How to Succeed At Divorce (Yes, It's Possible!)

There is no question that going through a divorce is rough. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, up is down, right is left, and you don't know how long the drop is, let alone how you will survive the landing... but you do. The people who succeed most at divorce are those that are resilient in the face of change and embrace the opportunity to transform their lives. Personal growth can only be achieved through challenge, and divorce is one of the biggest challenges you will ever encounter.

Initially, success feels like a far-fetched goal for most people going through a divorce. Sheer survival seems more realistic. Faced with the loss of your most important relationship, you are vulnerable and alone in analyzing what went wrong and grieving for the loss of what you thought you had. You question everything. How did I get here? What will happen to me? What will my life look like moving forward? To make things worse, you have to struggle with the endless, uncontrollable legal process that provides little, if any, emotional support. And the enormous scale of change that comes with divorce is overwhelming and opens the doors to your worst fears and insecurities.

Those voices are your inner critics who create fear, uncertainty, rage, resentment, jealousy, and panic. They fuel the fire of your most negative emotions to keep you in a place of reaction and doubt. They rob you of your strength and self-esteem. They keep you stuck in a story about your past. They distract you from focusing on yourself by keeping you absorbed in the anger, fear and pain from your ex. They create such a fearful vision of the future that some people choose not to move forward at all, rather than face their fear of the unknown. These inner critics will not serve you. Ultimately, they will sabotage you at every turn in the divorce process, if you let them. So, how do you succeed at divorce?

1. Silence Your Saboteurs
Acknowledge them. Notice what they say most often. Notice how they make you feel. You know these are saboteur voices when they only instill fear and doubt. You know these are saboteur voices when the only future they paint for you is terrifying and bleak. What do they know? You might actually win the lottery someday. They don't know you and what you've accomplished in your life. So, why are you listening? Once you know your saboteurs, you don't have to react mindlessly to everything they say. You have a choice. Once you recognize your saboteurs, you can see how silly and ridiculous they really are.

2. Identify What You Want
You can't get what you want until you know what it is. And in a divorce, not knowing what you want leaves you in a completely disempowered position. While the legal process is pretty much out of your control, you can maximize the probability of getting what you want if you have clarity and purpose. A clear vision of what is most important to you, now and in the future, will guide you in your decision-making. It will help you negotiate for a better result. It will put your best interests front and center, while you leave your disempowering past behind. It will make your saboteurs weak. It will help you move forward to transform your life into what you want it to be.

3. Honor Your Values
Separation and divorce can leave you untethered and rudderless as you adjust to being alone. Your individual identity was so subsumed by who you were as a married couple that it takes some self-exploration to identify who you are now and who you want to be in the future. It is important, early in this process, to identify your core values: integrity, family, achievement, and contribution, since it is these values that drive how you think and act. It is also important to recognize that your core values are unique to you. Often we make big assumptions that others share our values, when in fact they don't. They are living life by a whole different rule book. Knowing your core values is essential since it gives you insight into yourself and what is most important to you.

And it is important to know that when your core values aren't being honored, by you or someone else, you will feel miserable. You can't control your ex's actions. You can't control the legal process. You can't control the repercussions of divorce on your life. But you can control yourself. By honoring your core values every day, and throughout this process, you will have assurance that you are making the decisions that are right for you. You will have confidence knowing that you are always true to yourself in your behavior and actions. You will know that you did your best. You will have conviction that your situation doesn't define you. And you will have faith and hope that your life will be better than it ever was before.

Divorce challenges you to have the courage to step forward, to face your fears and move forward anyway. You have one life on this earth and it is your responsibility to live it as best you can. No excuses. And this is your opportunity to take the reins and create a new life for yourself -- one that is far more empowering and fulfilling than the one you are leaving behind.

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How One Child Was Affected by Parents Divorce

Children Of Divorce: How Kids Are Affected By Splits

We asked adult children of divorce to share how their parents’ splits affected their lives in the long run, for better or for worse. 

My parents' divorce would have screwed me up a lot less if they'd bothered telling me about it.
When they split up, I was in elementary school and I had no idea that there were any problems between them. As an adult, I can look back and see that I should've been able to put things together, like the fact that my mother's boyfriends magically showed up whenever Dad went on extended trips, and so forth.

But if my parents fought they hid it well -- with the sole exception of the fight they had the night they separated. (I found out as an adult that my dad had actually caught her in the sack with one of those aforementioned guys.)

That night, my father told me that we were “moving out of state” immediately and that Mom would join us "sometime." I wasn't sure why we had to be gone so fast, but I did my best to try to help with the packing. I was actually excited because I loved traveling and was looking forward to living in a new state.

I had no relationship with my mother following the move. A school year passed and I was left wondering when "sometime" would ever come. I really missed my mother. Every day, I hoped she'd come walking through the door. But I never saw her again -- no letters, no calls, nothing. All I had were memories of what I’d thought was a happy home life. The idea that my mother was in the process of relinquishing custody of me and never wanted to see me or my dad again was something I couldn't even fathom; it never even entered my mind. It can still, to this day, be difficult to understand.

Then, when I was eight, a friend of mine told me that her parents were getting divorced. I didn't really know what it meant at the time: I knew that "divorce" meant that people were somehow fighting or might have to go to court, but it was a vague concept to me. I had also been taught that divorced women were very immoral people, and I was sure that Mom wasn't one of those. My friend said that she had to choose one parent or the other. I mentioned that I was living with just one parent. She asked me if my folks were divorced and suddenly I got the creeps.

That same day, I went home and asked Dad if he and Mom had gotten a divorce. Instead of explaining anything about it, he just blew up and asked me if I were stupid. Of course, they had gotten a divorce! Was I some kind of idiot? Didn't I have any common sense? Why did I think Mom had been gone so long? What was I being sent to school for, if I were just going to come home so stupid? And so on.

I cried for what felt like a week.

As a teenager, I decided that adults couldn't be trusted to tell the whole story about anything, ever. I started wondering how much of the information I was getting at school, church and elsewhere was also a pack of lies. I became a bit of a teenage conspiracy theory nut, looking for things "they" didn't want you to know. "They" -- which to me, meant any given adult anywhere -- had a proven track record of being not only deceitful, but malicious about it when confronted.

When I was in college, I ended up putting my trust in a whole different set of liars: I joined a religious cult. This may make no sense on the surface, but you'd be surprised how much a kid whose trust has been completely eroded can believe in people who claim to have all the answers.

The people who worked with the youth in this particular cult ranged from former hippies to rigid discipline freaks, but I felt I could trust these people because they asserted that they knew more than my parents. Or so they said. They claimed to know why the world was so messed up, and how to fix it. I really wanted to put my trust in something again, and, if this screwed-up world could be repaired, I wanted to do my best to make that happen.

But after some time I became weary of the constant hate mongering, the racism, the treatment of women like cattle, and the just plain craziness of it all. Eventually, I got out.

I look back on this chain of events and see how a lot of trouble could have been avoided if my parents, my mom and dad, my dad and stepmom, would have just had the decency to tell me what was going on.

However, over the years, I've found that I can work around my own mistrust and cynicism. One thing that helped me move on in terms of why my mom and dad kept me in the dark about their divorce was when I realized how young my folks were at the time. They were just trying to muddle through as best as they could. I can't really come down too hard on scared kids for making crappy decisions.
If I had kids, I'm afraid that I might not improve all that much on my parents' performance, and that scares me to the point of not wanting to experiment with other people's lives. It just wouldn't be moral.



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Getting Back into the Dating Game: Life After Divorce

Life after divorce can be overwhelming for the average divorcee. Some become serial daters for a few years followed by a committed, long-term relationship. Others jump out of the frying pan and into the flame by walking down the aisle right away. My piece of advice is plain and simple: get out there. As simple as it may seem, many men and women do not know where to start. Men and woman begin this process differently.

Women: You need to piece yourself back together! Anything you let fall apart when you were married, mend it. Love yourself again for who you are. Once you begin to love yourself again, men will follow suit. If you exude confidence, you can attract any type of man you want. The biggest turn on is confidence.

Men: Be a typical guy, jump into bed with all the girls you meet and get it out of your system. Falling into "lust" is not going to find you a wife. Once you've "sown your oats" then you should be ready for a committed relationship. Be aware there will be a band-aid and she will unfortunately be the one to get hurt. Soon after that, you will be ready to seriously start dating. Eventually, you will find her -- when the timing is right.

You may be asking yourself, so how exactly do you suggest I put myself out there? Putting yourself out there can be as easy as widening your interests or finally doing that one thing you have always wanted to do but never had the chance. Join a club or a new gym. If you do this, you're bound to meet people -- even if it's just friends. By making friends, you meet their friends and consequently you are continually widening your circle, which can eventually lead to finding "the one." If you are still a bit shell-shocked or shy, the best thing you can do is try online dating.

Online dating allows you to be the person you want to be. The screen allows you to say -- or type -- the things that you may be scared to say in person. It allows you to bring out the real you, without any insecurities holding you back. Online dating allows you to sit in the comfort of your home, in your pajamas, eating ice cream, while getting to know new people. Best of all, you're putting yourself out there.

Rip off the band-aid that is holding you back and take a leap of faith. Put yourself back together, exude confidence and try something new -- whether it's signing up for an online dating service or asking out that person you've been eyeing. Life is about timing; when it's right it will happen and you will find the right person.

 

 

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Article source: Huffington Post

Divorce Lowers Risk of Suicide for Women in India and China

I found this article interesting and thought I would share.

Suicide rates in India are lower among divorced and widowed women and higher among those with more education, according to a new study that has found parallels to trends in China.

Suicide takes nearly as many young women’s lives in India as complications from pregnancy and childbirth, according to a study led by Vikram Patel at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and published today in the Lancet journal. The study used data collected by the Registrar General of India for deaths between 2001 and 2003 and extrapolated those findings to estimate suicide figures for 2010.

The World Health Organization estimates there are almost 900,000 suicides worldwide every year, with India and China accounting for 49 percent in 2004, the latest available figure. Lower risk for divorced women has also been reported in China and may reflect changing perceptions of what is “an acceptable way of life” as women become more educated, Patel said.

As in China, suicide is more prevalent among young women than young men, a trend that is reversed in developed countries.

“What’s interesting is how similar these findings are between China and India and how different these two Asian countries are from the developed world,” Patel said in an interview. In India, suicide trends may reflect “the clash between education and the traditional value system.”

India Data

Past studies have pointed to social difficulties, marital conflict, domestic violence and depression as the leading causes of suicide among women in India, Patel said.

For the overall population, the Registrar General found that about 3 percent of surveyed deaths in people ages 15 and older were attributed to suicide. That translates to about 187,000 suicide deaths in India in 2010. Suicide is the second- leading cause of death of young people in India, the authors said in the paper.

The Registrar’s survey is the first to systematically obtain information on the causes of deaths in India, Patel said. As suicide is a crime in India, the only other available data from the National Crime Records Bureau probably reflects underreporting.

In China, studies showed that mental illness didn’t afflict about a third of people who committed suicide and two-thirds of people who attempted suicide, which contrasts with findings in high-income countries where suicidal behavior is almost always associated with mental illness, Michael Phillips of Emory University and Hui Cheng of Shanghai Mental Health Centre wrote in a commentary accompanying the Lancet publication. Low socioeconomic status and divorce are also risk factors for suicide in developed countries, they said.

National Differences

“These cross-national and cross-regional differences have major implications for prevention,” Phillips and Cheng said.

In India, poisoning, mostly from pesticides used in agriculture, was the leading method of suicide in both men and women, Patel said. Restricting access to these pesticides and improving the availability of mental health services are possible approaches for prevention, he said.

The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the University of Toronto and the Wellcome Trust.

Suicide rates for young men between aged 19 to 30 are falling in England, Australia, China and the U.S., according to a review of past studies led by Alexandra Pitman at University College London, also published in the Lancet today. These national trends mask shifting suicide rates by geographic region, socio-economic status and ethnic origin, they said.

Rural Deaths

In England and Australia, suicide rates are rising among young men in rural areas and falling in urban areas. Among ethnic groups, those with the highest suicide rates are white men in South Africa, first-generation Eastern European and Caribbean immigrants to England and Wales, and indigenous populations of Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S.

Factors that may affect rates of suicide in young men include unemployment, social deprivation, and media reports of suicide, Pitman said in the paper.

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Article source: www.bloomberg.com

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Wealthy Couples Drawn to New Divorce Arbitration

An increasing number of wealthy couples are turning to new arbitration schemes to settle divorces rather than squabbling in public through the courts.

It is claimed that arbitration – frequently used in commercial and civil disputes – is being increasingly used to handle financial disputes arising from divorce.

Lawyers say the scheme is likely to attract “super-rich” couples bickering over “big money” divorce settlements who want negotiations carried out discreetly.

It is also understood the be a popular avenue in disputes about ownership of property between cohabiting couples and civil partners and so-called “schedule one claims” – maintenance orders relating to a child born to parents who have never married.

Some 40 lawyers have already trained to be arbitrators for the service launched by the Institute of Family Law Arbitrators, and there is a waiting list of lawyers wanting the training.

Marilyn Stowe, senior partner at Stowe Family Law, told the Financial Times that she thought the scheme would be attractive to two groups of people.

“Those who are in big money cases who can circumvent the waiting period in the courts and also are prepared to pay the fees of the arbitrator to have the benefit of privacy.”
She added the second group could include litigants who might want an arbitrator to decide the case or a specific point.

“Arbitration is tailored to the couple and we do not have to go through the entire process which we do in court. If you do not need a hearing, the arbitrator can decide something on paper. It’s more informal and quicker,“ she said.

James Pirrie of Family Law in Partnership, a team of specialist family lawyers, said he envisaged a big take-up for arbitration cases.

He said: “Court queues are growing – meaning longer delays and more costs for those going to court. That increases the pressures on judges, who have bigger caseloads to manage and less time for each case and there are inevitable stories of bad outcomes.”

“That means that appeals are likely, leading to an even longer process and a greater likelihood of loss of privacy as the media become involved.”

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*article from The Telegraph