Depending upon your individual circumstances during this time in your life, including but not limited to the state you live in, whether or not you have children or your economic status, one of the many emotional phases you will experience will be that of loss of ownership of aspects of your life.
EXPECT it. PLAN for it. EMBRACE it.
This lack of control of your own life has its source in varying elements of the divorce process. The legal process robs you of control of your schedule, your finances and your time (do not underestimate the time commitment). You may or may not now have as much access to your children. You may not have any control whatsoever on the outcome of discussions or attemtpted discussions with your spouse.
This lack of control can be emotionally devastating to an individual. Other factors also will affect your emotional state throughout and after the conclusion of this process.
However, my advice to you is to find ONE THING that you CAN control in your life. It might be as mundane as watching a single 1 hour program on TV per week. During that one hour, you turn off the computer; you silence the phone and you give yourself that 1 hour. As we will discuss in other blog entries, perhaps getting to the gym a set number of times as a set time of day might be what you need to do to establish control over something in your life. (The benefits of exercise during this time can not be over-emphasized.) We will address that extensively in another blog entry.
The divorce process will eat you alive if you let it. You will have to (and maybe for the first time in your life) come to grips with accepting and understanding your emotional makeup. You will have to learn to control your emotions and target your emotional state to goals that you will need to have in coming out of the divorce process. You have to be prepared (at least emotionally) for any possible eventuality and twist and turn during and probably after your divorce. It is these unexpected twists and turns that cause most people to feel like they have lost control of their lives; either lost to the divorce process or to the spouse.
It is critical for you emotionally and even from a standpoint of stability to feel as if you do have control of some aspect of your life.
Remember however, you may for a time have to relinquish control of aspects of your life but NO ONE MAKES YOU RELINQUISH CONTROL OF HOW YOU RESPOND TO THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES. Don't fool yourself into believing that you have no control over who you are, because when all is said and done what we are or what we think we are underneath is irrelevant. How we act and react to our circumstances is always in our control and in fact defines us.
This is what enrolling in school did for me. I felt that while control of so many things in my life seemed to elude me, taking classes was doing SOMETHING constructive that gave me back some of my power. Even though I didn't (and still don't) know what to pursue in terms of a major, at least I was doing something very positive for me and me alone! It restored my faith in myself and my ability to build from the ruins.
ReplyDeleteVery good example Carla. For women, I can see how this issue of regaining control is really an issue of "getting" control of things that they never had control of during the marriage.
ReplyDeleteAnother very important element to regaining control is to take a hard look at yourself and your own contribution to the demise of the relationship. You will remain in a "victim state" as long as you refuse to acknowledge that you had a hand in the deterioration of the marriage. One party may have taken overt steps that ultimately "ended" the marriage, but over time, I promise you, it took two people to build that weak structure and at any point along the way, one person changing his or her attitude toward the other and the union, could have had dramatic results. If you are guilty of nothing else, you are likely guilty of complacency and not asserting yourself when warranted.
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