Divorce Counseling

Has Your Life Been Turned Upside Down By Divorce?

Are you wondering what went wrong in your marriage and how your life will be impacted by a divorce? As you struggle to pick up the pieces, do you feel depressed, confused, and overwhelmed? Do you wish you had a safe and supportive sounding board to help validate your experience and gain perspective?

In many ways coming to terms with the end of a marriage is similar to grieving the death of a loved one. You might feel unable to cope with the pain and be overwhelmed by the uncertainty this life transition has caused. Dealing with divorce can leave you disoriented and second-guessing yourself as you navigate this foreign terrain.

Divorce Challenges Your Identity And Sense Of Security

Perhaps you’re unsure which new direction your life will take and you feel paralyzed by the idea of having to go backward. You never thought you’d have to consider dating again or walk away from the financial milestones achieved with your partner. If you have kids, you might worry about how this transition will affect them or have misgivings about co-parenting.

If you experienced infidelity in the marriage, you are probably feeling angry and are sitting with unresolved hurt. Or perhaps you feel guilty if you were the one who cheated, blaming yourself for the breakup. Regardless of what part you played, dealing with infidelity can make an already difficult transition all the harder to process.

Maybe it feels like you’ve lost your identity because, without the security of your marriage, it’s hard to imagine who you are now. You may feel out of control, unsure where you will land once the dust settles.

Fortunately, divorce counseling can help you to move forward with renewed confidence and self-awareness. With therapy, you can find healing after infidelity and divorce

"Let your home be not your anchor, but your mast." - Khalil Gibran

Anger Can Make Divorce Even Harder To Recover From

Although divorce rates have declined since they peaked at 50 percent in the 1980s, experts currently estimate 42 percent of first-time marriages will end in divorce. The likelihood of divorce increases with second marriages (60 percent) and third marriages (73 percent).

Unfortunately, the culture surrounding divorce makes it easy to get caught up in rage and anger. The process of dissolution is often a power struggle that devolves into a battle between parties.

Even if we begin divorce proceedings with a fairly amicable relationship, one or both attorneys might sour our relationship with our ex-partner by proposing strategies that put us in opposition with each other. We may soon find that our hostility has escalated as we use our divorce proceedings as a means to inflict pain on our former spouse.

Although adopting an adversarial “me vs. you” mindset may temporarily suppress our sadness and make us feel more in control, eventually, it will only prolong this painful process and create more suffering for everyone involved.

We Expect Divorce To Be Difficult And Unpleasant

Many of us resist seeking treatment at this challenging time because we already expect that a divorce will turn our lives upside down. We resign ourselves to suffering throughout the duration of the divorce, never contemplating that help is available.

But there’s no reason you have to experience this difficult period alone or unsupported. Imagine transitioning to this new chapter of your life with a better understanding of yourself, secure in the knowledge that you’ve sorted out what’s happened and are going to be OK.

Counseling Can Help You Realize There’s Life After Divorce

The realization that life as you know it will be far different moving forward can be a profoundly painful experience. It takes time to process what the implications will be of living alone, co-parenting your children, and, most significantly, the part you played in getting to this point.

Therapy is a safe place to explore the many ways your life will be affected by divorce and to take the necessary time to mourn the loss of your marriage. Counseling allows you to reflect on what has led you here and discover how things can be different moving forward. Allowing yourself adequate time to come to terms with your experience can have a long-term positive impact on your post-divorce life.

What To Expect In Sessions

Our sessions together will be an opportunity for you to examine your thoughts and feelings in a safe, nonjudgmental environment. The divorce process can leave you feeling out of control, but here in therapy, you get to decide how things go and what we focus on. If you are still in the midst of the proceedings, we can talk about the day-to-day twists and turns you’re experiencing and how they affect you emotionally.

A beneficial aspect of divorce counseling will be to more clearly understand why things went wrong in the marriage. By bringing awareness to the choice of words you use to describe what happened, I will guide you through a reexamination of how your preconceived beliefs and thoughts may have contributed to misunderstanding in the relationship or missed the cues that something was wrong.

You may be afraid you have fallen into an unhealthy pattern and that your future relationships are doomed to fail unless something changes. Therapy offers you the chance to identify your patterns of communication as well as the beliefs you hold that influence your relationships. And by exploring how your upbringing and past relationships may still be impacting you, you can acknowledge their limitations and learn more effective ways of communicating.

If we determine that underlying anxiety or depression may be contributing to problems in your relationships, I will provide you with strategies to help manage your symptoms. If appropriate, we may utilize Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help reframe unhelpful thought patterns that contribute to anxious or depressed feelings.

Working Through The Stages Of Divorce To Find Healing

For true healing to occur, grieving the loss of your marriage is a step that should not be skipped. Similar to grief, divorce presents the same stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Helping you work through each stage will make your transition to the other side of divorce go more smoothly.

Together we will identify what strategies work for you and implement skills to help you feel optimistic that there will be life after divorce. Rather than an ending, healing from divorce can be a new beginning for you.

But You May Wonder Whether Divorce Counseling Is Right For You…

Don’t most people get through a divorce without counseling?

That would depend upon what your definition of “getting through a divorce” is. If you skirt the grieving process and don’t take the time to reflect on what happened and why it happened, then the growth and self-realization that can come from a divorce will likely not occur. Although you will undoubtedly survive a divorce, seeking therapy allows you to thrive by using this transition as a chance for growth and personal development.

I don’t have time for post-divorce therapy.

There is no better investment of your time than to focus on yourself, especially after experiencing a difficult life transition. Consider what putting off therapy after a divorce could mean—more years wasted spinning your wheels and delaying the self-realization necessary to make positive changes in your life. You only need to set aside 50 minutes per week to work on yourself and figure out how life can be different. It’s an investment of your time worth making.

Will divorce counseling help me with healing after an affair or infidelity?

I can help you acknowledge and validate the pain that comes from infidelity. Right now, you’re probably emotionally raw and, if you feel victimized by what happened, your mindset could be making you feel worse. In divorce counseling, you can examine what happened to understand the dynamics that led to the infidelity and the end of the relationship. The goal is to move forward with more confidence and make better choices in the next relationship.

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Your Life Is Just Beginning

Once you trust yourself and know that you’ll be OK, you can be excited by the possibilities that await you on the other side of divorce.

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