Month: July 2023

Divorce Recovery: Bounce Back

Divorce can be hard to deal with, even when you’ve finished everything. That’s why it’s important to focus on your divorce recovery. There’s a few steps you can take which’ll help you start to move on with your life again…

Divorce Recovery: Turn Things Around

Focus & reflect

It’s helpful to start your divorce recovery by taking some time to focus and reflect on what’s happened. It can be tempting to try and move forward and not think about the past. However, by doing that, you won’t process the baggage you’re carrying. This can come back to hurt you, especially in future relationships.

Rather, think about the issues you had in your marriage. What was causing you guys the most distress and arguments? By reflecting on these things, you can learn what to work on and avoid in the future. This will also let you set some good goals for self-improvement.

Keep busy

Keeping busy is also helpful for your divorce recovery. Having nothing to do will have you not just be bored, but also can cause you to dwell on negative memories. Thinking about all the things you used to do with your spouse can make you feel more sad and isolated.

Therefore, it’s good to keep yourself busy. One good way to do this is by finding a new hobby or activity. It’s especially handy to try and find something that has groups which you can join. Doing so is great for making new friends.

Practice forgiveness

It’s important to practice forgiveness as part of your divorce recovery. In specific, there’s two types of forgiveness to do. First, you should forgive yourself and not place all the blame on your shoulders. There are many reasons as to why things didn’t work out, but you aren’t the only one responsible.

It’s also good to try and forgive your ex too. After all, it’s not like they went into the marriage wanting a divorce. Both of you made mistakes, so it’s good to be able to forgive and move on. Holding on to regret will just pull you down and get in the way of your recovery.

Conflicting Personalities: Opposites Attract

While everyone knows the phrase “opposites attract”, it’s also possible that conflicting personalities can lead to a divorce. This friction can even lead to some divorce conflict. While some traits can work with each other, they might also come with some potential for conflict…

Conflicting Personalities: Common Types

Introvert/extrovert

One of the most well-known conflicting personalities are introverts and extroverts. Introverts don’t like to be out socializing all the time. Meanwhile, extroverts love to be out doing things with other people. In some cases, this can work as an extrovert encourages an introvert to be more social. 

However, it usually leads to fighting. Spouses will start to feel resentful if they need to go out of their comfort zone for the sake of their partner. Instead, it’s good for a couple to have a similar balance for being social and staying in.

Organized/Disorganized

Another example of conflicting personalities is those who are organized and those who are disorganized. Organized people like structure and to have a place for everything. Those who are disorganized tend to be a bit more impulsive and will place things wherever they feel like.

Again, these kind of couples can help each other. A person can be either too rigid or too irresponsible on their own. Being with someone who’s their opposite can help them fix this. Still, they can also end up arguing if neither wants to change.

Adventurous/traditional

One type of conflicting personalities couples don’t pay too much attention to is being adventurous versus being traditional. The former is someone who is always down to try new things, while the latter is someone who likes to stick with what they know. For younger couples, this dynamic can work quite well. The adventurous one can encourage the other to experience things they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Much of the conflict can stem over future plans. The idea of “settling down” somewhere may not appeal to an adventurous person. Rather, they want to keep doing fun things. Their partner may want to live a bit more of a quite life as they get older together. These disagreements can become constant fights as they get older.

Post-Divorce Healing: Helpful Methods

It can be a bit hard to start recovering from your divorce. However, a useful way to get this process started is by focusing on some post-divorce healing. These methods can help you to heal from your heartbreak and prepare for your post-divorce life…

 Post-Divorce Healing: Key Techniques

Accept the situation

It’s important to accept your situation in order to start your post-divorce healing process. Many people try to repress how they truly feel after their divorce. They may tell other that they’re fine, and even try to tell themselves that it isn’t all that big of a deal.

In reality, you might be hurting quite a lot, and that’s okay. You need to be able to accept that you don’t feel okay, and that the divorce has impacted you in this way. Once you’re able to accept that you don’t feel fine, you can really start working on feeling better again.

Take care of yourself

You’ll also want to take good care of yourself when doing post-divorce healing. When people feel depressed, they tend to stop taking care of themselves. For example, they may lay in bed all day, won’t practice good hygiene, and eat rather poorly. Some people may even turn to drug and alcohol to cope with their feelings.

Of course, not taking care of yourself will only cause you to feel even worse. This is why it’s so important for you to practice good, healthy habits. It might seem hard at first, but once you see how better you’ll feel, it’ll quickly become a part of your new routine.

Talk to others

One thing you don’t want to do is keep your emotions and feelings bottled up inside. While you may think this will help you get over your emotions, it’ll actually end up doing the opposite. What happens is these emotions stay below the surface and get stronger, until they eventually boil over in a way you won’t want them to.

Therefore, don’t be afraid to talk to others about how you feel. Talking out your feelings with friends and family is great for processing those emotions properly. Once you’re able to work through these negative ones, it becomes easier to focus on the positives instead.

Co-parenting with Your Ex: Communication

Co-parenting with your ex can be challenging for both the parents and the children. In some cases, there has been domestic violence or substance abuse that would make joint custody especially difficult. However, in most cases, there are ways to co-parent amicably that will be beneficial for everyone involved…

Co-parenting with Your Ex: Improving Communication

Communication Challenges of Co-parenting with Your Ex

Having different schedules, different homes, and other relationships and marriages can make co-parenting with your ex difficult. You will also likely have strong feelings of anger, disappointment and resentment towards your ex. Although it may be difficult, you must work past those for the sake of your children. This could help your child’s well-being, stability and happiness. 

In order to keep your emotions about your ex out of your co-parenting, you will likely need to address them elsewhere. Find a therapist, counselor, or a friend to vent to, or relieve stress through exercise. While it will be difficult, remember that you are doing this for your children.

Better Communication While Co-parenting with Your Ex

Since you will be co-parenting with your ex for your child’s entire childhood, forming good communication habits will be important. By making these guidelines early on, your communication may get easier over time.

To start, listen and show restraint. Even if you don’t agree with them, let your ex express his or her opinions. Try not to overreact to anything that they say. Overtime, this may get easier. Instead of making demands, try making requests. For example, replace “Do this” with “Would you be willing to…?” This could help keep your ex from building up walls against you. 

Keep Children Out of the Middle

Don’t get your children involved as the middleman. Talking negatively about your ex to your child may be harmful to your child’s relationship with their other parent. Your child deserves to have a relationship with their other parent without having your emotions thrown in. You certainly don’t want to make them have to take sides, as that isn’t fair to them. 

Also, don’t send negative messages to your ex through your children. Handle all issues with your ex directly. When communicating, it may help to speak to your ex like you are in a business meeting. In this case, you are in the business of co-parenting your child. As you would in business, be respectful and cordial.

If you find that communicating with your ex gets to be too difficult…

…find some quick and easy ways to relieve stress. Co-parenting with your ex may always be difficult. Start by taking steps to improve your communication can go a long way.