Handling The Hard Stuff

Category: Divorce

  • Living with Pain

    Trauma and loss and regret can be so all-consuming. Often times those uncontrollable feelings come up out of nowhere. You think you have a handle on your pain and emotions and all of a sudden you’re ugly crying in the middle of a store because you see a shirt that brings back a memory. You’re…

  • Fighting Right

    Navigating conflict is one of the biggest challenges in a relationship. You each come with your own baggage and your own interpretations of other people’s statements and perspectives. And you each come with your own personality and sensitivity. That makes turning mole-hills into mountains a really easy thing. I struggle with this in my personal…

  • Neutral

    There are a lot of things we deal with that we consider bad or good, that really aren’t inherently anything. They’re neutral until we give them meaning or a response. For instance, Change is neutral. Some people love change and some people cringe away from it. But change in itself isn’t good or bad. It…

  • Stop Beating Yourself Up

    In the past few days especially I have had a number of friends and potential clients berate themselves for “putting up with so much” or something along those lines. They’ll talk about a million different ways their partners failed them and feel such shame for not kicking that person to the curb sooner. They look…

  • Give Them an Out

    Have you ever been in an argument with someone and you’re both so dug in to your positions that neither of you can move even a little bit without “giving in”? I have. I am stubborn as all hell. And I always have been. My parents talk about how conflicts with me were a negotiation…

  • Use Your Words

    Stop being okay with things you are really not ok with. Being a good person is not the same thing as being willing to suffer in silence and not make waves. Being kind is not the same as being a doormat. You can be kind and still advocate for yourself or others. It is important…

  • The Best Revenge is None

    They say the opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is indifference. The truest test of your progress or closure about the end of a relationship is whether you can truly just nothing them. The ends of relationships can be so emotionally hurtful. When you’ve been together for awhile, you know what…

  • Stop Breaking Your Own Heart

    Only you can choose who you let into your life. There are so many studies that talk about how you are influenced most by the six or so people you spend the most time with. Whether this is your family, your co-workers, your running buddies, friends, or neighbors, this shapes who and how you are.…

  • Stop. Collaborate and Listen

    Have you heard of something called collaborative law? It’s the coolest thing in the divorce world since…I don’t know, there’s not a lot of cool stuff in divorce world. Collaborative law is essentially the idea that you are going to behave like reasonable adults and co-parents from the beginning of your divorce case. In a…

  • Guilt

    I have so many people come in my office ready to file a divorce but feeling SOO guilty about being the one to end it. The reality is their partner ended it long ago. They stopped being a partner. We see this a lot in long-term marriages where the responsibilities devolve and fall heavily onto…