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Collaborative Divorce Solutions of Orange County

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Fathers and Divorce

The Last Thing A Man Needs To Hear When He’s Going Through A Divorce

January 14, 2017 By CDSOC

by Diana L. Martinez Collaborative Lawyer and Mediator, Law and Mediation Office of Diana L. Martinez with Dr. Marvin Chapman, Collaborative Coach, LMFT

“Real men don’t cry,” right? BS!

I have represented many strong and successful men in divorces. The skill set which creates business success often does the opposite when seeking conflict resolution in a personal relationship.

Too often, men tend to handle negotiations in their divorce as they do in the boardroom. They become frustrated when their previously successful tactics do not work. Frustration often shows itself as anger, stubbornness, yelling, or complete withdrawal. The real obstacle to their successful divorce resolution is grief, or, rather, the failure to work through the grief.

Divorce is the second most traumatic event a person can experience, second only to the loss of a loved one. While there is plenty of information and support for women to work through the trauma of divorce, there is very little available to men. Why? Because “real men don’t cry.”

The reality: men do grieve the loss of their marriage, but their grief is expressed so differently it appears as aggression, arrogance, or as a complete lack of empathy to the untrained eye

To better understand what’s really influencing this behavior, we turned to Dr. Marvin Chapman, a military veteran, divorce coach and founder of United Fathers, for some answers.

When a man experiences the grief inherent in divorce, his stress comes from many sources. Some of them can include the following:

  • His role as provider and protector as he knows it is ending. Providing and protecting his family is now someone else’s business: the divorce court or perhaps a new partner. Either way, an overwhelming sense of helplessness engulfs many men.
  • He quickly realizes his role as a father, teacher, coach, and mentor to his child(ren) will soon be changing.
  • His self-esteem is challenged by allegations and accusations in papers filed with the divorce court, an entity he now sees as having intrusive control over his current and future life and livelihood.
  • He will quickly become overwhelmed by the legal process and requirements of going through the legal procedures totally and completely foreign to him, and therefore out of his control.
  • He sees his financial security threatened by legal fees, costs and expenses. Splitting one household into two households will cause extreme hardship and an expensive transition.
  • His status and standing in the community is changing, and not for the better unless he “fights it with all he’s got.” He must “win at all costs” if he wants to preserve what and who he is, or, at least, how he identifies himself.
  • He can’t show emotion and be weak. He must be strong, aggressive, and confrontational. Only weak men fall apart.

Most men do not see a divorce as the death of a relationship. They do not realize they are going through the grieving process. Men have no idea what to do with their feelings of pain, anguish, guilt, hurt, confusion, frustration, and a complete sense of being overwhelmed.

Then along come well-meaning family, friends, co-workers and others who want us to “feel better” or at least not so “confused.”  Their advice is the same today as it always has been:  “Man up!”

What can a divorcing man do to work through the grief and be the man he needs to be, for himself and his children? Grief needs to be addressed with time, patience, honesty, congruency, and support from someone willing to walk beside a man without judgment. This one person can acknowledge the pain and the life changes to come. It can be anyone, as long as it allows the grieving person to cut through the macho façade and find a safe place to be himself.

Male military veterans often say they feel safer in combat than after they return to civilian life because they know their buddies in arms always have their back. Divorce can be very isolating. More than ever, a voice of support, not judgment, is needed.

As a Collaborative lawyer and mediator, I have worked with many men in high stress careers. They are tremendously successful professionally, often because of the resources supporting them, including co-workers, employers, and employees.

But such successful business men frequently struggle in resolving their divorces. When working with a divorce coach, my clients can rely on a support team to help resolve challenging and personal conflicts in a way that promotes faster healing and productive parenting relationships (with the children and the other parent). It allows them to be the men they want and need to be for themselves and their families.

Everyone needs someone who has their back during difficult times in their lives, not to carry us through hardship but to give us the focus, encouragement, and resolve to do it ourselves and to do it right. Your coach, your buddy in arms, has your back, to help you keep your eyes wide open, and help you be the man and/or father you want to be.

Filed Under: Coaching, Divorce and Emotions, Family Issues, Mental Health Tagged With: Coping with Divorce, Diana Martinez, Divorce and Anger, Divorce and Grief, Divorce and Mental Health, Divorce and Parenting, Divorce and Trauma, Divorce Options Workshops, Dr. Marvin Chapman, Fathers and Divorce, Gender Differences, Legal Fees, Parenting Plan

Men Speak A Different Divorce Language

September 29, 2016 By CDSOC

by Marvin L. Chapman, PsyD, LMFT, CFC

We generally understand that men and women take in information differently. Men are typically more visual and women are typically more verbal. Many times men and women speak different languages. Men have three primary areas of their lives which greatly influences their level of self-esteem and impacts their sense of well-being: work, home, and sex. For women, these areas are money, family, and intimacy. No overlap at all!

Ask a man to give his definition of money, family, and intimacy. Next, ask him to give his definition of work, home, and sex. You will find a significant difference between these two definitions. Men and women label these traits with different names, indicating just how differently we view them.

Divorce is all about these things: Work, home, family, money, sex and intimacy. Without speaking the same language, it’s no surprise men and women have so much trouble navigating marriage and divorce. So let’s take a closer look at these concepts based on my experience as a divorce coach working with many couples on these issues.

Work / Money

For most men, going to work is more than earning money. Work helps to define who we are. Our work is part of our identity. Our work directly impacts how we feel about ourselves. Our work significantly influences our level of life satisfaction, our sense of well-being. Our work provides us a level of both self-respect and respect from others. Having doubts? Check me out. Interview a recently unemployed man and observe his level of self-esteem, his sense of well-being, and his feeling of self-respect.

Home / Family

Most men receive a great deal of satisfaction in knowing they are not only providing a home, they are protecting their home for their family. Men have a healthy sense of pride in being able to provide for our family (food, shelter, and clothing). This satisfaction and pride translates into a greater sense of well-being and an increased level of self-esteem.

Sex / Intimacy

It has been said that for women, intimacy is a necessary prerequisite for sex. For men, it is generally accepted there is no necessary prerequisite for sex. For many women, intimacy leads to sex; for men, sex leads to intimacy. It would appear fair to say men and women not only view sex and intimacy differently, we actually act upon them from opposite directions. As with all relationship issues, the key to the issue of sex versus intimacy is the ability to have open, honest, nonjudgmental communication.

Men Need A Different Divorce Coach

When divorce coaching men, the coach must understand some of the general differences between men and women. Research has shown that men are far less inclined than women to enter therapy. However, there is a significant increase in the number of men who are willing to reach out and work with a divorce coach when they find themselves through into court during a litigated divorce. Hiring a coach has less stigma for men than entering therapy. Coaching is a more accepted activity.

In addition to gender differences, there are differences between age groups, socio-economic groups, and differences within and between cultural, racial, and ethnic groups. All of these groups have their own unique historical backgrounds, group rights and rituals, and group belief systems. An experienced divorce coach will take these issues into consideration when outlining a strategy of how best to meet the needs and necessities of their client entering into the family court system.

When men experience family court, they feel overwhelmed, confused, and threatened. They are threatened by a process and a system with control over their finances and their time with their children. They have no control and little if any input. A divorce coach needs to educate the man on what they are about to experience. They will need to have regular debriefings to process their emotions. Men gain confidence knowing they have the information and feedback from their coach throughout the confusing, frustrating, and stress-filled divorce process.

A divorce coach will set up a proactive plan of action to help the man move forward by teaching him how to emotionally let go of people not doing right by him, to include judges, opposing attorneys, the ex-spouse, over-reactive relatives, and under-informed friends, neighbors, and co-workers. A coach can help a man develop a positive attitude and a level of confidence in dealing with his own attorney.

An experienced coach will help the man keep his emotional issues from getting in the way of objective and logical decision-making, allowing him to think and act in a more centered and directive manner. Enlisting the man as an agent of positive change and requesting his input into all areas of the restructuring process allows the man to feel vested in the process, rather than simply standing by and watching the divorce process take on a life of its own.

When individuals experience the breakup of a relationship it many times includes a loss of trust and a shutdown in communication as a result. With men, this loss produces feelings of insecurity. Insecurities quickly produce feelings of resentment and blame. Feelings of resentment and blame sends men to a place of anger and sometimes rage. Men believe they know how to handle anger. We think we know how to either shut people up or force them away from us by showing verbal and behavioral anger.

Directing the natural anger into a balanced force is critical. During the divorce process, a man will be asked to think rationally, and with a level head. They will be told to get their emotions together. Men must think clearly during negotiations. They cannot and must not be clouded with angry thoughts about their spouse. Such anger results in irrational decision-making, resulting in bad outcomes for him and for his restructuring family.

Going through a divorce, especially a litigated divorce in family court, is the second most stressful event a person will experience, second only to the death of an immediate family member. Sorting through all of this without the benefit of a divorce coach help can be daunting at best, disastrous at worst. The services of a professional, skilled, and experienced divorce coach is well worth the investment.

 

Many men feel adrift without any support system or coping skills during a divorce.
Many men feel adrift without any support system or coping skills during a divorce.

A Different Set of Divorce Commandments

  1. The right and wrong in a divorce is the same as the right and wrong in life: Being honest, congruent, just, and reasonable is right; being dishonest, incongruent, unjust, and unreasonable is wrong.
  1. Fair is not a part of this process. What is fair for us will probably be considered unfair to our spouse. We need to leave the concept of fair out of our divorce equation.
  1. We need to change what we need to change. We need to let go of those things over which we have no control, or no longer need, or that no longer fits with who we are becoming.
  1. Forgiving someone is not about them. It is about us. When we forgive we release ourselves from our bondage of hurt, anger, frustration, and confusion.
  1. When we change, others around us must inevitably change.
  1. Like our life, our divorce will be different. We need to take outside advice as generalized information for reference purposes only. Misinformation from others is dangerous.
  1. One of the best releases for stress is physical activity. If we are already physically active, we need to stay active. If we are not active, we need to start immediately.
  1. Emotions and feelings are our body’s way of letting us know we are alive. Not right, not wrong, they just are. We either deal with our emotions and feelings on our terms, or we allow them to deal with us on their terms (usually through self-destructive behaviors).
  1. Whether things are going all right or whether they are going all wrong, everything changes. Be prepared for the unexpected. Being prepared for change and the unexpected allows us to roll with the punches without being knocked out of the fight.
  1. We must treat others as we want to be treated–with respect, patience, acceptance, and our understanding of unconditional love.

 

 

Filed Under: Coaching, Divorce and Emotions, Family Issues, Mental Health Tagged With: CDSOC, Divorce and Anger, Divorce and Mental Health, Divorce and Parenting, Divorce and Self-Esteem, Divorce Therapy, Dr. Marvin Chapman, Fathers and Divorce, Gender Differences

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