A – Z of Simple Divorce Advice | Simple Divorce Advice

simple divorce advice a-z

Always be polite, even when you feel like taking up a weapon and inflicting bodily harm. Being polite to all involved including your spouse will make people treat you with respect. If you find you are unable to continue conversations quietly excuse yourself with a promise to get back to them.

Because you can doesn’t mean you should. Take from this whatever you want.

Can you stop treating your children like pawns, many people can’t. Never forget pawns are the disposable pieces, the ones you sacrifice so the king and queen will be safe.

Dedicate a portion of each day to your plan for the future. Spending even as little as five minutes on yourself and your future will help you make a plan.

Every time you want to crawl back under the covers and not fill out a document or read a letter, make a cup of tea, take a deep breath and move forward. As easy as it is to stay in the divorce zone, that is married without being married, you are not giving yourself the chance to move forward into a new life that you can direct as you want.

Few divorces are settled without emotional trauma. It is how much that affects any future relationship. If you have children there will be times when you must come together so keeping things at least civil is working in your favour.

Good choices are choices that have been thought through properly. You can always take time to think about your decisions. A bad decision is one that is based on the other person suffering no matter how much you dislike them.

Have enough dignity not to do vengeful things, taking your anger and resentment on your spouse will not make your divorce any easier. They will still want it and you will have belittled yourself with your behaviour. Thinking about doing mean things sometimes can’t be helped, just don’t act on it.

Include your spouse in your children’s lives even if you don’t want to. Your children will make up their own minds about your spouse as they will about you and your behaviour today will play into their decisions later on.

Just try to get on with your life without your divorce invading every waking moment. When things get really bad go for a brisk walk, resight all the things in your life that are good and let the endorphins do their job. This simple thing can really help, it is impossible to be sad when you are thinking positively and have endorphins racing through your system.

Keep a divorce journal. This is not the one that you voice your feelings, though keeping one of those is a good idea as well. A divorce journal is a record of all interactions, including letters, emails, texts, phone calls, and second hand information to do with you and your divorce. A record with times and dates can sometimes be very handy.

Learn as much as you can about the divorce process and the many avenues that your choices can take.

Make sure you have the support you need even at work. You spend most of your time there and divorce has a habit of invading your time until it is over. You need to have support systems in place to allow you a little laxity while you go through this process. Most employers are understanding if they know what is going on.

No dating for a year after separation is the rule, it is time to get to know yourself, the reasons your marriage didn’t work, to take responsibility for your marriage and its demise and to figure out what it is you want in a future relationship.

Occasional lapses in judgement are not a reason not to trust yourself or your ability to make the right decisions for you and your family. Ever one makes bad choices sometimes, the trick is to pick yourself up and forgive yourself.

Provide for your emotional needs. Wine and Chocolate are not true emotional buffers, they are a quick fix that make you feel worse in the morning, more guilt is not a good idea.

Quite often you may find yourself at the mercy of the divorce process or the industry. Having to make appointments weeks in advance, court dates can be months. This is how it is, accept that the process can be slow and it is you and your spouse that need this because you cannot come to reasonable settlements without the help of outsiders. So relax and wait with good humor, it really is all you can do.

Resist the urge to text every time you think of something else you need to tell your spouse about their lack of perspective, personality and appearance. It really doesn’t help and if you have an ex who is also a texter you can have a word war that lasts for hours or days.

Seldom do both spouses retain the same friends. It is difficult for outsiders to know how to remain friends with both without trouble. Most people just want peace so will choose to remain friends with only one. Give up and accept the inevitable there are billions of people out there to be friends with.

Try to keep a lid on spending during this time. A divorce is expensive and the last thing you need is for comfort spending to get out of control and add to your stress levels. A divorce budget is a good idea, all the costs associated with getting a divorce plus all the costs of just day to day living. That should keep you grounded.

Under no circumstances start blaming your divorce professionals for outcomes. If you employ incompetent people, that is your responsibility. If you allow others to make your decisions that is also your responsibility.

Very few people take enough care of themselves during divorce and it has been documented that health can be affected to such a degree that it never recovers to pre-divorce standards. Look after your diet, exercise and mental wellbeing; you seriously don’t want to come through a divorce to have health issues.

Where are you going to live during and after the divorce? This needs to be looked at and sorted out, it is not easy to move but with no destination in mind it can be really awful.

Xtra emotional support from family and friends does not mean you turn into a whinge machine who cannot stop talking about your problems. If you are offered support then take it but chose your closet friends to confide in, not everyone needs to know everything.

Your behaviour, good or bad, will be remembered by all. It can changed the way people think of you for the better or worse.

Zeal is for the energy you can put into your new life and the big celebration you can have when you have wound the divorce. Only invite special folk and only celebrate your life to come.

Excerpt from: A – Z of Simple Divorce Advice