Category Archives: Divorce and Emotions

What is a Divorce Coach and Why Do I Need One?

| March 30, 2022
Divorce Coach and Spouse Talking About Divorce - Collaborative Divorce of Orange County

The Divorce Coach: A Vital Member of the Professional Collaborative Team

As has been proven, the collaborative model works so well because all of the members of the collaborative team play an equally-critical role in the success of the collaborative process. We know that emotions can run high during a divorce. We also know that emotions can get in the way of rational thinking, and the ability to access the cognitive areas of our brain, which is critical for effective problem-solving. Divorce Coaches are best-suited to help clients move past the emotion of a given impasse, and past the high emotions of the divorce itself, and to help clients focus on realistic options to obtain a more favorable outcome for their families.

What is the Role of a Divorce Coach?

A Divorce Coach is a licensed, mental health professional who has specialized training in Collaborative Divorce and Mediation. The Divorce Coach is a co-equal member of the clients’ Collaborative Divorce Team. In a full Collaborative Team, each spouse has a Divorce Coach. In some cases, clients choose to share one Divorce Coach to assist each of them through the collaborative divorce process or mediation.

The Divorce Coach helps clients translate … Read More “What is a Divorce Coach and Why Do I Need One?”

13 Tips for Talking with Your Children About Your Separation and Divorce

| May 12, 2021
Mother consoles young daughter

by Carol R. Hughes, Ph.D., LMFT
www.DivorcePeacemaking.com

The following tips will help you prepare to talk with your children about your separation and divorce. You care about doing the best you can for your children because you are reading this article. Give yourself permission not to be perfect. No one is. This is a stressful time for all of you. Remember to keep taking slow, deep breaths — you and your children will get through this difficult time.

  1. Agree on a time when you both can be present to talk with your children together. Siblings need the support they can provide each other. Divorce is a major life crisis for all family members. Treat it as such. Ideally, it is best to share the news with your children when they have adequate time to absorb what you will be telling them, for example, when they do not have to go back to school in a day or two after hearing the news.
  2. Plan your presentation to your children in advance. Make some notes about what you plan to say and review them to be familiar with what you intend to say. Anticipate what they may say to you. You can
… Read More “13 Tips for Talking with Your Children About Your Separation and Divorce”

How to Have a Peaceful and Successful Divorce

| May 10, 2021
Couple smiles at each other in divorce lawyer's office

How do you avoid the trauma of divorce – the battle, the fighting which can endure for many months or years, and the constant argument and opposition to a partner whom you once loved or even still care about?

What does it mean to have a peaceful and successful divorce? How do you discuss and create solutions to divide your assets and debts; share the parenting of your children who are not yet adults or still in school; and calculate a fair distribution of earnings to support two households?

Mental health professionals tell us that when we are angry, in trauma, and emotional, that we are not thinking with the best, problem-solving parts of our brains. How are we able to master our emotions to think rationally and to creatively develop solutions and a new sense of purpose? How can we recreate some of the empathy that we formerly had for our spouse to create a base for teamwork, connection, and solution?

Through an out-of-court process of collaborative divorce, working with a collaborative team of professionals, it is possible to transition from battle to cooperative settlement. It is also possible to save months of court litigation by selecting a collaborative … Read More “How to Have a Peaceful and Successful Divorce”

What is Effective Communication During a Divorce?

| October 12, 2020
Effective Communication in Divorce

A recommended article written by CDSOC member Carol R. Hughes, Ph.D., LMFT, Collaborative Divorce Coach, Child Specialist, Mediator, and Trainer

“Couples who are considering separation and divorce often say that they had difficulty communicating during their marriage.  Their communication is unlikely to improve during separation and divorce unless they learn more effective skills.”

Click the link below to read more:

https://collaborativedivorcecalifornia.com/what-is-effective-communication-during-a-divorce/

 

Out of every ending, there is a new beginning

| September 16, 2020
Out of Every Ending

Intro: The sixth phase of grief for couples and families after divorce bring meaning and renewal.

By Hiram Rivera-Toro & Karen Shipley

Entering autumn is a time of goodbyes.  Of saying farewell to summer and all the special memories the season brings:  family get togethers, backyard Bar B Q’s, beach outings, and long road trips.  September 22, 2020, however, marks the passage of a summer that never was:  cancelled proms and graduation ceremonies, June weddings rescheduled, and sheltering at home instead of hanging out.  COVID has rendered our lives unrecognizable as we come to realize there’s no going back to the way it was.  The past is lost, and the future is uncertain.

Parents facing divorce is much like facing Autumn in the time of COVID.  It produces “anticipatory anxiety”, that feeling of dread that accompanies unwelcome change.  It is part of a painful divorce experience that, in many ways resembles the type of grief associated with tremendous trauma and loss.  Professionals trained in the behavioral sciences identify this as the Grief Cycle (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD),  which include five distinct emotions and thoughts: denial, anger, depression, bargaining (often experienced as wishful thinking, what if’s, and “only If I had . … Read More “Out of every ending, there is a new beginning”

Dealing with the Fear in a Divorce

| August 19, 2020
Fear in Divorce

By Bart Carey | Originally posted on https://familypeacemaker.com/fear-dealing-with-divorce/

All of the emotions that we see during the course of the breakdown of a marriage and the divorce process boil down to fear. I do not say that from my own expertise but from what I have heard over and over again from my colleagues in the mental health profession.

The first victim of any marriage that is going south is communication. As communication breaks down, people cannot solve problems together anymore. So, what they do is out of frustration and they start taking unilateral action.  However, because we are in a relationship, what you do affects me.  This is when the fear sets in. You lose control and you do not know what’s going to happen next and you don’t understand why your spouse is doing this to you.

This is when the fears arise and what it leads to is a tit for tat situation. It leads doing something that will make me feel like I am back in control of the situation. This back and forth starts to happen and it evolves. All of this happens before the client comes to us in the family law arena. This … Read More “Dealing with the Fear in a Divorce”

Does COVID-19 Cause Divorce?

| May 19, 2020
Does COVID-19 Cause Divorce?

By Leslee Newman, Family Law Attorney, CDSOC Member

The pandemic of COVID-19 has swept us up and dramatically changed the way we live in just a matter of weeks.  Our existence has become restricted, regulated, and different than we’ve ever known.  We have all become isolated in our own homes.  The freedom to come and go as we wish has been greatly altered.  We cannot go to restaurants, to our offices and work sites, and to many public places.  We cannot enter places of religious worship, attend lectures, professional meetings, go to the theater, to concerts, to movies, or even personally meet with friends.  And our children cannot go to school.  How traumatically sad for those students in the Class of 2020, graduating from high school and college.

With children now at home full-time, who cares for them, who teaches them, who keeps them busy, and prepares their meals?  We are all prisoners of the Covid pandemic, isolating ourselves to avoid this terrible, and often deadly disease, especially for mature and older adults.

And as we sacrifice and struggle to remain healthy, most of us are restricted from our work places, or worse, furloughed, laid off from work, or even … Read More “Does COVID-19 Cause Divorce?”

No Drama Divorce… How to Manage Fear and Expectations in a Co-Mediated Divorce Process Using Collaboratively-Trained Professionals

| February 28, 2020
No Drama Divorce

By Patrice Courteau, MA, LMFT and Paula J. Swensen, Esq.

The ending of a marriage can be a minefield of emotions and reactions.  A “no drama” divorce helps to shift a mindset from pain and unrealistic expectations to one of managing emotions, learning better communication skills, and gathering information in order to reduce anxiety of divorcing spouses.

In our experience of working together in a co-mediation process, the goal is to reduce the drama by reducing fear, managing both spouse’s expectations, and setting a course for the couple to be able to successfully navigate.  We cannot overstate the value to clients of using well-trained collaborative professionals to help them manage the fear and emotion in order to achieve their best family-centered outcome.

While the legal professional is educating on the legal process and the issues presented, the mental health professional (divorce coach or child specialist) is gathering information from the spouses regarding their urgent issues and concerns, including any communication challenges.

Throughout this process, it is essential for the clients to be heard, and to feel that they have an equal voice in reaching a resolution.  Often during this process, clients learn a new way to communicate with one another.  … Read More “No Drama Divorce… How to Manage Fear and Expectations in a Co-Mediated Divorce Process Using Collaboratively-Trained Professionals”

“I Just Need to Win”… How Collaborative Professionals Can Help Shift the Paradigm

| February 24, 2020
I Just Need a Win

By Paula J. Swensen, Esq.

Those of us of a certain age remember the immortal words of a successful football coach after whom the Super Bowl trophy was long ago named.

Vince Lombardi famously opined, “Winning isn’t everything… it’s the only thing.”  That’s a pithy and fitting philosophy for a coach to use to inspire his or her team to attain greater and greater success on the football field, but we collaborative divorce professionals know that it is not so useful when it is applied in the context of a divorcing couple.

It goes without saying that everybody wants to win.  No one wants to lose, regardless of the undertaking or the endeavor in which one is engaged.  We know intuitively from a very young age that winning is “good,” and that losing is “bad”.  We all want our team to win, and we become frustrated and sometimes angry, when our team loses.  We all know from following sports that when there is a winner, there is also a corresponding loser.

This concept of “winning” is ingrained in our being from an early age, and it has now saturated our culture.  We want winners, not losers when we … Read More ““I Just Need to Win”… How Collaborative Professionals Can Help Shift the Paradigm”

January is National Child-Centered Divorce Awareness Month

| January 24, 2020
January is National Child-Centered Divorce Awareness Month

By Carol R. Hughes, Ph.D., LMFT, Child Specialist and Divorce Coach

 

“Children are like wet cement.  Everything that falls on them leaves an impression.”
~ Dr. Haim Ginott, World Renowned Child Psychologist

Often married adults include as one of their New Year’s resolutions that they are going to “start a new life” by filing for divorce.  For this reason, there is an increase in divorce filings in January.  This is why January is National Child-Centered Divorce Awareness Month.

When parents file for divorce, how does it affect their children?  It depends.

For decades, the research about children and divorce has indicated that children report that the news of their parents impending divorce and how their parents divorced made a lasting impression on them, even into their adulthood.  Most parents want to prevent emotional and psychological damage to their children during and after divorce, but they do not know how to do so.

Divorce is the number one stressor for adults, second only to the death of a loved one.  So, it is not surprising that divorcing parents find it difficult to be their best selves for the sake of their children.  In fact, research has found that due to … Read More “January is National Child-Centered Divorce Awareness Month”