Any successful divorce recovery program must remove any resistance to change that threatens a successful transition from married to single.
The 3 Stages of Transition in the Divorce Recovery Process
Resistance to change, experienced as emotion-based pain, fear, and uncertainty, can be attributed to one’s reluctance to: (1) accept divorce as a life-changing fact of life in order to be able, (2) ) make the necessary adjustments and changes that (3) will allow you to be happy and successful in the next chapter of your life.
The process to dissolve this natural human resistance to accept and thrive in your new life situation includes the following 3 stages:
(1) STABILIZE your emotional reactions to your ex and to the divorce.
(2) RELEASE your fear of an unknown future and your anguish over your losses; and
(3) PREPARE for the future, including your next committed relationship.
Stage 1 – Stabilize your reactions to the divorce
This stage is more based on emotion than logic.
First, you need to stabilize your current emotionally based reactions to your divorce, your ex, and your life after divorce. It doesn’t matter if the divorce is ongoing, recently concluded, or happened years ago.
This stage is necessary because your emotionally based reactions distort reality and make it nearly impossible to resolve the tangible issues you face in your daily life after the divorce. In addition, his emotional reactions act as a “super glue” that keeps him firmly attached to the life he wants. used Takeout in the past, but no longer have.
Stage 2 – Release your fear and anguish over the loss
At this stage emotion and logic are equally important.
There were aspects of your past life that were Nice, especially at first. Nobody, and I mean Nobody, You want to give up good things in a relationship. We are all reluctant to fully accept our new life situation after our divorce because it also means giving up the good parts as well.
However the hard reality is that your past life that you shared with your ex no longer exists. It is no longer your current life.
At this stage, you dissolve attachments to the past that you no longer need, while keeping those parts of the past that are still useful. You dissolve your resistance to change by confronting and “right sizing” your fears and lamenting your losses, the real losses, not perceived. With the completion of this stage, the debilitating effects of your emotion-based reactions dissolve, allowing you to prepare for your future.
Stage 3 – Prepare for the future, including your next committed relationship
This stage is more based on logic than emotion.
This is the most logical part of the transition process. At this stage, he develops his plan for the future, including the four areas of his life: finances, health, love, and self-development/self-expression. Special attention is paid to ensuring that your next committed relationship escapes the same fate as your last relationship.
It may seem counterintuitive to describe the process of finding your next committed relationship as “based more on logic than emotion.” In fact, our culture tells us just the opposite. That finding the “love of your life” is entirely a function of your emotions. “Listen to your heart” we are told.
However, chemistry can exist between people who are perfect for a one-night stand, or even a six-month fling, but who don’t get along in a long-term relationship. At this stage we accept the necessity of chemistry. You must find someone who attracts you. That is easy. Just listen to your body.
However, when searching for your next long-term “soulmate,” you must use your head and heart. Specifically, you must be clear about what your requirenot only what you wantin a relationship and apply cold, hard logical analysis to determine if a relationship with a potential mate can give you what you need in the long run.
The goal: to make your last divorce your last divorce.
The consequences of ignoring one or more of the stages
Each of the three stages is critical to having a successful recovery from divorce. The exclusion of any stage will sabotage the entire effort to have a full and complete recovery.
lack of stabilize his reactions to the divorce result in staying stuck in his grief. For example, people who are still angry with their ex and the hell he or she put them through, even years after the divorce was final, have not yet fully stabilized their emotional reactions to the termination of the marriage.
My sister-in-law is an example. She held on to her anger at her ex of 25 years and said, “How could he have done that to me, the son of a bitch?” He died young without ever experiencing another loving and committed relationship during the last two and a half decades of his life.
It goes without saying that when you focus on what someone did to you in the past and is no longer in your life, it’s almost impossible to give the present the attention it deserves to make your life fulfilling and rewarding.
lack of release the past results in staying stuck in fear and grievance. People can get caught up in their inability to release their fear of an unknown future and/or their anguish over what they feel they lost when their relationship ended, even though what they objectively lost is almost always much less than what they think they lost. We listen to them tell us how their life used to be good, but it can’t be anymore because of everything they lost in the divorce.
The idea that they must accept the reality that the relationship is over and must focus their energy on how to realize the full potential for good in their present new life situation scares them because “How do I know things won’t be even worse if I do?” They are paralyzed by fear and unable to take even a modest risk to recapture the happiness they once enjoyed.
lack of prepared for the future results in divorcing again. This preparation involves treating mate selection as a conscious choice that requires us to ask ourselves logically, “What should I do?” require in a couple and how is that different from what just want in a partner?”
Our culture tells us that we must “listen to our hearts” because “love conquers all.” Looking at a relationship as a logical problem to be solved, we are told, insults the spiritual and magical nature of all committed relationships until death do us part. The most likely outcome? Another visit to the divorce court.
While the divorce rate for first marriages is high enough at 42%, the divorce rate for second and third marriages is a staggering 66% and 75% respectively! The bottom line is simple: if we allow our head as much sway as our heart, there’s a good chance that our choice of a committed relationship will be fulfilling in the long run, not just a temporary eye-catcher that has no staying power.
Otherwise, we will more than likely end up in divorce court again.
So what is the point?
You must accept the need to have some work to do. But you can relax knowing that you know what you need to do and why. While it may seem daunting at first, know that by following this process you will be able to recover from your divorce up to 10 times faster than the normal divorce recovery process in widespread practice today, with the long-term prognosis of finding a New relationship that actually lasts very promising.