3 Life Saving Steps to Take Back Your Divorce

Divorcing? America’s shaming meta narrative about divorce can destroy your life.

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Disclaimer: This article is not aimed at people who have been the victimized by emotional or physical abuse in their marriage. This article is for people who are divorcing because of marital incompatibilities that they can not resolve though counseling or other means.

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I won’t kid you. Navigating the process of divorce can be challenging and downright scary. The pitfalls are many and the prognosis is not always good. That said, one of the single biggest challenges that keeps couples from reaching an amicable and fair divorce is the following:

The people closest to divorcing couples often expect, no, DEMAND that divorce be a knock-down drag-out battle.

The people closest to divorcing couples often expect, no, DEMAND that divorce be a knock-down drag-out battle.

For example, years ago, when my impending divorce first become public, a close friend of mine sat down in my dining room, opened a beer, and said something to the effect of: any marriage that stays together is better for the kids than any divorce could ever be. (My former spouse and I have a son.)

This is an example of the kind of ideas we often share with divorcing couples. He meant no harm. But this commonly accepted idea that divorce is always the worst option, represents the destructive divorce meta-narrative we have created in America, and if you’re not careful, this meta narrative will take over your divorce and wreck your life.

Stigmatize and shame

Once you grant Americans permission to judge the morality of others, we quickly loose all sense of what is appropriate or reasonable.

In America, we seek to support the institution of marriage by opposing divorce. But the effort to resist rising divorce has translated into attacking of the motives and decisions of the couples who are choosing to divorce. Ultimately, we have created a meta narrative about divorce that sees no good in it and no positive outcomes.

Central to this meta narrative is a laundry list of divorcing people’s personal failings. The decision to divorce is proof that a couple is lazy or selfish and simply won’t work hard enough to create a successful marriage. If divorcing people have children, they simply don’t love their kids enough to work it out and stay married…for the children.

And then there’s the “pick the victim game”.

We stigmatize divorcing people so heavily that any person getting divorced is compelled to publicly blame the failure of their marriage on their partner or risk being saddled with these stigmas we are so ready to slap on them.

Accordingly, each half of a divorcing couple competes to heap the most blame on the other, attempting to sway friends, family, co-workers and even their children to their cause, weaving stories of their spouse’s endless failings in any available public forum.

All in an attempt to insure they themselves don’t take the fall for the failed relationship. Because whomever the bad guy (or gal) is, is going to face lot of public judgment and contempt.

No one gets away scott free. Not the participants or the spectators. It contributes to a vulgarizing of our public discourses and it damages the lives of millions of men, women and children.

This dynamic can lead to a public airing of the couple’s grievances, all of which become fodder for destructive cycles of gossip and condemnation. No one gets away scott free. Not the participants or the spectators. It contributes to a vulgarizing of our public discourses and it damages the lives of millions of men, women and children.

Don’t let others make your divorce a reality TV show
Your divorce is going to set the tone for your family life, loves and future relationships for years into the future. It is not some reality TV show for your friends, co-workers, relatives and neighbors to scrutinize, pick apart, express opinions about and stick their noses into. Seriously.

Let me repeat: how you approach your divorce will ultimately set the tone for all present and future relationships in your life, included the relationship you have with your divorcing spouse. And believe it or not, that relationship is ongoing. Like it or not, your ex will always be your ex. Forever.

What is at stake here is huge. You must actively choose to control the story of your divorce and the marriage that preceded it, or our culture’s negative view of divorce will take over and do it for you.

Here’s three steps you can take right off the bat.

Step one: Take control of the narrative

When my former wife and I decided to divorce we posted an open letter on Facebook. We asked our wide ranging community of friends to not take sides, to expect to see us together as a family and to please view my former wife and I as remaining friends. Our goal was to get out ahead of the story and insure that we controlled the narrative. We told folks about our living and co-parenting plans. We invited people to contact us and ask questions. We created a story to protect our child.

And here’s the most important part. Friends often try the help a divorcing person by speaking ill of their former spouse. This is, in effect, a way to say “I’m on your team.” But when they do that you can gently but firmly say, “Please don’t do that. That’s not what we need. We’re still family and still friends.”

Step two: Seek a collaborative divorce solution

Seek collaborative divorce solutions. Where couples are encouraged to negotiate together with specialists who will help you arrive at a better healthier divorce agreement.

Divorce attorneys are trained to be adversarial. They expect divorce to be conflict ridden and will set up processes that invite conflict to arise. Instead seek collaborative divorce solutions. Where couples are encouraged to negotiate together with specialists who will help them arrive at a healthier divorce agreement. Although the courts are used to seeing traditionally combative divorce settlements, you and your partner can give the courts something better. Why not give peace a chance? Conflict is always an option. But it doesn’t have to be the rule.

Step three: Stand up for your positive divorce narrative

Your marriage is embedded in a web of relationships. You not only share family and relatives but a much wider web of friends and acquaintances that have taken years to create. A nasty, adversarial divorce is a surefire way to destroy that web of friends and acquaintances and to add stress and uncertainty to the relationships that remain. If you and your former spouse can show that you are not at odds, many of those relationships will continue unabated. This is especially important when a child’s network of friendships is at stake.

A positive divorce narrative empowers you to reject the negative stigmas that other will attempt to heap on you.

A positive divorce narrative empowers you to reject the stigmas that other will attempt to heap on you. You can clearly and openly state that the end of your marriage doesn’t mean the end of your family. You can declare that the years you invested in your marriage were not wasted but that you retain fond memories. You don’t have to essentially erase years of your life. You don’t have to feel like a failure. You are not obligated to grieve. You can simply choose change.

And here’s a huge upside to a positive divorce narrative. It will grant you the right to move into new relationships without the bile and resentments of an angry breakup holding you back.

Live an affirmative definition of divorce

In millions of cases, divorce can be a positive way forward for couples who are simply not well matched. These people are not good, not bad, just different. In these cases, divorce is something for which both parties have an equal degree of agency and responsibility. It is not some nightmare you can’t wake up from. It’s a process you can design.

So, when abuse is not involved, let’s dump all the guilt and the public shaming and simply define divorce as what is is, a natural step for couples who need to take separate paths forward.

Not every divorce will be amicable. But for the millions of people who otherwise unknowingly get swept up in the negative divorce meta narrative, taking back divorce and writing a new more civil and healthy story about their divorced lives is possible.

So make the choice to divorce well. In every possible way. Take control of your divorce and create positive stories about it. Its your right. And believe it or not, the rest of your life depends on it.

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Photo by he who would be lost

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