like: the nagging, the yelling, the strained relationship with your in-laws, or even the color of your bedroom.
So here’s the great news. Now you can stop settling! But not just on the things that you settled for for the sake of your marriage. Now you can stop settling for everything. You can create your life after divorce full of things, relationships, behaviors and experiences that you love.
However, before you can fully create a life you love you need to learn how to stop settling.
Whenever you ignore your preferences and choose something just because it’s what’s available now and not because you love it, you’re settling. Whenever you do something because it’s easy and not because it’s what you really want to do, you’re settling. Whenever you accept someone’s poor behavior without saying something about it, you’re settling.
It’s important to recognize what settling is because it’s an insidious habit. It’s easy to put your preferences or feelings to the side for the sake of someone else. And why do you do that? So those other people can have what they want!
Well, it’s time for you to have what you want out of life. Since no one is going to just hand it to you on a silver platter, it’s time for you to stop settling and create the great life after divorce that you deserve.
When you stop to think about it, settling feels bad. You feel diminished and less than the person you’re allowing to have their way. If it goes on too long, you wind up feeling victimized and unworthy of what you really want out of life.
Now that you know how settling feels and what its impact is in your life, you can begin to eliminate settling from your life.
Start by taking a good look at your possessions. Are there things you need to purge because you feel bad just looking at them or you feel bad when you use them? Those are the things you’ve allowed into your life that you don’t really want. Those are the things you’re settling for.
But don’t think you have to purge or replace all of that stuff at the same time. You can do it in phases (and as your budget allows). Maybe you’ll start by getting rid of all the pens you have that don’t write well. Maybe you’ll start by throwing out all the underwear that you’d never want someone else to see you in.
The important thing here isn’t how quickly you eliminate all the things you’ve been settling for, but that you begin purging them and have a plan for how to replace (or live without) all of them.
After you’ve cut your teeth with getting rid of the things that you’ve settled for, you can start looking at how you’re settling in other areas of your life. Some of the other areas for you to consider are your relationships, your behaviors and habits as well as your job.
What you’ll quickly discover as you eliminate more and more of the things, relationships, behaviors, and experiences you’ll feel lighter. Your world will seem happier and more comforting because you’re only surrounding yourself with people, places, things and experiences that you want. And THAT will guarantee that your life after divorce is way better than it was before you divorced.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are struggling with moving forward with their lives. You can join my anonymous newsletter list for free weekly advice. If you’re ready to take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more support and ideas for creating a life you love? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Life After Divorce.
5 Powerful Reasons You MUST Forgive Your Ex
No, you don’t have to like what they did, but you do have to like love you.
Forgiveness. It’s a powerful word because it evokes a myriad of thoughts and emotions.
Anger about the unfairness of it all.
Revenge because they deserve to feel as much pain as you do.
Justice because they need to learn that they can’t treat people the way they’ve treated you.
Fear because you’re unsure what happens after you forgive them.
Bitterness because if you forgive them, they’ll get away with it.
Calm because you know forgiveness is the next step for you.
Peace because you’ve forgiven in the past and peace has been the result.
Duty because forgiveness is what your religion or spiritual practice teaches.
Confusion because you’re not exactly sure what forgiveness means.
Injustice because you don’t feel like you should have to give your ex anything more.
Vulnerability because you’re afraid that by forgiving them you’ll give them carte blanche to continue hurting you since you’re not doing anything about it.
Depression because you believe you must have deserved to be treated badly in the first place and forgiveness would only validate their behavior.
Victimhood because forgiveness means you’d admit to being a victim of what they’ve said about and done to you.
Process because for most forgiveness doesn’t happen like turning off or on a light switch.
Challenge because every fiber of your being is screaming out for revenge, yet you know forgiveness is the right answer for you.
Exhaustion because you’ve been fighting against the pain and anger for so long that once you finally forgive you finally feel your emotional exhaustion.
Frustration because you’ve tried to forgive and not been successful.
Weakness because forgiveness feels like you’re not standing up for yourself and God knows you need to be able to (finally) stand up to your ex.
These are just a few of the thoughts and emotions that arise at the word “forgiveness”. And for some, these ideas are just the tip of the iceberg of angst that the word beings up. You may even have other ways of describing what forgiveness brings up for you.
Because forgiveness is such an emotionally charged concept, we tend to avoid it.
There’s something comforting in the discomfort of knowing you’ve been betrayed by your ex as you’re dumped into a new way of living because of divorce. Maybe it’s the thought of vengeance or just hating the unfairness of it all. And maybe it’s just being able to blame them for your current situation.
By continuing to hold resentment, you’re avoiding the truth of your new life. You’re 100% responsible for how you address the challenges you’re currently facing.
Yeah, I know that’s not a popular notion, but it’s one I had to come to terms with too when I got divorced. The problem is that knowing that doesn’t do a damn thing to change how upset you are because it’s too big and overwhelming.
So let’s break it down into the 5 reasons you MUST forgive your ex. And the best part about these 5 things is that they all have to do with you.
- You don’t deserve misery for the rest of your life. The anger, resentment and desire for vengeance are making you miserable. (Yes, they really are because it’s impossible to recognize any other emotion – especially the good ones – when you’re being fueled by anger.) These emotions are draining and depressing. Continuing to choose to experience them will only make you wretched and bitter.
- You deserve freedom from the past. The past doesn’t need to define you, your present AND your future. By continuing to relive the hurts and broken promises you’re living, but you’re not really alive. You’re missing out on what is happening now.
- You’ll be able to refocus your energy and attention. Being pissed takes effort! It takes mental, emotional and spiritual energy. Just think of what you’d be capable of if instead of sinking all that work into your ex and a dead relationship you put it toward making your life (and your kids’ lives) better!
- You’ll stop feeling like a victim. By staying angry you’re giving your ex continued power over you. You’re remaining a victim of their behavior. And when you stop feeling like a victim, you’ll start feeling safe.
- You deserve empathy, compassion and love. The longer you stay angry at your ex the longer you deny yourself what you truly need to move on. Allowing yourself to forgive gives you the opportunity to care for you instead of focusing on revenge or justice. In other words, you’ll stop hurting yourself.
For most of us, forgiveness isn’t something we find all of a sudden. It takes some work on our part and, at first, that work can seem insurmountable.
But now you’re armed with 5 powerful reasons why forgiveness is good for YOU. So, putting in the effort to forgive and move past the hurt will be easier because you know the payoff for you is immense!
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and personal life coach helping people just like you who want to survive and thrive 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 help recovering from your divorce? Read more advice in Healing After Divorce.
This article originally appeared on YourTango.
Are You Going Crazy Or Just Getting Divorced?
The stress of getting divorced makes everyone question their sanity!
Ever since you found out you’re getting divorced, your mind has been running 1000 miles an hour. Your thoughts are bouncing around like a superball in a small room. One minute you’re feeling angry and frustrated. The next you’re cataloging fears about what the future does and doesn’t hold. Then you’re experiencing grief over what’s been lost, or wondering how your spouse could give up, or fretting about how this is going to impact the kids, or feeling anxious about whether or not you’ll survive your divorce, or concerned over what people will think, or wondering if you’ll ever feel “normal” again.
It’s bad enough when thoughts like these happen one or two at a time, but that’s not what’s happening. You’re bombarded with these thoughts and emotions one after the other with little or no break in between.
As crazy feeling as this storm of thoughts is, it’s pretty typical for someone who’s getting divorced. Divorce turns your life upside-down and inside out. How you thought (assumed) your life would be is not what’s happening now. And this complete upset of what was your normal life is what has your thoughts in a tizzy because divorce is threatening and it’s kicked off your fight-flight-or-freeze response.
This response is supposed to keep you safe from all threats. And ideally it is only meant to be used for a short-term threat – something that’s happening for just a few moments.
The difficulty is that divorce isn’t just a moment in time. It’s a process – sometimes a long drawn out process. When you’re getting divorced you’re locked into your fight-flight-or-freeze response because you have so many questions and worries aren’t being immediately resolved. You’re mired in uncertainty so your body responds by continuing to pump out the neuropeptides and hormones that keep you hyper-alert in an effort to ensure your survival.
But the longer you’re stuck dealing with the threats and uncertainty about getting divorced, the more difficult it will be for you to get over it and move on with your life. You wind up stuck in emotional reactions instead of being able to respond to situations in ways that promote your healing.
Some of the typical difficulties you’ll experience when your mind is overwhelmed dealing with the threats of getting divorced are
- An inability to think clearly – much less plan for the future. This is because when you’re struggling with a threat to your survival, one of the things that happens is that the part of your brain responsible for planning is pretty much off-line since it’s not needed to deal with an immediate threat.
- Insomnia which means you’re having one or more of these symptoms – difficulty falling asleep, waking up often during the night and having trouble falling back asleep, waking up too early in the morning and feeling tired upon waking. This type of secondary insomnia is pretty common for people getting divorced.
- A barrage of bizarre and unsettling ideas that appear as possible solutions to stop the pain that goes along with getting divorced. Some of these ideas could include intermittent thoughts of suicide (if it’s more than an occasional thought seek help immediately) and wishing your ex would just die because it would be easier to deal with than the divorce. As crazy as they may sound, they’re also pretty normal.
- Getting sick. When you’re stressed out for extended periods of time, your immune system can’t keep up with all the hyper-alert systems you’re firing off – especially if you’re not getting enough restful sleep. So your immune system breaks down and you wind up getting sick or having strange, stress-related things crop up like heart trouble, gastric distress (think ulcer, IBS, reflux), rheumatoid arthritis, losing your hair, etc.
Luckily, you don’t have to continue living like this when you’re getting divorced.
By creating pockets of time when you purposely turn off your fight-flight-or-freeze response you’ll give your mind and your body a chance to relax. And THIS is how you get through your divorce more easily and know you’re not going crazy.
Some of the ways you might turn off your fight-flight-or-freeze response are to meditate, take a few deep breaths, talk with someone who knows how to help you shift out of your distress, immerse yourself in another activity, exercise, get a massage or even listen to calming music.
Be patient with yourself as you try different things to calm yourself as you’re getting divorced. You might get lucky and find a way to bring yourself a little pocket of peace immediately or you might have to experiment a bit and even try things more than once before you find what works best for you.
But no matter how much you worry that you might be losing your mind along with your marriage, chances are you’re not. What you’re going through is just what you go through when you’re getting divorced.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are struggling with getting divorced and don’t know how to stop the pain. You can join my anonymous newsletter list for free weekly advice. And if you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more support and ideas for feeling better after your divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Dealing With Grief.
Speak Up To Save Your Unhappy Marriage
Honest and respectful communication could be the key to saving your marriage.
We’ve all done it. We’ve kept our mouths shut (sometimes only by clenching our jaws) when everything inside of us is screaming to let our spouse know what we’re feeling and/or thinking.
There are times when you just don’t want to open the can of worms that saying “I think you’re an idiot” or “You’ve hurt me so much – again – that I know I’d be better off without you” would blow the lid off of. Really, what good would saying this stuff do?
It probably isn’t obvious yet what good telling your inner-most thoughts to your spouse can do. BUT not telling them only does one thing – guarantees that your marriage becomes unhappy (if it isn’t already).
Now, I’m not advocating that you tell your spouse every fleeting thought and emotion that goes through your head. What I am suggesting is that if you had been truthful about the first time you didn’t understand why your mate did something, you might know they’re not really an idiot for doing it again now. Or if you had told them how much they hurt you when they said or did xyz, you might be more willing to fix things now.
In my first marriage, I chose to keep my mouth shut. My ex didn’t seem to hear what I was telling him when I tried to tell him how unhappy I was. It seemed like I was talking to a deaf man who was only concerned about himself.
I tried reaching out to family and friends for help, but what I got back wasn’t helpful. Or maybe I just wasn’t able to hear what they were telling me.
And so I kept things bottled up and ignored my thoughts and feelings for years. Finally, my mind wasn’t able to do the work on its own anymore and my body decided to lend a hand.
It started out with grinding my teeth at night. I would wake up with an aching jaw, so I went to see an orthodontist who was also an oral surgeon. After careful examination, he told me I had TMJ and that all I needed was a bite guard.
I believed him. So I got a “indestructible” bite guard. I chewed through it in only a few weeks. My jaw ached so much that the rest of my face started hurting too.
I chewed through two more “indestructible” bite guards. At this point I was in so much pain I couldn’t speak, I could only eat liquids, and I could hardly open my eyes.
Finally, I realized I needed more help. I started working with a chiropractor to stop the immediate pain. And I started working with a therapist to see if we could stop the deeper ongoing pain.
Guess what the therapist wanted me to do?
Talk about what was going on. At first I didn’t know what to say. I’d practiced not talking about what was true for me for so long that I didn’t really know how to anymore. (I guess I also didn’t believe talking about it would help because it hadn’t in the past.)
But for the next couple of years I talked (a lot) with my therapist. I started to realize that what I thought and felt was important simply because I thought and felt it – not because it mattered to anyone else.
And through all of this talking, I realized that my husband and I needed to talk too. But we weren’t able to do it on our own. So, we (finally) entered couple’s therapy. But it was too late. I’d kept quiet for too long and he’d become used to it. We decided to divorce.
That was more than a decade ago. And I’ve remarried since then.
But, every now and again, I look back with the knowledge and experience I have now and I wonder how things might have been different if I had been brave enough to open my mouth and insist on being heard. Would we have made it? Would we have divorced earlier? I’ll never know.
What I do know is that talking about our persistent inner-most thoughts and feelings is making my current marriage work so much better than my first. Does that mean that we share every feeling thought or emotion? Of course not.
It does mean that we talk about what’s important to us and to our marriage. And that we do so as respectfully as possible.
So, even if the message is “I think you’re an idiot” we realize that’s our judgment. We know the more pertinent issue we need to talk about might be “Help me understand why you did that” or even “I’m angry that you chose to do that.”
By choosing to communicate frequently and openly, we’re in a much better position to steer our marriage away from being unhappy.
Could the same work for you? Maybe. After all, they say the most important ingredient to a happy marriage is communication. And all that takes is a willingness to speak up.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who want to save their 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 help with your marriage? Read more advice in Unhappy Marriage?
This article was first published at DivorceForce.
Wish Your Ex Would Die So Your Divorce Won’t Hurt So Much?
You don’t (really) want them dead.
Divorce sucks. Two people who married with dreams of happily-ever-after become enemies who seemingly simultaneously want their former spouse to die and to love them again. It’s a confusing, frustrating and maddening situation to be in.
More often than not, a divorcing spouse will lean toward one of the two opposing fantasies. I leaned toward wishing my ex would die — not because I really wished he would cease living, but because I wanted the pain I felt to stop.
Although my ex was the one who filed for divorce, I was fully on-board with the idea. I knew I would eventually be better off on my own than to remain in a marriage that I only knew how to make work by sacrificing who I really was in favor of who he had grown accustomed to me being. He became accustomed to be being the one that figured out how to make things work because that’s what I did. I thought it was my responsibility to make our marriage work. (And, yes, we did work with a marriage counselor. But like most couples who finally choose to see a counselor we had waited too long to ask for help. Our counselor agreed with our assessment that we would be better off divorcing.)
We decided to work with a mediator to help us negotiate our divorce agreement and then we each retained an attorney to review the final document to make sure it served our long-term best interests. My attorney was fine with the agreement we had reached. Unfortunately, my ex’s attorney wasn’t. His attorney advised him that our decision to keep our individual retirement accounts was not in his best interest. His attorney’s suggestion was that he should have half of mine and retain all of his.
As you can probably guess, I didn’t think that was a good idea. So I said something that I’d rarely said while we were married. I said, “No.” It was scary after I realized what I’d said, but I meant it. I really did. I was so used to just going along with what he wanted and needed without much concern for myself that the idea of standing up for myself terrified me. I was sure that God was going to strike me dead because I was getting divorced and because I had told my husband “No.” I wished that my ex would just die so I wouldn’t have to experience what I assumed would be the torture of shedding years and years of blind obedience that had to be shed so that I, the real Karen that I’d put into hiding in favor of having a working marriage, wouldn’t die. Yeah, there really was a part of me that thought it was either him or me.
He didn’t take my “No” in stride. He seemed shocked that I didn’t immediately agree. He tried pushing my buttons so I would feel guilty. After all, guilt was a simple way for him to get what he wanted when we were married, so I can only guess he thought it would still work. But he was wrong. I felt guilty, really guilty, and I still said, “No.”
When the guilt didn’t work, he tried to achieve his goal by saying that he wouldn’t agree to anything less than half of my 401K. I repeated myself and said “No.” He then let me know he’d wait until I agreed.
Months passed during which I fervently wished my pain would stop and still saw his death as a way to my goal. Finally, he sent me an email stating he would let me have my way; he just wanted the divorce to be final so he could move on with his life. I felt wonderful that we were finally able to move forward again with our divorce.
The laws in the state where we divorced were such that only he needed to appear in court before the judge to finalize our divorce. He let me know this and when the proceedings would take place. He asked me to let him do it on his own. Again, I told him “no.” I explained that I had been present when we married and I would be present for the end of our marriage too.
I was thrilled when our court date finally arrived because I believed I would finally be free as soon as the judge signed the decree. With happy anticipation, I sat toward the back of the courtroom where I could take in the entire scene. My soon-to-be-ex husband sat closer to the front and slightly to my left. After just a few minutes the judge requested that we stand as he asked each of us a couple of questions before agreeing to sign our divorce decree. I was ecstatic! I thought I was free!
We dealt with the last bit of filing the paperwork and then my ex hurried away. I caught a last glimpse of him as he turned around in the elevator before the doors finished closing. He was crying.
I was shocked! Why wasn’t he as happy as I was? Maybe I should be sad too. Of course! He was sad so I should feel sad too. My happiness evaporated and so did my sense freedom for another couple of years, during which I still occasionally wished he had died.
Luckily, I did eventually find my happiness and freedom again. It just took more than death wishes and a judge’s signature on the divorce decree.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are dealing with grief after the end of their marriage. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And if you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
This article originally appeared on YourTango.com.
These Two Common Mistakes Will Give You An Unhappy Marriage
Stop making these two mistakes and you’ll have a happier marriage.
It’s absolutely exhausting trying to make your marriage work and keep up with all of your other responsibilities. You feel like you’re in it all alone with no hope of things ever getting better. When you took those vows of for better or worse, you really didn’t think that it would be for worse or you’d probably never have gotten married in the first place.
The good news is not all unhappy marriages need to stay that way. It doesn’t always require your spouse to join in with you from the beginning of your plan to make the marriage better. Sometimes you hold the key to turning everything around if you just stop making two basic mistakes.
But before talking about the two biggest mistakes people make in marriages, it’s important to know what a good marriage is.
A good marriage consists of two whole, happy people who choose marriage. You can think of these two happy people as each existing in a separate circle. These separate circles are inside of another circle which represents their marriage. Together these individuals focus on building their marriage.
Most married couples have children. By becoming parents, the couple is choosing to work together (ideally) to provide and care for their children.
Going back to the circles, the children are in a circle outside of the marriage circle. They’re outside because both parents and children need a solid base to build the family on and that’s two whole, happy adults who have a vibrant marriage.
That’s the ideal situation. But obviously that’s not your situation. You’ve got anything but an ideal marriage because you’re so unhappy in it.
There are two really common mistakes people make that result in an unhappy marriage.
The first is to abdicate responsibility for yourself being a whole, happy person. Instead of each spouse being in their own circle as in the ideal marriage situation, in this case at least one spouse is without their own circle. They’re looking outside of themselves for what makes them whole and happy.
Looking outside of themselves doesn’t necessarily mean having an affair. It could also mean that they’re seeking experiences that at least used to bring them joy (or maybe just a sense of peace): drinking, gambling, shopping, eating excessively, pornography, drugs, even only living life through or for their spouse or children.
The second common mistake people make that’s at the root of an unhappy marriage is mixing up the order of the circles and putting the children before the marriage. It can also happen when couples eliminate the marriage circle and put their focus on raising their children.
Your children are precious and deserve your best efforts to allow them to grow into happy, healthy adults, but not at the expense of your marriage (or your individual sense of being a whole, happy person).
One of the greatest gifts you can give your children is an example of a healthy happy marriage. So it’s important that the order of the circles remain you first, marriage second, and children third. This doesn’t mean that you ignore your children’s needs. It means that you each spend the time taking care of you and taking care of your marriage so that you both have the energy required to care for your children.
Recognizing that you are making either one or both of these common mistakes and contributing to your unhappy marriage is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s so much easier to simply point your finger at your spouse and say it’s their fault.
But the truth is there’s always culpability on both sides of an unhappy marriage. Carefully examining what your contribution is and discovering ways to correct it may not ultimately make your marriage happy, but it will allow you to know that you’ve done everything in your power to make your miserable marriage better.
And knowing that may not make getting through the day any easier, but it will remove the endless exhaustion of struggling with an unhappy marriage.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who are struggling with how to turn their marriage around. 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.