by Renee leNobel | Jan 10, 2016 | Divorce
I have a good friend who is very insightful and she has done it again. She has inspired this week’s post.
We hadn’t talked in awhile and we started talking about how we are each doing in life. She has Lupus – a chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when your body’s immune system attacks your own tissues and organs and I have an ex. Now it wasn’t me that made this connection, she did. She said “Renee, your ex is like a chronic disease you have no control over. Just like a disease that flares up unexpectedly in life, so does your ex.”
He has recently “flared up” as she so succinctly put it.
Another friend noted that ex flare ups tend to happen around stressful times of the year, birthdays, Christmas… yup, right again.
I especially liked the part where she said I have no control over it, just like she has no control over when her Lupus hits.
Now, some people might object to this comparison because after all I made the choice of marrying my ex and it really is only my perception that he is flaring up. It’s simply a matter of opinion that something he has said or done is stressful to me. That is the difference here. It is mostly my reaction to my ex that causes me stress and pain whereas with my friend, her lupus is a concrete disease that she has to deal with.
That said, she has noticed that if she modifies her diet and tries to maintain a healthy lifestyle, it helps decrease the severity of her Lupus flare ups. I too have implemented strategies that prevent severe reactions to ex flare ups.
I have cut back on coffee (sigh), I exercise (well, not lately, but that’s my goal) and I have built my ex flare up response system.
My ex flare ups come on suddenly. Out of nowhere. They are infrequent but severe. I don’t see them coming. They just hit.
Now I don’t know what my friend does when a severe Lupus flare up occurs, but I have learned what to do when an extreme ex flare up hits as even though I don’t know when it is coming, I have lived through enough that I have had to develop a strategy.
The first thing I do is dump my first knee jerk emotional response into an email (making sure I remove his address first). I put in everything that is upsetting me at that very moment. I go for it. Then I hit SEND and send it to my dummy email account. I’m not sure how it works, but it calms me down.
Then I give myself time. I don’t run off to my support network to scream about the latest outrage being perpetrated by the ex (well, not for a few days anyway as I guess this blog post did come out of talking, ahem, ranting, to my network).
I take deep breaths, I meditate and I practice gratitude and remind myself that the future never turns out the way I imagine and certainly not the worst case scenario that I tend to gravitate towards in my thoughts.
Now, all these strategies don’t make the flare up go away but they do alleviate some of the symptoms such as lack of sleep and extreme grumpiness.
These strategies also get me to the best mood for dealing with my ex. Before managing myself, I would tend to fight or avoid my ex, but after time I get back to understanding I need to collaborate with my ex.
Because fighting it just exacerbates the flare up and avoiding it, well, that just puts me in into a waiting and apprehensive state.
So I sent my ex and email and proposed we talk in person with some collaborative ground rules set in place.
After a series of meetings and conversations, the flare up has subsided. We have settled back into a good routine and I will continue to work on strategies to decrease the frequency of ex flare ups in the future.
by Renee leNobel | Nov 26, 2015 | Divorce
I have a friend and she has two sets of what look like playing cards, called Life Cards and Angel Cards. Every once in awhile, she drags them out of the cupboard and we pick one of each (without looking). It’s something that takes about 10 minutes but it is an exercise that drags us back into the present moment and gives us the chance to shift our (usually) future-focused perspectives.
In fact, we have turned this into a semi-weekly fun thing to do so we remember to make time for reflection and pausing in our lives.
Anyhow. This week I pulled the revelation card and the patience card. Every week I seem to pull a card that applies to my life in that particular moment and this week’s choices were scarily relevant. It is also a theme that seems to keep playing over and over in my life. Wait, slow down, let things resolve themselves. I think this theme keeps playing over and over because I haven’t gotten it yet.
The revelation card told me that I should wait for life to reveal itself to me and the patience card just said patience. Patience while I wait for life to reveal itself I guess. Isn’t that weird how these two cards go together ? Completely separate decks. Eerie.
I am not patient and I hate waiting. I like to control the outcome.
What about you?
Are you the type of person that likes to sort life into neat piles and bend it the way you want it to go? Do you look at a problem and immediately start thinking of how you are going to fix that problem? Do you create mental deadlines about when that has to happen by?
I am that type of person and that is what I do.
I am also a bit of a stress case.
I noticed that my tendency to sort life into neat little boxes would just lead me to feeling frustrated when nothing fit.
I noticed that life never matched what my future focus had envisioned.
I would kill myself over work deadlines, stressing out myself and my kids, only to have the work deadline move or not matter anymore. Or the project I was working on would change so dramatically, that the work I had done was no longer relevant.
Logically, I now know this: life never plays out how you expect it will and even if I throw all my energy at something, it is not going to go the way I planned. What I have also learned is that I can handle everything that does come my way. So I can relax, I can take my time and try to live a life according to my own values and beliefs. I can gather information and gain new insight into things but in the end it is the interplay between the circumstances and the people in my life that determines what will be revealed. I know this, yet I don’t live as if I do.
I was just reminded of this when I looked in my oldest son’s bedroom. It is a disaster zone. As usual. Added to the piles of detritus on the floor are all the candy wrappers from this most recently ended Halloween. He likes to save them to remind himself of the good times gone by I guess.
I immediately started grumbling and complaining, saying things like ‘these have got to go.” and “this room is a disaster – you have to clean up.” and he mumbled “I will.”
Yeah – he won’t. He won’t because I never let him get to that point. I start freaking out and yelling until he grudgingly tidies his room.
I’m going to try something different (and all because of those cards). I’m going to be patient and let life reveal itself to me.
Don’t get me wrong. I still want to control the outcome. What I’m hoping will happen is what happened to some friends of mine. In their early twenties they started living together as a couple. One of them was not what you would consider to be a tidy person.
This couple had been living together for about two years. They were living the pattern where their home would get more and more slovenly until the tidier person would freak out and clean up. This kept happening. The tidier person could not wait, she’d reached her limit.
But after two years, I guess she reached her limit on the number of times she could freak out and be upset with the slob she was living with. She was tired of all the arguing. So she stopped. She waited to see what would reveal itself. I love this story.
Well, their place got really bad. Really really bad. Dogs would come over to visit and find a good meal in itself on the floor.
It got so bad, one day, unbelievably, the person who seemed to have no limit to his tolerance for mess, stood in the middle of the room, lifted his arms to the sky and went “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
He’d noticed the mess.
He started to clean the mess. All without any yelling or cajoling from his partner.
Since that time, he’s never let things go so far again.
So, I’m hoping I can last as long as my friend (which could be a very long time) but I am also curious to see what will be revealed. How will this play out? Will there be a different outcome? Will it make for as good a story?
I’m hopeful that training myself to wait on minor life situations will help me develop a waiting muscle that I can use on the seemingly more serious situations in life.
This is going to be my challenge to myself for the next little while. Will you join me in this challenge? Will you wait to see what is revealed?
by Renee leNobel | Nov 18, 2015 | Divorce
Not sure if many of you watched Seinfeld back in the day it originally aired. I did and there is one episode that really resonates with me right now. What I remember about the episode is the fact that George was in conflict with his two personas: Independent George and Relationship George. Relationship George was killing fun-loving Independent George.
I admit I have the same problem. Relationship Renée (“RR”) is causing all sorts of problems for Independent Renée (“IR”) and IR does not get off so lightly in the blame department either.
IR seems to forget what RR’s life is like the minute the kids walk out the door to spend time with their dad.
IR, in a bid to stave off loneliness, takes on work commitments, volunteer commitments and social commitments. All IR can think is that she must fill the hours that the children are absent. IR must be productive and not wallow in self-pity.
Then the children seem to suddenly descend and IR becomes RR. Suddenly, RR finds herself having to make breakfast, lunch and dinner, ferry kids around to various activities all while trying to finish the work that IR started and did not finish in her free time. In addition, these children are constantly disrupting the peace and quiet of the work space. How is RR supposed to get anything done! The children are no longer with RR, they are with GR – can you guess? Yup. Grumpy Renée.
GR longs for the peaceful solitude that IR had. Seriously, what was IR thinking, lonely? I’ll give you lonely, GR thinks. GR would kill for some lonely time when she is in the thick of getting everything done. GR looks ahead at IR’s calendar and cuts a swath through everything. “That ignorant IR!” thinks GR. “I’ll teach her to overschedule and overcommit. She is not doing anything this weekend when the kids are with their dad. She is going to recharge and lay low and prepare herself for the week ahead when the kids are back.”
Then quicker than you can blink IR is back and staring at the weekend ahead that GR just planned. IR recharges in a day and then peaceful solitude turns to debilitating loneliness. IR adds as many things as she can to stave off loneliness and starts to create rules for RR. RR must go to yoga during the week. RR must do better at getting work done when the kids are in bed. “NO MORE NETFLIX RR!” shouts IR.
Then RR is back and trying to negotiate these rules that IR setup. “IR has not been using that brain of hers again.” She doesn’t know how exhausting it is to work all day, fight with the kids over bedtime routines and now she wants me write blog posts and better myself in the hours of 9 to 11 pm?” I cannot do it, thinks RR. RR gets depressed and wonders what the point is off all this work anyway. Seriously RR says to herself. There must be a better way.
As with everything, communication is key. Much like the movie Mememto, RR and IR have started to leave notes for each other on their shared desk.
These are the notes from RR to IR
- Before taking anything on, ask yourself if it fits your values and beliefs.
- What are you taking this new project on for?
- Would you do this if you were short of time? or are you just doing it to keep busy?
(yes, all the notes are a variation on a theme)
These are the notes from IR to RR
- I am sacrificing some of my weekend fun time to catch up on grunt work. Please make sure you try to let go when you are with the kids and have some fun time with them.
- I am recharging and using this time so you can not turn into GR. Please remember that your time with the kids is brief and the most important thing is to be present with them and take care of yourself.
- Please remember to look for time when you can complete work when you are RR. Schedule a reasonable amount of time for me to complete that work if you don’t and don’t forget to schedule something fun for me to look forward to.
Then IR adds more as she has more time to reflect than RR: “I know it’s tough RR, but remember, you eventually get to have some solitude, think of all the single parents out there that do not have a co-parent. Remember to be grateful.”
Slowly, these messages between IR and RR are starting to get through.
The one common message that they tell the other? “It’s going to take time to get this right, be kind to yourself in the meantime and I will forgive your errors in judgement. Afterall, we learn best from our mistakes!”
by Renee leNobel | Nov 12, 2015 | Divorce, Finances
I recently did a set of spending plans for a separated couple. They are trying to sort out how they will share parenting arrangements in the future. Their individual financial situations depend on what they decide. Are they going to share parenting, or will one parent be designated the Primary Caregiver?
In an ideal world, this couple would decide what is best for the children without thinking about how it will affect them financially, but often, people let their financial situation drive their decisions rather than vice versa.
How do different parenting arrangements affect the individual parent’s financial situation?
These are the basic rules:
Primary Caregiver Situation
The primary caregiver, the person who parents the children more than 60% of the time, receives child support from the other parent. The primary caregiver also gets all the tax credits and benefits related to the children.
Example 1:
Parent A is the primary caregiver of a two- and four-year-old child and earns $40,000 per year, while Parent B earns $60,000 annually. Parent B pays Parent A $900 a month in child support.
How does this look after taxes are considered?
Parent A pays about $6,000 in taxes (including EI and CPP).
Parent A is therefore left with $40,000 less $6,000 in taxes plus $10,800 (child support – non-taxable to Parent A) plus $4,000 (Canada Child Benefit) for a grand total of $48,800 (after tax) per year.
Parent B pays about $14,000 in taxes (including EI and CPP – Parent B does not get any credits related to the children).
Parent B is therefore left with $60,000 less $14,000 less $10,800 (child support) for a grand total of $35,200 after tax. That differs from Parent A, who started out with less.
As stated, Parent A is the primary caregiver of the children and so will, therefore, have much greater costs. That said, in the above situation, Parent B will also be on the hook for a greater percentage of child-related expenses, such as work-related child care. In this case, if Parent A earns $40,000 yearly with a two and four-year-old, there will likely be child care. Parent B will pay 60% of the childcare costs, and Parent A will pay 40%. Parent A gets to claim the childcare expense and Parent B does not.
Will Parent B understand that and give up almost $20,000 per year, or will Parent B decide equal parenting would be better?
Shared Parenting Situation
If the parents share parenting, they each must pay child support to the other parent. Essentially, it works like this:
Example 2:
Parent A earns $50,000, and Parent B earns $50,000.
Parent A has to pay $760 to Parent B for child support, and Parent B has to pay $760 to Parent A for child support. These two amounts offset each other.
Example 3:
Parent A earns $40,000, and Parent B earns $60,000 (as above in example 1)
This time, Parent A pays a monthly amount of child support to Parent B, $600, and Parent B pays $900 to Parent A. These amounts are calculated based on the Federal Child Support Guidelines. Here is a handy calculator.
The child support guidelines are meant to equalize the children’s standard of living in the two different households (where they spend equal time). The calculation considers taxes as the recipient of the $300 receives the money tax-free, and the payer does not get a deduction. Now, their respective incomes look like this:
Parent A – $40,000 less taxes of $6,000 or 14.7% plus $3,600 in child support plus $2,000 (Canada Child Benefit; it is shared) for a grand total of $38,000 (after tax) per year.
Parent B – $60,000 less taxes of $11,500 or 19.15% (this is lower than in example 1 as this time parent B gets to claim one child as a dependent) less $3,600 in child support plus $2,000 Canada Child Benefit for a grand total of $46,900 (after tax) per year.
Parent A and B’s incomes are not completely equalized, but Parent B will end up paying more for things like medical and dental for the children as well as for extracurricular activities and other special expenses for the children. Parent B pays 60% of these expenses, and Parent A pays 40%.
If I were Parent B and were only concerned with money, I would choose example 3.
Do you see what the child support guidelines did?
The guidelines encouraged both parents to step up and be equal caregivers to their children—money talks.
In an ideal world, both parents would also step up and share parenting responsibilities, not just the money.
Parents starting out on the shared parenting path will struggle at first. One parent was likely the primary caregiver when the couple was married. That is usually the way it works. They will have to learn strategies for sharing parenting duties in the future.
by Renee leNobel | Nov 5, 2015 | Divorce
When I was freshly separated I was under terrible stress and in extreme emotional pain. My days were consumed with anger and sadness and I remember wondering if anything could be worse than going through a divorce. According to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, death of a spouse tops out as the most stressful known event and this is followed by divorce. However reading further, one can develop a stress score by adding up all the events that have happened to a person within the year. If you are getting divorced or have recently divorced then you can add up the following scores:
Divorce – 73
Separation – 65
Change in financial state – 38
Change to different line of work (often comes with divorce) – 36
Trouble with in-laws – 29
Change in living conditions – 25
Change in social activities – 18
Change in sleeping habits – 16
And I could go on as many other stressors seem to come with divorce. By now, your total stress score is up to 300. You are at risk of illness. Wow – I’ve never added it up before, but that score speaks volumes.
As everyone told me, eventually I would get through it and life would get better and they were right. I did get through it and life is way better but it took considerable time for things to get better. I spent a good two to three years living with above average stress. Being a mom, I passed this stress along to my kids and I know that their dad also was in stress and did the same thing. This is not a good situation for anyone.
How could it be better?
This is something I’ve been trying to figure out.
One of my first ideas was that it should be a lot harder to get married and perhaps marriage should just be banned. Yeah – that’s not going to happen. I decided I didn’t want to go around being the dream killer. Now when people tell me that they are getting married, I just smile and say “congratulations.”
So instead I decided to be part of the movement to help people divorce better. Maybe if more and more people start divorcing better, the stressors associated with divorce will start to go down.
How can you divorce better?
Do what it takes to learn how to do conflict the right way. Doing conflict the wrong way is likely what got you to divorce and continuing to do conflict the wrong way is what makes divorce so stressful.
This is not a quick fix. After all, we have spent our entire lives learning how to do conflict our own way and we aren’t suddenly going to change just by deciding to change. It takes work and practice.
You will likely have to find a support system that is going to help you do conflict the right way. Don’t hire pitbull lawyers that love the court system and war. Hire people that will support both you and your ex as you figure out your more positive future now that you have decided to part ways. Hire people that are going to support you as you implement new tools in your life that allow you to thrive.
Spend your divorce dollars and energy wisely. Don’t spend your dollars on the type of support that is not going to help you move to a more positive life. Spend your time and energy on figuring out ways to live your life with hope.
by Renee leNobel | Oct 21, 2015 | Divorce
“People turn up in your life when you need them.”
This was said to me by someone recently and she was essentially predicting her appearance in my life.
At the time of our meeting, I was actually thinking: “I do not need
this person at all in my life.” She blew in the door and proceeded to “advise” me on how I should be living my life, and according to her beliefs, I was living my life all wrong.
Within two minutes of meeting her, she decided she had me pegged and told me I was too analytical and that I needed to think with my heart and not my head. Then she went further and told me that being analytical was why I was unhappy.
I was a little taken aback by her statements and immediately started analyzing them because yes, I am analytical. I do like to figure things out and so often take in information, analyze it and then either add it as support to my theories on life or reject it as not valid. She did read me quite well; it was actually quite impressive how she figured me out so quickly.
So I agreed with her, yes, I’m analytical, but actually, I’m pretty happy with that state of affairs so I put that argument back to her that her initial argument was flawed. Thinking with my head is not a recipe to make me unhappy, despite her strong beliefs.
This didn’t sit well with her and she spent the next hour telling me why I was wrong and why I needed to start living according to her beliefs and values system. She even stepped up the pressure by telling me I looked way older than my age and that was due to me being unhappy. Some of you may be wondering why I listened to her go on for so long. I will refer you to my blog post on
maintaining personal boundaries. Yes, in hindsight, it would have been better for me to simply stop defending my belief system to her and walk away; this is something that I will probably have to work on for the rest of my life because the people pleasing gene is strong in me (as Yoda would say).
That said, I did eventually walk away and went to my room to read
How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. Actually, I think this book waltzed it’s way into my life when I needed it. The irony was funny as my attacker was telling me I needed to dye my hair and Caitlin Moran was questioning why woman have to focus so much on maintaining their youthful looks when men spend their time worrying about how to get ahead.
My attacker eventually got the message and left me alone and then I got thinking about what had just happened (oh – I’m so analytical :))
What I started thinking about was Coaching compared to Advising.
I started thinking about how coaching worked for me and my life. My coach listened to me and what I have to say. She helped me elucidate what is important to me and what is going to drive me forward in life.
This is very different from someone that already has an idea about how life works and then tries to put those ideas onto someone else.
I can say that coaching worked for me. I don’t have to push myself to do things that I naturally want to do. I can also say that advising seemed to work for a while in my life. I did listen to what people advised me to do for a very long time but eventually the disparity between how I was living and my personal values led me to being stuck in life. I was not moving forward anymore when I was living someone else’s life.
After I had finished thinking about coaching and advising, I realized that this person did have one valid point that I will buy into. People do turn up in life when we need them, but sometimes it takes a little work (and analysis) to recognize this.
