Jerald Young asked:


Recovery from divorce requires us to make a “leap of faith” into an unknown future. Since we haven’t done it yet, we don’t really know for sure how it will turn out. Our personal source of hope gives us the courage to move forward in the face of the uncertainty.

But the hard question is, “Where can I go to find my personal source of hope?”

Source 1: Hope Can Be Found within Ourselves

A person’s “source of hope” might include an implicit trust in him or herself. People use their belief that they have the ability to handle anything that they may encounter to give them courage to face their recovery from divorce.

Source 2: Hope Can Be Found in Others

Hope can also be found in a belief in the trustworthy, good intentions of their friends. They have experienced what they consider “trustworthy” treatment in the past, and subsequently trust others to protect them from harm and help them as they face the challenges of divorce recovery.

Source 3: Hope Can Be Found in Our Philosophical Belief Systems

Still others’ seek their hope in more intellectual areas, like philosophy. We all have been exposed to explanations about what life is all about. Sometimes it seems to “fit with our experience” and therefore “makes sense” to us. We may not have called it “my philosophy of life,” but that’s what it is, nonetheless. Search that philosophy for its basis for hope, especially where it addresses the reasons for being optimistic about life. It will almost always hold out hope for making future transitions, including divorce recovery.

Source 4: Hope Can Be Found in Our Religious or Spiritual Beliefs

Some find hope in their spiritual beliefs. It may be in an organized religion. It may be a non-religious, spiritual belief in the existence of good in this world. A strong spiritual belief enables us to “act as if” good is there waiting for us in all unknown future situations.

Source 5: Hope Can Be Found in Nature

Others find a basis for hope in the infinite complexity and beauty of nature. Some find it in the cosmos. Others find it in the microscope. Others find it in flowers, lakes, mountains, oceans. I had a client whose divorce recovery had been stuck for four years. Then she spent a week enjoying the woods of New Hampshire. When she returned the logjam that had been preventing her from moving on had broken up, and she was able to make a “miraculous” divorce recovery in the next four weeks.

Which Source to Use DOES NOT Matter

However, what does matter is using a source of hope that makes sense to you personally! When faced with making our recovery from divorce, we must FIND our source of hope and USE it! There we will find the strength to know things will work out for the good. The result is courage to confront the demons that threaten our successful recovery from divorce.

Whatever the source of hope that resonates within you, you must use it. That is the key to dealing with the unknowns of recovery from divorce.



Caffeinated Content

Jerald Young asked:


Divorce recovery takes time. This is a fact of divorce. The real question is, “How long must I endure the upset and pain of adjusting to my divorce?” While specific time predictions are not possible, we can make choices that reduce recovery time from several years to a few months.

1. What Do We Mean by “Recovery?”

Successful recovery from divorce can mean different things to different people. By “recovery,” I mean that we are no longer haunted by painful memories of the relationship. We can talk about our ex and talk to our ex without negative emotions. We can wish our ex the best in their new life. And we can go for days with even thinking of our ex. In other words, we feel content with our current life and excited about our future without our ex being an integral part of it.

2. Slaying the Myth that Time Heals Everything

Accepted wisdom tells us that “time heals everything.” Tell that to my former sister-in-law. I met Faye before I met her sister, Anne, who I eventually married. At this time Faye had been divorced five years and every reference she made to her ex was critical and painful. Sixteen years later Faye died of cancer and to her dying day, her references to her ex remained critical and painful. Twenty-one years should have been enough time to heal her divorce wounds IF “time heals everything” were true. It isn’t. Time, by itself, heals nothing.

What IS important is what we DO during that time.What are our choices for “what to do?”

3. What Can We DO to Recover from Divorce?

Our two main choices are: 1 - DO NOTHING and let “Time and Sympathy” cure our pain and, 2 - Use a “TARGETED PROGRAM” specifically designed to change the attitudes and behaviors that keep us stuck in our post-divorce pain and dysfunction.

I do not address generalized therapy because of the nebulous nature of the process. Some, if not most, talk therapies, both individual and group, provide little more than a safe place to vent feelings and perhaps receive “advice.” Other therapies, like the divorce-specific behavior therapy program of Wanderer and Cabot, provide the client with a specific, behavior-focused program specifically designed to deal with the unique issues of divorce recovery. The first kind I lump in with the “Time and Sympathy” strategies. The second I include in the “Targeted Program” strategies.

4. Recovery Time Using “Time and Sympathy” Strategies - About 3 Years

If you do nothing, that is, if you use the “Time and Sympathy” strategies, it will take years for you to recover. Just how many years is unclear. Reports vary. Some say 1 year, others say 2 years. Some predict 1 year of recovery for each year of marriage, while others say 1 year of recovery for every 2 years of marriage.

Two major research projects generally confirm these estimates. Hetherington’s study puts this time frame at 2 to 6 years. Wallerstein and Kelly found that the average time after a divorce for women to reestablish “inner equilibrium,” “external stability,” and “a sense of continuity in their lives” was 3 to 3½ years.

Any way you cut it, if you depend on “Time and Sympathy” to provide your recovery from divorce, you are looking at a long time.

Is there a better way? Can you recover from divorce sooner? Answer: Yes!

5. Recovery Time Using “Targeted Program” Strategies - About 3 Months

Targeted Programs” are behavior-focused and attitude-focused, structured programs that walk the divorced client through the unique issues and challenges of the divorce-recovery process. Two examples include the Divorce Recovery Behavior Therapy Program (Wanderer and Cabot) and my Smooth Divorce Recovery Coaching Program (JW Young). Even though the programs come from related, but different, theoretical approaches (behavior therapy versus transition management and dissolving resistance to change) their results are quite similar. Both programs estimate it takes approximately 3 MONTHS (not years) to recover from divorce.

In my divorce-recovery coaching experience, the shortest recovery time was 6 weeks for a person who had had two previous “let’s get divorced” decisions followed by reconciliation. The longest was 5 months for someone who was stuck in the past and dealing with gut level anger at being betrayed. The typical client took 3 months of weekly, 2-hour sessions, to walk through the program, during which they dropped their fantasies of revenge, saw clear hope for the future, and were able to wish their ex well.



Caffeinated Content

Jerald Young asked:


Recovery from divorce is hard. The good news is YOU CAN DO IT. In fact, with some focused effort and a little help, you can recover from divorce faster than you ever thought possible. Making a successful recovery from divorce requires both insight and action. The following tips highlight the most important insights and actions necessary.

TIP #1 - You are not unusual - You are not alone.

Statistically, there are a lot of us. 40% of first marriages and 60% of all remarriages eventually end in divorce. Emotionally, everyone is pretty much in the same boat. Ambivalence rules the day. Roller coasters are the preferred method of emotional transport. Realistically, anyone you know whose has gone through, or is going through a divorce, can identify with the reactions you are having. You are not alone.

TIP #2 - You can make a successful recovery from divorce because you have done it before.

You say you haven’t been divorced before? Doesn’t matter. All transitions force us to go through the same process of change - whether it is losing a job, getting married, starting a family, death of a loved one. Whatever. What we’ve learned from these life experiences we can apply to making it through our current transition through divorce.

TIP #3 - You already possess all the personal resources necessary to recover from divorce.

Confidence, a sense of direction, and hope seem to be the first to go when trying to recover from a divorce. But, not to worry. You already have the ability to deal with it. More specifically, we gain confidence from successfully navigating past major life transitions. We find stability of direction from our unique set of personal principles. We obtain courage to press on from our personal sources of hope. And, we obtain reassurance that we are on the right track through a sense of gratitude for the good present in the current situation

TIP #4 - You need to recruit at lease one “Change Buddy” for social support and feedback.

We need to find people (or at least one person) we can lean on for emotional support and count on for objective feedback while we make our recovery from divorce. These folks must have two important characteristics. They must have no personal agenda and they must be able to be honest with you. Only then can you count on their feedback as being objective.

TIP #5 - You can and must dissolve the massive resistance to change that comes with divorce.

Fear, loss, and uncertainty about what to do next sabotage our efforts to make a victorious recovery from divorce. However, we can handle our fear of the unknown future if we have a plan. We can let go of how things used to be - even the good stuff - when we realize there is even more good stuff in the next chapter of our life after divorce. And, we can resolve our rational reservations for making a recovery with old-fashioned problem solving.

TIP #6 - You can and must use what you have learned from going through the divorce process to make your recovery successful.

Only by using your experience to clarify your future requirements, needs, and wants for our life after divorce, can you capitalize on the great opportunity divorce offers. These learnings apply to your entire life including finances, health, relationships, and self expression.

TIP #7 - You must lay the groundwork for the many changes that must occur in order to make a successful divorce recovery.

Divorce brings change in our relationships, our health, our financial situation, and our opportunities for creativity and self expression. A successful divorce recovery demands that we attend to and plan for this wide range of changes in order to fully and joyously embrace the next chapter in our life after divorce.



SYLVIA

Jerald Young asked:


“Divorce recovery” gives rise to thoughts like, “I never thought I’d have to do this. I’ve never been in this predicament before.” Or, “Everything is new and threatening. I feel lost and afraid things will never get better.”

These reactions are normal. Recovery from divorce is difficult at best. It is not something we have done all our lives and feel competent at. However, it is important to realize that you already possess all the personal resources necessary to recover successfully from divorce.

What are these resources, you ask? In order to travel the path to a successful recovery from divorce, we need confidence we can do it, a sense of right direction in the midst of emotional chaos, the courage to press on when things seem unclear or even hopeless, and reassurance that we are on the right track during the process.

OK. But, if I am supposed to already have them, where the heck are they? Let’s take them one at a time.

1. CONFIDENCE - Gain Confidence from Our Past BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE

We’ve all “been there, done that” when it comes to surviving unwanted change successfully. Whether it is getting over our awkward first love affair in junior high school, making a comeback after getting fired, or dealing with the illness or death of a friend or loved one, everyone has gone through unwanted change. Eventually, when we have come out the other side, we can look back and find some good that came from the experience. A call this a “Blessing in Disguise.”

Acknowledging a blessing born by change gives us confidence to face future change, including recovery from divorce. Even though we may not have been through divorce before, all life changes follow the same transition process. Therefore, what we learned from previous changes we can apply to our divorce recovery. Blessings in disguise are tangible proof that we can do it again because we’ve done it before.

The key to finding the confidence to confront divorce recovery is simply to identify our blessings in disguise. They are tangible proof that we can do it again because we’ve been handling change successfully all our lives.

2. DIRECTION - Find Direction from Your Set of PERSONAL PRINCIPLES

Going through a major life change, like divorce recovery, is like driving down the interstate in a fog. We try our best to keep the car in the road. However, when we drift too far to the left or right, we hear and feel the thump, thump, thump of the shoulder telling us we are drifting off course. Our personal principles are the washboards that give us the thump-thump-thump warning we need when we start to drift off our desired path through divorce recovery.

Some principles will be especially important to maintain. Some of those important principles will be threatened by the divorce recovery process. Successfully navigating your recovery from divorce will require you to first identify your core personal principles and then protect and use them when making the hard decisions of your divorce recovery.

3. COURAGE - Obtain Courage from Your Personal Source of HOPE

It takes courage to go through divorce recovery. Hope gives us that courage. The more we believe in the potential for good, the less daunting are the fears of an uncertain future and the less paralyzing the pain of loss. Staying focused on the hope for good offered by divorce recovery allows us to thrive, rather than merely survive. Possessing an internal belief that some good exists in all situations allows us to use our recovery from divorce as positive growth. Hope strips away the chains of fear and loss.

Your particular source of hope may be found in a solid belief in yourself, an unwavering trust in others, comfort from philosophical writings, awe at the natural universe, or faith in spiritual/religious beliefs. The source you use does not matter so long as it is meaningful and powerful to you. What does matter is you must take active steps to avail yourself of hope’s courageous promise.

4. REASSURANCE - Get Reassurance You Are Doing the Right Thing from GRATITUDE

Being reassured we are on the right track is essential, especially during the difficult times of divorce recovery. Gratitude lies at the heart of accepting change and gives us that reassurance. We can observe how gratitude helps give reassurance and comfort to the grieving family of a deceased loved one when they say such things as, “Thank goodness, he’s in a better place now” or, “I’m so glad his suffering is over.” Finding gratitude for the good in your divorce recovery affirms the fact that you are making progress. Gratitude opens us to be more receptive to accepting change and using it for good.

Know that you can relax in the knowledge that confidence, direction, courage, and reassurance are constant companions in your efforts to make a successful recovery from divorce.



JACQUELYN