“Blame & Shame” Or What Did You Gain? How To Turn Your Divorce Into A Learning Experience

Blame-and-Shame

By Gail Desilets, M.A., M.S.

Getting caught up in extreme emotion during a divorce is very normal. Sometimes it can
seem like you are flailing around before you get your bearings again. Let’s face it, life as
you have gotten used to it has just turned upside down. You may even find yourself very
upset about all of the mistakes you have made or put the blame solely on your spouse
for “ruining your life!”

I am reminded of a woman whose husband came home one day after many years of
marriage, successfully raising children and a good sex life together, and said he wanted
a divorce so he could marry someone he had been having an affair with. This woman
was completely shocked! She had no idea her husband was even unhappy! They got
divorced and needless to say she is still almost as angry today as the day he came home
with “something to tell her.” What can a person do when something like this happens?

I know this may be difficult to believe right now, but if you are going through a divorce,
life has just handed you a very rich learning experience. That may be especially hard to
realize if you are still feeling a lot of pain and suffering. Nonetheless, in moments when
your tears dry a little if you have been crying and your rage calms down if you are very
angry, do yourself a huge favor and take the time to see what life has just taught you
about…you.

Why do we even have these feelings if it’s going to feel this rotten and overwhelming?
Well, we have powerful feelings for a very important reason. Feelings give us critical
information about our life! The more intense the feelings, the more meaningful the
experience we are having. Put in the simplest way, we want to repeat experiences that
feel good and learn from experiences that feel bad. The feelings you are having right now
about your divorce qualify for a good lesson.

One way to turn your divorce into a learning experience is to ask yourself important
questions and explore the answers. This can help you make sense of chaos. Here are a
few examples to get you started:

1. What is this divorce experience like for you?
2. Is divorce harder or easier than you thought it was going to be? Why is that?
3. Is this your first divorce? If it is, what did you learn about the way you chose a
spouse?
4. If this is not your first divorce, what are some of the similarities and differences
between the spouse(s) that came before and this last one? Do you see any patterns?
5. How did your friends and family react? Did you learn anything new about your
support system?
6. Was anyone there for you who you didn’t expect to be or was anyone not there who
you did expect to be? What do you make of this?

A good therapist or a trusted friend can really help you begin to answer these questions
in meaningful ways. Getting back to the example of the woman whose husband left her,
she is now discovering powerful messages from her childhood that followed her into her
marriage. She is realizing that she chose her spouse for reasons she was not even aware
of before. With help, she is beginning to shift how she thinks about herself and who she
really wants to be in relation to others. To her credit she is replacing old messages from
childhood that don’t work for her any more with new ones that make sense for her adult
self. She is taking time to find out what she really wants for her life and the best way to
get there from here. She could not have done this without going through her valuable
divorce experience.

As you move forward with this new chapter of your life, resist getting so stuck in your
emotions that you lose the valuable lessons of your divorce experience. Use this time
to learn more about who you really are and who you would like to be in the future. You
may not have had much choice about getting divorced, but you do have a choice about
whether you learn from it and grow as a person.
————————————————————————————————————

Gail Desilets is a registered Marriage & Family Therapist Intern. Her web site is: www.GailDesilets.com. She is in private practice in the Bixby Knolls area of Long Beach, CA. She specializes in helping with depression, anxiety, bereavement, and life transitions. She is supervised by Linda Nusbaum, MFT #45519.

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