The 5 Stages Of Divorce (And How To Turn Your Relationship Around Before It's Too Late)

There are many things you can do to turn your relationship around when you find yourself on a rocky road, if you’re willing to team up and face reality together—and that will only happen if you both wantyour marriage to last. The key factor in getting back on track is turning things around as early as possible. It happens over different time frames for different people, but at some point, you reach the point of no return.

Marriage therapists often describe five stages in the divorce process that start long before the D-word is ever mentioned by couples. Here, I'll describe each stage and explain how you might start to redirect when it's still possible.

1. Dissatisfaction:

This is a place of disillusionment, where you have a growing sense of disappointment about the way your relationship is going and how you feel around your partner. Maybe the spark has gone out of the relationship and it feels flat. Criticism may creep into your everyday conversations and actions.

Ignore these warning signs at your peril—finding yourself regularly feeling disappointed and flat about your relationship is no small thing. Getting help at this point is likely to be beneficial because you’re probably still both open to change and not yet so resentful of each other that you stop wanting to try. Sadly, one of the most common mistakes couples make is to shut their eyes and keep careening dangerously towards the end of the road believing things will just magically fix themselves. Most of the time, they don’t.

How to turn it around:

Turning around means consciously putting energy into your love like you did at the start, creating a shared focus on connecting, increasing awareness of your relationship vulnerabilities and strengths, seeking strategies to reconnect deeply, learning skills, and building generosity of spirit toward one another again. You must move away from dissatisfaction and back into happiness before too much damage is done to your relationship.

Start by finding the courage to own how you really feel, without defensiveness or blaming. Consider getting couples counseling earlier rather than later, because that’s when it will be most helpful. If that’s too difficult or daunting, at least gather some basic resources that will help you start a new conversation together—some books or an online relationship class to prompt you to face your dissatisfaction head-on together.

2. Emotional erosion:

This is where you stop caring as much about your partner—or worse, developing a sense of resentment and apathy about doing anything to improve your closeness and communication. The distance between the two of you may seem to increase every week. but you don’t pay too much attention. Couples who don’t turn around at this stage tend to increasingly distract themselves and hope the relationship will fix itself. It can last weeks or years depending on how much you can stomach.

How to turn it around:

As you drive around the communication boulders on this rocky road, you start to clearly see why turning around sooner would have been a better idea. The less interest you have in healing the relationship, the more resistance you'll face when you try to turn things around. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily too late. If you care enough to save your relationship, that's enough to take the first step. At this point, professional intervention is your best bet. Try to start regular counselling on your own, if your partner isn't open to it initially—as soon as possible. That way, even if it doesn't work out in the end, you'll know you did everything you could to save the relationship. And you'll be prepared to move forward in a much healthier way.

3. Loneliness:

In this third stage of a fading relationship trajectory, if you open your tired eyes, you’ll realize that glaringly obvious danger signs have been all over the road for miles. The signs tell you to find each other again urgently—to reactivate intimacy or risk losing it permanently. This is a place of emotional detachment, to the point that other interests—children, friends, work, sports, or even another potential lover may become more important to you than each other. Instead of the disappointment and confusion of dissatisfaction or the anger and resentment of the erosion you may start to feel what Pink Floyd called "comfortably numb." This stage usually ends when something bright and shiny at the side of the road suddenly catches your eye and you feel alive again, awoken to what you’ve been missing. Trouble is, you’re likely to jump out of the car on your own to chase it, causing injury to every heart.

How to turn it around:

Act now if you want to save the relationship with openness, energy, empathy, love, and most of all by teaming up again. This is your relationship’s trial by fire. It shouldn’t have come to this, but it has. Now, you must really fight for each other. Turn to one another with a shared focus, or keep gazing out the side windows, ignoring each other, at your own peril.
Still haven’t managed to turn the car around?

If you've been trying your best and it still hasn't happened, know that it's not your fault. You can't do it alone. It absolutely takes two. Taking the best path is ultimately knowing in your heart that you did your best.

4. The fork in the road:

The fourth stage of the journey to divorce is the fork in the road. Here, single street meets the road you've been on, and your paths diverge. It’s here that you must make the final decision to turn the car around together. Otherwise, it's time to go on alone. Either way, it’s your responsibility to yourselves and any children you have to choose your path with dignity and handle the fallout with maturity and grace.

People survive divorce, but abuse, unkindness, and chaos cause damage—whether a couple stays together or not. If you decide to go your separate ways, don’t let it be any more painful than it has to be.

That's not easy to do when you feel (understandably) angry, lost, panicked, and hurt, but here's how you stay in control.

Remember that behaving in any way other than with kindness and within your values will hurt everyone even more—including yourself. It will extend your recovery time and intensify the pain all round.

If you haven't yet, get help now. Breaking up is hard to do. You must both get all the support you can and treat each other with compassion.


5. Mourning:

The final destination on the journey through divorce is a place of sadness and reflection, but maybe also relief. Here, you can finish this relationship journey, remember what was good, and strive to understand what went wrong. You can hope for a better future for all parties involved and do your best to create it.

Acknowledge all the things you are mourning. The end of a marriage means changes to home and family forever, but you will survive and you can all thrive again.

Get support. Allow yourself to feel pride for the mature way you handled things during such a difficult time in your lives. Then focus on growth and learning so that there will be less of a chance of repeating past mistakes in future relationships.

Source: https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/5-stages-of-divorce-how-to-stop-your-relationship-from-ending

Tips for Starting Over and Rebooting Your Life

New moon, new year...recipe essentials for creating a new life

Wishing you could start the new year all over again? You can at any time. Pick a day, any day, and declare it your personal new year's day to reboot your life. If you select today, you're not alone as the new moon marks the new year among many ancient cultures (take note, Chinese New Year is today). Still consider a birthday, anniversary, or any day to start anew and consider these tips for making new and improved resolutions that are guaranteed to succeed.

The single biggest factor that impacts the success of resolution-making is to realize what you focus on expands. Focus on avoiding something (e.g. drinking, overeating, procrastinating) and you just might ensure its continued success. As an example, 98% of people dealing with stress tend to wake up at night ruminating about the thing that bothers them. It might be a fight with a child, an argument with a coworker, burgeoning mortgage bills, illness, or something else. It makes sense to focus on the problem. Yet, like the old adage, the squeaky wheel gets the oil, the problem will get the energy, which only serves to reinforce the rumination. They key is to focus on the opposing force of the problem-the solution.

To illustrate, let's use the example of the seven deadly sins (pride, envy, sloth, greed, anger, gluttony, and lust). Numerous stories throughout time teach caution about succumbing to these behaviors. The message is reinforced to us at a young age by parents, teachers, books, and the media. For instance, recall Star Wars, episode 3, where Anakin Skywalker transforms into Darth Vader after allowing fear, envy, anger, and pride to mask his heart and intuition. In the episode, Yoda warns Anakin not to focus on the dark side of the force.

Like Darth Vader, human beings focus on the dark side of the force much of the time. I see it in myself, my friends, my family, and my clients. We fall of the bike of positive thinking and start ruminating on the negative and what we're trying to avoid. Don't believe me? Look at these top 13 New Year resolutions in the United States. The very first one is to lose weight with managing debt coming in second place. Both of these resolutions focus on the problem instead of the solution. Perhaps that's why more than 68% of people will give up on their resolutions within the first two weeks.

People would be more successful if they focused on the light side of the force. Instead of making a resolution to lose weight, try making an intention to take care of your body with nourishing food, love and care. That love and care might consist of vitamins, exercise, deep breathing, emollient lotions, uplifting fragrances, plenty of water, and listening. Let your body speak to you about what it feels. A tummy ache might be a red flag that something is bothering you. Maybe putting up better boundaries and treating yourself with respect is needed. You may not hear this critical wisdom if you're getting mad at your body for not fitting in your clothes.

Regarding managing your debt, can you tell this resolution focuses on lack? Treat your money with love, care and gratitude. Notice everything you have and how fortunate you are that you have the ability to pay for water, electricity, and things so often taken for granted. Debt begins to melt away (and never take hold in the first place) when we manage our money with gratitude. What happens is that people tend to focus on what they don't have or how little money they or their partner is making, which leads to a vicious cycle of spending to feel better and then regretting. Stop the cycle by appreciating the joy that $1 gives you. The thrill of that hot shower. The warmth of the extra blanket on your bed. The comfort of the fuzzy slippers or soft socks. That is where the magic lives and abundance multiplies.
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As for those seven deadly sins, try focusing on their complementary positives-the seven joys. Instead of avoiding greed, think of expanding how much you share. Instead of battling lust, try encouraging people's soulful dreams. Instead of resisting anger, give yourself nourishing love. Instead of avoiding becoming a sloth (couch-potato syndrome), allow yourself to dance more. Instead of inhibiting your inner glutton, try releasing your inner artist and seek quality over quantity. Instead of hiding from your proud ego, focus on fostering unconditional self-acceptance. Finally, instead of detaining your green-eyed monster of envy, try re-focusing on gratitude in the moment.

If you've gotten anything from this article, I hope it's that attitude is everything. Please don't beat yourself up. Take it one day at a time and keep readjusting your sights on the light. It will become natural over time.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/counseling-keys/201201/tips-starting-over-and-rebooting-your-life

How Overcoming Adversity Can Shape You Into A Better Person

Although life isn’t easy, whether it’s been good or bad, everything is a part of the journey.
These are the experiences and lessons that we are to draw strength from and build upon to help us in our future. There isn’t a handbook warning us of the plight and pain we will face, but there is a solution.

The solution is this: work to overcome adversity instead of falling prey to them.
I know what you’re thinking: sounds easy, but how do you do it?

My Experience Overcoming Adversity

Three years ago, my life was wonderful. My children brought a light to my life that could never burn out and my marriage carried as much joy as one possibly could have. I had forgiven the people that caused the painful situations in my childhood and let it all go. I spent my time inspiring others to do the same so they could focus on what was important.

And then, things changed. I was diagnosed with multiple brain aneurysms and my life changed forever, for the better.

I’ve definitely had my share of experience overcoming adversity. When I encountered a new situation that seemed completely devastating, I began to reflect on the strength that was born inside of me out of the very pain I was experiencing.

There came a point when I accepted a fact of life: that just because you experience trauma, pain, and negative situations that leave a deep scar across your heart, doesn’t mean they should hold you back. After all, there will be more hurdles to jump. It’s how you decide to handle it that will make the difference in your future.

But how do you reframe the way you handle difficulties in life? There are steps you can take so that overcoming obstacles can be possible for you.

Tips On Overcoming Adversity

1. Have faith in yourself
Faith is required when overcoming adversity. Believe you can by telling yourself, “I am going to overcome this.” Your state of mind is more important than the situation, because that is where courage, strength, and miracles are born.

2. Know you have nothing to lose
Faith is powerful when you truly believe – so believe, as you have nothing to lose except worry, fear, and things you can’t control. You just need to get over this hurdle.

3. Remember: this isn’t the end
Understand that whatever you are faced with is a part of life’s experiences, and it won’t be the first nor last. Use it to cultivate a stronger version of you.

The Takeaway
I didn’t know about all of the challenges I had awaiting me, but I wasn’t afraid to face them or fight. Overcoming adversity can give you even more faith, strength, courage and a desire to make your life count. Let your obstacles give you yet another reason to appreciate your life, along with everything in it.

Source: https://inspiyr.com/strength-courage-overcoming-adversity/

Take Action, Feel Better, use the placebo if you have to

When we're in the midst of a challenging time, when we don't know which way to turn or are losing heart, it feels as though control is taken away from us. At these times, I've been experimenting with forcing myself to take action, even feeding my mind a notional placebo if needed to send the message that in taking action I am giving it permission to feel better. 

Sometimes the placebo effect is a powerful one; it aligns our minds to the process of growth, healing and improvement whcih will allow us to move forwards positively with expectations of success. 

Try it!

If you're interested in learning more, and hearing thoughts on other ways in which we can tackle adversity and rise above challenge, I'd love to share with you my new podcast: Kintsugi Life.

You can access the latest episode and all previous ones on iTunes, at:

http://bit.ly/kintsugi-life

Optimism in the Wake of a Divorce

It’s difficult to believe that it’s been over a decade since my twenty- three year marriage ended. I hadn’t really thought much about it for quite some time, but the recent survey that states marriages are in decline reminded me of those last few stressful years before I waved the white flag and called it quits. I didn’t like the message I was sending to my children in the decision I made. I felt like I was telling them that commitment meant very little to me and nothing is forever. And I didn’t want my experience to keep them from falling in love in the future. Yet, getting out of a bad marriage overrode those concerns.

I was young when I married, but no less sincere in my intentions. Both his and my parents stayed married till death did they part so I believed it would be the same for us. Over time, though, it became apparent that was not to be. Where was that young man — that very young man—who traveled close to 400 miles every weekend to see me? Where was that young woman—that very young woman — who once had no idea how she’d ever get by without him? It’s difficult to say exactly when, but the hope I had for racking up one anniversary after the next till we were silver-haired, wrinkled and hunched over was lost in the reality of what time can do to young, hopeful love. But I’m apparently not alone, since divorce is becoming more common than those ‘til-death-do-us-part vows. There are many reasons for this development; we are living longer and most women do not need to be supported by a man or feel obligated to create a family.

Yet, there are those who are still grasping onto the same ambition I once had and willing to take that optimistic stroll down the aisle. Apparently, the high divorce rates haven’t frightened them from wanting to make the marital commitment. For instance, in spite of Prince William’s parents’ bitter break-up played out ubiquitously in the media, he has plans to marry. And, as it happens, my daughter recently became engaged and I couldn’t be happier for her and her fiancé. I’m also grateful that even after witnessing the drama her father and I went through when we divorced, my daughter still believes in the institution. I suppose that is what love can do and instead of considering marriage to be a burden, no matter the challenges or issues, it is an expression of optimism.

For me, though, I think I’ll remain single.

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-hoenig/optimism-in-the-wake-of-a_b_790085.html