by Renee leNobel | Aug 18, 2015 | Divorce
I often wonder if there are other parents out there like me. I start wondering it about five minutes after dropping my kids off at school. Day one of five days they are with their dad on our 2255 parenting schedule. Are there other parents out there that know what a 2255 parenting schedule means? I have yet to meet them and when I explain it to intact families, their eyes glaze over and say “how do you keep track of that? Oh, we have a shared Google Calendar, but I don’t need it. I know when my kids are coming back and I know when they are going to be leaving. I wish I didn’t know as both the anticipation of their return and the dread of their leaving wreaks havoc on my day. I call the days that lie on either side of the day my kids come and go “Transition Days” and it seems like every other day is a Transition Day.
I am always surprised by the waves of sadness that overtake me. Just thirty minutes earlier as I hustled the kids into the car I was feeling annoyed because they weren’t getting their school bags or putting their shoes on. The night before I was exhausted after a day spent as an accountant in the final days of tax season and as a single parent whose two rambunctious sons would not get ready for bed. My six year old son had stayed up until 10 pm and wanted me to sleep with him, likely because he sensed the emotions running high in the house but I needed some alone time to recharge after a long day. Oh the irony. I would be having five days of alone time starting in twelve hours. So he fell asleep on the couch in the room next to where I was watching TV and I carried his sweet sleeping person up to bed and tried to hold onto the feeling of having my son in my arms because I knew it would be gone the next day.
I have learned to schedule things for the time that my kids are gone, but I can’t schedule all of it. After all, I am single now and when the kids are gone I put myself to bed and wake up alone. Today I’m meeting a friend fairly early. She is going to text me just after 8 am, but I wake up at 6 am and the silence of the house reminds me that my kids are not here. It seems small, crowded and messy when the kids are here but when they are gone, I basically live in one room and even that seems too big.
So it is impossible to not be alone when my kids are gone. I try to think of many of my friends who tell me that they would kill to have the chance to sleep in and do what they wanted for the day. I try to remind myself of how just yesterday I was trying to fade into the background at home so my kids would forget I was there and not demand that I play Crazy Eights with them. I also know that my kids are happy with their dad and taken care of, not to my standard of course, but then, they are getting a different experience of how to live with their dad and more ways of seeing how the world works can only help them.
But my waking and going to sleep thoughts always bring me back to how I have my children in my life for a short time which has been shortened again by half and then the sadness overtakes me. I wonder if it will ever go away. Perhaps I will simply have to manage my grief until that time my kids are older and would be leaving the nest anyway. Maybe by then, the sadness will leave me.
by Renee leNobel | Aug 7, 2015 | Divorce
When you think of your life up until this point does it make you happy or do you focus on the negative aspects of your past and use it as an excuse to stop moving forward?
How we view the past often depends on how we perceive our present life. If you are living with challenging circumstances, it is hard not to let your current situation influence your thoughts about the past, present and future.
When I was going through my divorce I was looking for proof of how I had gotten to that point. In the thick of my divorce process, every memory of shared moments with my ex took on a negative hue. I would mine my memories for proof that I was never meant to marry that person. Then I would beat myself up for having been so stupid. Clearly, every memory indicated that we were not supposed to be together – how could it have taken me 20 years to realise this? So I decided to try not to think about it at all.
As I had shared 20 years of my life with this person, I wiped out a good chunk of happy memories. In addition, I reasoned that childhood had led me to my partner of 20 years and so I wrote my childhood memories off as well. My life path had led me to one big point of failure – divorce. Failure kept going through my brain. All I had left was one failed marriage, no career and unhappy kids.
People and self-help books advised me to remember the good moments I had shared with my ex, to hopefully prevent me from what I was doing which was allowing my past to overshadow my present and future. Because that is what I was doing; I was projecting my past into my future and that was stopping me in my tracks. What was the point of having a future that looked like my very unhappy past?
My coach helped me find a way out of these circular and self-defeating thoughts and she did this by helping me change my thoughts about the present.
My coach first told me that it wasn’t my life that had failed. It was simply my relationship with one person. Then she helped me define what success means to me and helped me find proof that I had succeeded according to my own terms of success.
After that, my past started to take on a different hue. I was now focussing on how I had succeeded in life according to my own definition of success. Once I started to see how I had in fact succeeded, my coach pointed out that my past had gotten me to where I was. All those things I perceived as mistakes were actually lessons designed specifically for me to get me closer to what I wanted out of life.
This was by no means a quick fix. It took time and practice.
But the recipe is clear. Look for success in your present life and the positive evidence you find will carry back to your past memories and forward into your hopeful future.
by Renee leNobel | Jul 31, 2015 | Divorce
I had an uncomfortable conversation with a friend last night. She is in the middle of a very bitter divorce and she is feeling fearful of the outcome which will be decided by a judge.
A brief history of her situation.
Let’s call her Sara. Sara is getting divorced from her husband. They have two young children and she has been the main breadwinner in their family although her husband has been working in a less lucrative career.
I had always assumed that Sara loved her job. She is outwardly successful, very outgoing and has a good group of friends that she both works with and socialises with. Last night I found out that I had made a wrong assumption. Sara does not love her job and has really only stayed in it to support her family. Her dream is to start up her own company but she now feels like she can’t because the court will perceive that she is simply attempting to get out of her obligation to pay spousal support and child support.
Then she went further and talked about how her ex has been purposely underemployed for years (he stepped away from a well paying job to start his own business just before the kids were born) and it is his obligation to go back to a job that he is perfectly capable of doing and that pays more than his current situation.
Essentially, what she was saying is that it is naive to think we can all follow our dreams. Our discussion got a little bit heated and she stated at one point “everyone has to work, it’s just a rule of society.” The other thought behind her comment was that everyone has to take the best paying job they can get even if they are not happy. Sara’s ex is currently choosing to be underemployed and she has to bear the brunt of his choice. She has to stay in a job she doesn’t like because the rules of society say so.
After my discussion with Sara I thought about everything she had said. I was rather upset about a number of things which I will refer to as Sara’s rules:
The first rule: everyone has to suck it up and take the highest paying job they are capable of if they have kids and responsibilities. To do otherwise is flaky and selfish.
The second rule: work generally sucks. Everyone would rather retire if they could. Within this rule is a sub-rule. If you like what you’re doing, it’s not work.
The third rule: life is inherently unfair. Simply because Sara held the higher paying job at the time of her separation from her husband, she would forever have to pay child support and spousal support based on that situation.
I must say our conversation kept me up last night. I immediately got defensive and I lay there in bed coming up with arguments against the rules. Thank goodness that when I finally fell asleep my brain let those arguments go and gave me some better thoughts for when I woke up.
The first thing that my brain reminded me was that defensiveness keeps us locked into buying into made up rules and opinions. Because I was putting up opposing arguments to Sara’s rules, I was turning them into facts instead of just one person’s opinions. I was holding Sara’s arguments out as truth and was trying to pick holes in them. Instead, I now recognize that her rules are just one person’s opinion (and yes, I would say her rules are the prevalent opinions in society). They are opinions based in fear and the worst case scenario. They are not the default outcome for Sara’s life. They are outcomes that likely have a higher probability of occurring. Especially if Sara resigns herself to the fact that these rules are true and that life is unfair.
This led me to the second thought which was that Sara’s ideas are keeping her trapped.
It appears to me that Sara has given up on her dreams. She is hiding behind these rules she has created for herself; she has turned her rules into hard and fast facts of the world that she has no control over.
So I’m going to call Sara back. I want to hold out her rules for her to see and I’m going to ask her if they are the ones she wants to live by.
Instead, I hope Sara agrees to letting me help her find out what drives her and what gives her hope. I will help her get clarity about where she is in life from a financial perspective and from a personal values perspective. Then I’m hoping Sara will see that she does have choice in her life and it is not these rules that she has created for herself and bought into that are controlling the outcome of her life.
by Renee leNobel | May 20, 2015 | Divorce
When my ex and I first separated, I spent a long time trying to craft my emails to my ex so that there was nothing offensive in them. I did not want him to attack back as reading those attacks was pretty painful. How could this person that I had been a partner to for 20 years, whom I’d had children with, whom I’d put first in life, write these things about me?
So I spent hours crafting my emails to try to be clear and concise, without blame and without judgement.
I would still get attack emails back. There was always something that got misinterpreted by him.
I would try to defend myself and would again, take the time to carefully write my email and I would still get upsetting emails back.
This was brutal. He found ways to tear down all my defenses and invade my boundaries.
One day, something happened that put me over the edge. I was exhausted by this back and forth conflict. I needed to move on with my life and get out of this viscous cycle.
I started following the rules I created for myself:
- Keep emails short – five sentences maximum
- Wait a day or two after getting an icky reply before replying back.
- Do not defend myself, especially if he asks me to. I’m just giving him more opportunities to attack my values and beliefs
- Do not discuss my email communication between myself and my ex with others
These rules are very hard to stick to but I’m getting lots of practice and if you are recently separated, I bet you are too.
by Renee leNobel | May 20, 2015 | Divorce
My ex sent me a doozy of an attack email the other day. He sent it on Monday and it is now Wednesday. It was a good reminder to me of what I’ve learned this past year and the havoc these types of emails cause. I really have to thank him for it because he is giving me the inspiration to write blog posts that can potentially help others, in addition to giving me a chance to test my theories on communication.
Let me start with what the email did to me because despite all my work this past year on myself, I still take what he says in and I still have to work his words through my processing system before they become inert and no longer provoke an emotional response. I am writing this to help those people that are tempted to send off a good zinger of an attack email. If you understand what it does to the person on the receiving end, then perhaps it will stop you from doing it. It helps stop me. Here is how I process an attack email:
The first thing that happens is that I don’t really want to read the email when I see it in my inbox. The one I got on Monday was 14 paragraphs and 770 words, so I instinctively knew it was not going to be good.
I do a quick speed read for offensive or attack words – in this case there were quite a few.
I try to pick out the important information while avoiding the attacks and barbs and I reply what is needed while resisting the urge to attack back.
I do a little happy dance and pat myself on the back for being so strong and for not engaging any more. Wow – my work this year has really paid off. (Imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t done all this personal work. I would have sent an attack back and the conflict would last a good week…based on my experience).
Then I try to get on with what I was doing before I got the attack email. In this case, I was working from home at my desk. Oh darn, billable hours got impacted. My day had a little cloud inserted that now I have to deal with.
I realize I need to do some stuff so I can go back to concentrating on my work.
I journal. I go back and re-read the email. I break it down and see how it fits the pattern and analyse it.
I contemplate calling my friend, but I don’t. I know that doesn’t work (see my blog on ranting).
I think what a complete idiot my ex is.
I contemplate how to get even. I resist getting even.
I scrub my porch.
I go for a walk.
I go to bed.
Hey! On Tuesday I’m better and work productively all day.
On Wednesday I start thinking about it again. I feel pretty good about it. Should I follow up with my ex and go through what happened to prevent it from happening again?
Nah – I’ll write this blog post instead.
and then I’ll write this one.
by Renee leNobel | May 19, 2015 | Divorce
Divorce is horrible. That is an understatement. I had no idea how horrible until I went through the divorce process myself.
Ok, it may not be horrible for everyone, like those couples that have mutually agreed that it is for the best if they go their separate ways and can amicably agree on how that should be done. Wouldn’t it would be great if divorce truly was an amicable process and both parties thought it was for the best? Life coaches could be doing more work helping people live their dreams as opposed to helping people simply get through another meeting or conversation with their ex. Based on my observations of the world though, most people don’t divorce amicably.
This post is for those non-amicable couples. It is for people who suddenly find themselves in the middle of a divorce and aren’t quite sure how they got there.
This post is also designed to get you through the acute stage of divorce (the one to two years surrounding your separation date). It is for those people who are so emotional that they cannot read one of the 200 – 400 page books on how to divorce and who do not have the money to pay for a life coach or psychologist on top of the legal fees.
The first thing to understand is that divorce is conflict based. It involves two people who want to go their separate ways and each of them has a different idea of how to do that. If they were in agreement on how to separate, they’d belong in the amicable divorcing couple category and would not need to read this post.
The second thing to understand is that improperly dealing with conflict (either by avoiding it, succumbing to it, or by getting off on it) is what makes divorce horrible and it hurts your kids if they are watching. This is not an oversimplification.
So how does one properly deal with conflict? That is what a considerable number of professionals spend a good chunk of time researching and figuring out. I have honed it down to what works for me:
- You agree to not go to court to settle your differences. Court is designed to increase conflict. While you are in the court process you are gathering evidence to use against your ex instead of figuring out what it is you both need to move on. There are other ways to get a divorce including mediation and the Collaborative Legal approach.
- You pro-actively agree on a communication plan and you stick to the rules of that plan. Here are some basics:
- Only contact your ex (email, texting and phone) between the hours of 9:00 am and 5:00 pm unless it is an emergency (and it would be a good idea to outline what constitutes an emergency and you may need someone to help you with this if you disagree, see below).
- Keep all emails brief. I recommend no more than five (5) sentences. For example: “I bought shoes for the children, would you please consider paying for half?”
- When your ex replies to your initial email in a way you do not like, do not respond for a least a day. Maybe two. THIS IS VERY HARD TO DO. Eventually you will start to see a pattern of what happens when you get in an email war with your ex and that will be enough to stop you from doing it in the future (again, spoken from experience).
- Let your ex know you received the email and you will be responding in a day (or two if that is what you decided).
- Do not argue your case or defend yourself in an email or even in person without a neutral third party present. Why? It is very hard to make an argument without your ex perceiving it as an attack. This gives your ex the go ahead and motivation to attack back. When you defend yourself, it it like an invitation to your ex to find holes in your defense.
- Decide what is important to you that you cannot let go of. Arrange a meeting with your ex to discuss this important issue. If the meeting starts to go south, simply stop talking. Adjourn the meeting and take some time (at least a day) to think about it and reassess how important your issue is to you. If it is still important, arrange to meet with your ex again with a neutral (preferably professional mediator or lawyer) present.
- Don’t discuss the communication between you and your ex with anyone else.
- Do not communicate with your ex about serious issues in a public place unless you both have agreed to do so beforehand.
- Do not criticize, gossip or talk about your ex. I know this hard not to do and I still do it, but complaining about my ex to others keeps me in a negative frame of mind. I do not want my main memories of my life to be riddled with all the bad thoughts I was having about my ex. I want room for joy in my life.
- Forgive yourself when you succumb to the lure of conflict. It takes time and practice.
