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Make Divorce Easier

7 Ways to Make a High Conflict Divorce Easier on Your Children

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by Jann Glasser, LCSW, LMFT, Divorce Coach, Co-Parenting Specialist

 

1. Recognize and Deal with Signs of Distress in Your Children.

  • Altered sleep or eating habits
  • Declining scholastic performance
  • Frequent, sudden or broad mood changes
  • Acting out with anger, aggression, or defiance
  • Withdrawal from family and friends
  • Lethargy or disinterest
  • Infantile or other regressive behavior
  • Becoming accident-prone
  • Excessive catering to parents, which may signal a child’s self-blame for the divorce

If you observe such behavior, contact a mental health professional.  Also consider consulting with a divorce coach who can help improve communication with your children, and your ability to care for them during your divorce.

 

2. Step AWAY from the Buttons!

Spouses in dysfunctional marriages know well how to expose each other’s vulnerabilities and provoke each other’s anger.  Use that knowledge to avoid pushing your spouse’s buttons, because anything that increases parental conflict increases the prospects for harm to your kids.

Also, use what you know about your quarrelsome co-parent to avoid confrontations.  During any encounters with your spouse be careful not to convey disrespect in front of the children either by words or by body language.

 

3. Confirm Substantive Conversations with Your Co-Parent.

Confirming conversations in writing can make it more difficult) for your co-parent to claim that he/she had no knowledge of a parenting schedule change, or that you failed to share notice of a teacher’s meeting.  A quick email or text can avoid many such “misunderstandings,” and save your kids the additional conflict such misunderstandings generate.

 

4. Include Sufficient Details in Any Agreements You Reach.

Avoid vague and unspecific language, which opens the door to confusion and misinterpretation.

 

5. Plan Ahead for Constructive Discussions with Your Co-Parent.

Avoid additional conflict and enhance your chances of productive discussions by leaving as little to chance as possible during discussions.

An example could be whether your son should go out for his high school football team.  Your spouse argues the virtues of discipline and teamwork, but you are concerned about evidence of concussive brain injuries suffered by high school football players.

First, clearly define the scope of the discussion to the here and now.  That will help prevent it from deteriorating into a blame game of past injustices, real or imagined.  Take some time before the discussion to understand your spouse’s concerns.  You may realize that your spouse is not just arguing to argue but genuinely believes that playing on the team would be good for your son.

During the discussion, use that understanding to help you address your spouse with empathy and respect.  You might concede the benefits of discipline and teamwork but suggest another sport that offers them without as much health risk.

Once the discussion has reached its conclusion or is no longer productive, end it politely but firmly.

 

6. Reassure Your Children

Tell your kids obvious things that bear repeating: that you love them, that the divorce is not in any way their fault, and that you will be there to help them through it.  Revisit those themes often.  It may sound corny, but those messages are critical to your children.

 

7. Keep Your Kids off the Battlefield.

Don’t argue in front of the kids.  The more directly children experience their parents’ high conflict, the worse off they are.

Don’t complain about, disparage or mock your co-parent at the breakfast table, on Facebook, or anywhere else.  This increases the anxiety that causes lasting emotional harm to children.  Your conduct is the model for how your children will handle difficult situations they may encounter when they become parents.

The Most Effective Way to Reduce the Cost of Your Divorce or Civil Dispute

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by Brian Don Levy, Esq., Collaborative Attorney and Mediator

What single item can add the most cost to your divorce or civil dispute?  Acting or reacting based on emotional thinking, or making unilateral decisions that are based in emotional thinking.  It is critical to understand how our emotions can drive our thinking and our behavior, and it is important to manage those emotions in a healthy way that allows for understanding viable solutions and facilitates well thought out problem solving.

Every legal and financial decision is potentially wrapped in emotion, and those emotions can prevent us from fully understanding our options and choosing the options that make the most sense going forward.  For almost every divorcing couple or civil disputant, trust is usually broken and communication is not working very well, if at all.  Bringing broken trust and poor communication into the decision-making process is not a good recipe for success.

Therefore, communication coaches are an important investment to be made in achieving a long term satisfying outcome for those in conflict.  I use the term “investment” because failure to understand and manage emotions is a huge cost inflator for those engaged in civil and family law disputes.  The valuable work provided by the communication coach is a cost savings mechanism as well as a valuable resource for those in conflict.

Our emotions determine the “elevator music” that plays in the background of all we do.  Going through a divorce or civil dispute creates uncertainty and ambiguity, which can drive fear.  If fear is the background music playing in our minds at times of conflict, then our ability to process choices and achieve informed consent is limited if not impeded.  Having a communication coach to work with allows a sounding board to check in and assess if we are reacting from an emotional standpoint rather than a legal or financial standpoint.

Having a communication coach also makes it easier for the client to stay present and focused, manage their emotions, and moderate their behavior.  It has been my experience in working with clients embroiled in civil and family law disputes that communication coaches can assist in measurable ways on many levels, including:

  • Helping client create enhanced safety zones;
  • Helping client cope with strong emotions and stress;
  • Helping client to practice effective communication;
  • Helping client remove barriers to communication;
  • Facilitate necessary and difficult conversations;
  • Check in with clients and make sure they stay on task; and
  • Coach the client to the finish line of their dispute resolution process;

Collaborative Law is a unique process that utilizes an integrated team of professionals working together to help people involved in all types of civil and family law disputes to co-create agreements that will be durable and lasting.  Each professional is highly trained in his or her specific profession and all professionals work together to support a healthy outcome.  The integrated team of Collaborative professionals includes legal professionals, financial professionals and communication coaches to support a conflict resolution process that promotes healthy and sustainable outcomes.

Communication coaches are a vital component to the interdisciplinary team of professionals to help us separate the fear or anxiety from the decision-making process so that clients can remain fully present in meetings and in making the important decisions that must be made in a way that will be satisfying, durable and lasting.

Experience is not Expensive.  It’s Priceless!

Your Brain on Divorce: How to Take Charge

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by Jann Glasser, Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Coach/Psychotherapist, and Collaborative Coach

During your divorce, you may find your heart pounding and your thoughts racing as if you were driving in the Indy 500. An email, text or voicemail from your attorney, accountant or spouse in your inbox may result in fear and dread as immediate reactions. This is one example of the brain on divorce; easily triggered, distraught and overwhelmed. You are trying to function while stressed, sad, and sleep deprived, reacting as if under attack.

Divorce is one of the most significant losses and stressful life events people experience. Unlike other losses, there is no bereavement leave from work, no sympathy cards, and no rituals that bring your friends and family around you to acknowledge the loss. Life goes on without skipping a beat. You are expected to go on.

Not only are you expected to go on, but you are also expected to gather all financial paperwork, other information, make time in your schedule for additional meetings, phone calls, emails, help your kids cope, and be prepared to make major parenting and financial decisions that have long term consequences. No wonder you’re exhausted and overwhelmed!

Being such a stressful process, divorce can bring someone to their knees even if they generally cope well at other times, turning a well-adjusted, reasonable person into a raving maniac. When you understand what’s going on in your body and mind under stress, it can help you have compassion for yourself and also choose effective coping strategies.

Your brain is responding to the divorce as a threat. The part of your brain that manages emotion and the fight-flight-freeze response (the limbic system or mid-brain) kicks into high gear. We commonly refer to it as “the right brain.” This part of your brain is essential to keeping you alive. It looks out for threats and is quick to react.

However, it is not helpful for planning, making decisions, and considering consequences of your actions. The part of the brain that takes control when you are upset, angry, or scared (during much of your divorce!) is responsible for your racing heart, tight chest, and flushed face. It contributes to your confusion and indecision. When your brain is preparing for a fight or to run for your life, it has shut down access to the “thinking, reasoning” part of your brain (left brain). Unfortunately, it is this part of your brain that needs to be in charge when negotiating your divorce settlement, making financial decisions, working with your co-parent, parenting, and planning for your “new normal” and future. Suzanne Segerstrom, Ph.D. of the University of Kentucky, aptly describes this part of the brain as controlling the “Pause and Plan” response.

Coping effectively during your divorce involves shifting from the “Fight or Flight” emotional “right brain” responding to threat and putting the “Pause and Plan” within in your “left brain” in charge. This part of your brain executes a plan after evaluating information and considering consequences. When you are able to do this, you increase self-control as well as your ability to manage emotions, evaluate information, make decisions, and make plans.

How can you access “Pause and Plan” when your brain is locked down in threat mode? The following options help strengthen your “big brain” and promote resilience:

  • Make sure you have the energy needed for your brain to optimally function. A healthy diet, regular exercise, and adequate sleep are essential to your body having the energy it needs.
  • Excess sugar and alcohol are not your friends now. Drowning your woes in a gallon of ice cream or a bottle of booze won’t help you cope for long..
  • Pause. Your emotional “right brain” is lightning fast. Your body and mind need time to slow down the reaction and realize your current situation, while stressful, is not life or death. Breathing slowly is a great way to use your body to send signals to your brain that you are not in mortal danger. Meditation, or daily mindfulness exercises can be a huge help here. It also gives you time to begin to think, engaging your “left brain”
  • Heighten your awareness. Observing yourself and your situation is a function of the left brain. When you pause to observe what’s going on, you activate that part of your brain. This opens up options for you to consider and the opportunity to be less reactive.
  • Seek support from others. Believe it or not, there is “good news” in how our body responds to stress. Not only does our body release adrenaline to help us jump into fight-flight action, but it also releases oxytocin (sometimes called the bonding, love, or cuddle hormone). This hormone encourages us to seek out support and physical contact from others. It also seems to help heal and regenerate heart cells! Our body and mind, in its’ infinite wisdom and complexity, is actually built to help us manage stress and heal a “broken heart.” Seeking out supportive relationships as well as receiving and giving hugs can help you calm down, pause, feel protected from attack, and as a result, be able to access your thinking brain.
  • Change your mindset. Stress itself is not the main problem that creates the negative impact on our health and well-being, but it’s how we perceive the stress that is the problem. Instead of interpreting the stress in your life, the divorce, and your reactions to it as harmful to you, you have another option. If you interpret this hard time in your life as a difficult challenge; one that you have the courage and strength to rise above, you can emerge stronger and better. You will also be less negatively impacted by the stress!
  • Practice self-compassion. Exercising this part of your brain not only can help you feel better about yourself, it can also contribute to self-control and motivation towards long-term goals. Next time you feel like getting down on yourself, try a little tenderness instead.
  • Beef up the parts of the brain you want working for you during this difficult time; don’t keep them in hibernation or overcome by volatile emotions. Emotions are faulty navigational tools when used as the primary source of decision-making.
  • Be open to new information and experiences. By definition, many aspects of your life change in response to divorce. You probably will have to take on some new roles, behaviors, and skills. You may even want to try something new.

New experiences, even those we don’t want, create opportunities for growth. Considering new perspectives, trying new things and being open to new information literally helps your brain grow. This can contribute to making better decisions, being more motivated, exerting more self control and being more compassionate. These not only are keys to well-being and resilience, but a new, improved you and a life well lived.

If you are struggling with the stress of divorce, consider this knowledge about the brain and what you can do to optimize your resilience and essential brain functions during this difficult time. You might find the outcomes of your efforts are the silver lining in the divorce cloud, and the light at the end of the tunnel.

Divorce is painful. There is no way around it. The good news is that your mindset about it has a great impact on how damaging this stressful event will be to your mind and body. Attitude is everything!