Getting out of Limbo

by | Sep 2, 2024 | Divorce and Separation

Getting out of limbo

 

It is C+16 since my world changed, and I find myself in limbo.

Pardon me if you don’t understand my lingo. Coincidentally, I am reading “Seveneves” by Neal Stephenson, a story about a BIG world change: the destruction of Earth because an agent breaks up the moon into little pieces. The science is over my head, but everyone has time to prepare for the end of the world because there is a lag between the moon breakup and the Earth’s destruction. The characters decide it’s time to establish a new calendar, and AD and CE are gone, replaced by A (for Agent), plus the number of days since the Agent hit the moon.

Today is March 29, 2020, 16 days after my kids were ordered not to go to school and we were all instructed not to leave our homes unless absolutely necessary. So it’s C+16 (C for COVID) since the Global Pandemic changed my world and the world of most of us. At C+16, it feels like the significant impact has happened, and I am living my new normal.

That…was…fast. As I stood in line at my local grocery store yesterday, two metres apart as the stickers on the floor guided me, I had an out-of-body experience. Suddenly I was a character from one of the endless dystopian books I have read and continue to read.

When I got up to the cashier, I smiled at her. She looked utterly frazzled. I asked how she was doing. “Not as good as thirty minutes ago when I started my shift.” She was an older woman who told me she had just returned to work after being off for four months due to a shoulder injury. Her grown children were mad at her for coming back, but as she explained, she had no choice. I packed my own bags so she wouldn’t have to and tried to channel calm to her, but I knew my chest was tight, so I was probably channelling stress instead. I thanked her and left.

I’ve set up a routine to deal with my new normal. It’s not one I would “normally” choose, but it gets me through the day so that I can do it again the next one. My youngest wakes up, feeds the cat, empties the dishwasher, begs for the Switch, gets told to read instead. My teenager drifts in, gets breakfast, negotiates Switch time with his brother. At 11:15 sharp, someone announces they’re hungry. We eat, we argue about what to do next, we get outside somewhere between one and four. Then it’s happy hour, dinner, more Switch, storytime, bed at 9- Groundhog Day style. Yes, I still make my teenager sit through storytime. We’re making our way through Narnia again. It’s one of the highlights of my day, and I’ve told him plainly: if he wants Switch time, he has to do storytime and outside time first. He is almost convinced.

That’s been my day for the last 16 days, minus the days my kids were with their dad. Hallelujah.

Some of you might think, ” Must be nice.” Others might think, “I don’t think I could do that for 16 days straight.” That’s because it’s my schedule. I built it after knowing all my constraints and what I was and wasn’t willing to live with.

Building it reminded me of my separation. I’ve lived through the end of a world before.

When I was newly separated, I had a schedule that got me through the interim period, that stretch between deciding to separate and actually having two new lives in two homes. I was on mom auto-pilot. My kids were seven and four. I took care of them, and when they were with their dad, I cried, took long baths, and phoned my friend Barb for therapy, because I thought I couldn’t afford the real thing. I cursed the world, and I cursed my spouse for throwing me into an interim period I had no control over.

I drifted for a year, blown around like a leaf, at the whims of family law, my emotions, my spouse, and my kids. Then I began my new normal as a divorced mom of a seven- and four-year-old. I still had day-long cry fests after drop-offs. I still had conflicts with my ex. I dragged myself out of bed to survive the day and to make sure my kids did too, but I was miserable.

About six months post-divorce, I had a breakdown, or maybe it was an epiphany. I decided I wasn’t going to keep going about my days the way I had been.

It took longer the first time. But I built a new normal. I learned how to deal with my constraints, the biggest one being my own emotional state. I realized my thoughts about the unaffordability of therapy were costing me more than therapy actually would, so I hired a coach, someone else’s help, not mine, and we started co-creating something new.

I was building resilience and learning to adapt to hard things and come out the other side still standing.

The separation days were horrid. I was being blown around by a force I couldn’t control. The C+ days are horrid too, and I have no control over them.

And I’m going to be okay.

Divorce is a Stoplight

Divorce is a Stoplight

by | Feb 6, 2018 | Divorce and Separation, Money

Divorce Is a Stoplight

A few months ago, I was at a presentation about money. It wasn’t about tax rules or investing. It was about how hard it is to talk about money.

I know that; I thought to myself, an A-plus for me.

That night, we were all asked what money meant to each of us. Answers varied, but I knew mine right away.

For me, money is strongly linked to my sense of self-worth. That undercurrent drives a lot of our society, whether we admit it or not.

When I was negotiating my divorce, I felt like I had no voice and no value, because I wasn’t earning any income as a stay-at-home mom. Every meeting with divorce coaches and lawyers was torturous, because I didn’t feel heard. I was lost. I didn’t know why I did the things I did, or what value I brought to the family. I believed everyone was listening to my co-parent. He held the power. After all, he earned the income; therefore, he had more value since he made more money. I believed this for most of my life. Honestly, some part of it still lurks under the surface in me, the same way I think it lurks under the surface of our society.

I felt like I couldn’t live according to my own values. I’d walked away from a well-paying job as a financial analyst to be a stay-at-home parent, and during our legal meetings, the only thing I kept hearing was some version of: when is Renée going to get her high-paying job back?

When, indeed.

Instead of figuring out what I actually needed to move forward, I proposed a plan to do exactly that: get back to that job. It was written into our separation agreement, my plan for getting my career back, laid out clearly on page five. I wanted that agreement. I thought once I had it, I’d be able to move on. The divorce coaches and lawyers, all collaborative, tried to help me figure out what I actually wanted, but I didn’t know myself. Being the type-A person I am, and wanting to save money, I kept driving the process forward while burying the emotions that kept trying to surface. I did the budgets. I figured out how to divide the money. I thought that part was the easy part.

My life since then hasn’t followed the clear path I thought it would. It was never just a matter of making logical choices to reach an end goal.

Underneath it all, I was fighting a battle against my own assumptions about what was expected of me, and it wasn’t until I got a handle on that that decisions started to feel easier.

Since then, working with people navigating their own divorces, I’ve noticed we’re mostly on the same path. I’ve yet to meet someone who can easily choose between financial options when they’re in the middle of separating. I’ve yet to meet someone who can clearly articulate what they’re actually feeling about their financial situation as it happens.

Financial professionals are often the first people newly separated couples contact. Society has driven home the message that divorce is about dividing the money, so it makes sense that people go looking for someone who knows the rules for splitting it. But that’s not actually where to start.

Divorce is a stoplight. Life is telling you that you’re not living according to what actually drives you, and you’ve reached a point where you can’t keep going down the road you were on. You can sit at that intersection a long time before you figure out how to make it turn green.

The truth is, no single professional gets you through that intersection alone. You need a team: a financial professional to help you understand where you stand and what your options actually look like, a mental health professional or coach to help you figure out what you actually want, separate from what everyone around you expects, and a lawyer to handle the legal side and document whatever you decide.

I didn’t have that team working together the way I needed. My separation agreement ended up outlining a life I didn’t actually want, because nobody had helped me figure out what I wanted before we wrote it down.

If there’s one thing worth taking from my own experience, it’s that: don’t let your separation agreement quietly become a document that maps out someone else’s expectations of you.

Renaming the Divorcemobile

Renaming the Divorcemobile

by | Feb 6, 2018 | Money

Renaming the Divorcemobile

A client once asked me what kind of car to buy. I didn’t have a standard answer, because it depends entirely on the person, their situation, and what actually matters to them, which is different for everyone. Making decisions more easily comes down to knowing yourself.

When I first bought a car after my divorce, an eleven-year-old Toyota Corolla with low miles and low street appeal, I called it my “divorcemobile.” I recently renamed it. It’s my trusty steed now: good gas mileage, hasn’t cost me much to fix, gets me where I need to go.

When I first named that car, I was looking at it through what I thought other people saw. What other people think isn’t really my business. My business is knowing myself and living by my own values. Keeping what goes out below what comes in is part of how I run my life, and my trusty steed is one small, steady piece of that.

Understanding where you actually stand financially is the other half of making good decisions. I was forced into that reckoning when I separated. I’d never needed to budget before my divorce; I’d always kept a surplus and put it toward savings, but divorce wiped that out. When I finally sat down and did the math, it confirmed what I feared: I was in a deficit. Child support and a small amount of savings were what I had coming in. Newly divorced and job hunting, I’d look at that number and cry. How would I ever climb out?

I slashed my spending, dipped further into my RRSP than I wanted to, and got some coaching help. Slowly, my situation turned around. My inflows caught up to my outflows again. Now my kids are heading into their post-secondary years, and I can feel that old fear bubbling up again.

After the divorce, I didn’t believe I’d ever have money for a nicer car. I was right. I’ve put my earnings toward things I decided mattered more.

When you’re in the middle of a stressful life transition, you’ll face some genuinely significant decisions. Don’t base them on what other people tell you matters. Base them on what actually works for you. It’s tempting to decide quickly to escape the discomfort of being stuck, but don’t trade long-term clarity for short-term relief. Take the time actually to know yourself first. Every decision gets easier once you do.

Bringing Back Time

by | Oct 9, 2017 | Divorce and Separation

Bringing Time Back

I start new posts all the time. Most of them are about time, fittingly, since I usually run out of it before I finish writing them. Lately even the starting has slowed down.

I noticed this a few months ago and didn’t want to admit it. I’m admitting it now, on the tail end of Thanksgiving weekend, visiting my sister, kids fed, dishes done, nothing left demanding my attention for once.

I sat with that stillness and asked myself what I actually wanted to do.

Last week my life felt out of control. Everything felt like too much. I was close to doing something dramatic just to feel like I’d taken my life back, my old way of dealing with pain. Drama changes things for a while. It doesn’t fix the actual problem. But it feels like it will.

The actual problem was that I’d taken on too much.

So instead of anything dramatic, I took time to figure out what I actually needed. I stopped trying to finish everything on my list and started figuring out what could wait. I did only what was essential. I ate properly. I finally went grocery shopping so my kids could eat too. I went to bed when they did. I told clients clearly what needed doing and by when, and started turning down new work and social invitations I didn’t have room for. I made it back to yoga for the first time in weeks.

As I built that space back into my life, things got better.

It reminded me of the hardest stretch of my separation and divorce, when my instinct was to plow through and just get it over with. That approach didn’t lead anywhere good. I got through the divorce, but I paid for the way I got through it in other ways too.

Now, working with people navigating their own separations, I’ve noticed something: the ones who take their time, who let their emotions settle before sitting down with a spouse, who take care of themselves instead of taking their frustration out on their kids, come out the other side in better shape than the ones trying to force it all through at once.

I’m reminded, again, that time and care is how I want to live, and that I should probably practice what I preach.

This Thanksgiving, I was grateful for the extra day the long weekend gives us. It was that one bonus day that gave me the space to remember what I’d stopped doing for myself.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Rest Got me here

by | Jul 24, 2017 | Divorce and Separation

Rest Got Me Here

My blogging has taken a hit lately. My last post was February 3rd. That’s a long time.

Blog hiatuses are a pattern with me. Tax season, kids, summer, Kits Pool, biking, hiking, life in general- they all get in the way.

In the past, guilt would have made that list too. I’ve learned guilt doesn’t actually do anything for me except drag me down and eat up time I don’t have. Its voice still shows up, but I face it down and send it away now. That takes about thirty seconds these days. It used to take weeks.

Self-blame used to eat up even more time. I’d spend hours arguing with myself over why I wasn’t blogging. It went something like: you spent every night this week watching Netflix after the kids went to bed; you could’ve been working, or blogging, or exercising. And my answer: I was so tired I probably would have made mistakes, written badly, or hurt myself. Then I’d eat some chocolate chips to feel better, and pass out.

None of that guilt or self-blame ever actually brought me back to blogging.

What did was taking time for myself.

Last week I was at camp with my kids. Someone else cooked every meal. No laundry. Tax season was finally over. My kids are at the age where they disappear with friends, and I only see them for our daily hour together and at bedtime. I had time. I read a book. I swam every day. I actually got to talk to other moms.

Five days of real rest, and here I am blogging again, from a place of calm instead of guilt. It’s so much easier this way. This post took me an hour. The guilt-and-self-blame ones used to take days.

This theme keeps circling back for me: rest leading to everything else working better, and I see the opposite of it constantly in my work with people navigating separation and divorce. So much angst and blame gets wrapped up in that process.

I understand it firsthand. The years around my own separation and divorce were brutal. I used to sit on the couch wondering if I was having a heart attack. I felt guilty any time I took time for myself, so I kept pushing through, certain things would get better eventually. I blamed myself, my co-parent, probably my parents too, for the state of things. I took almost no time for myself, and my life was hard because of it. Arguments with my co-parent could drag on for weeks. Nothing worked.

Things got better once I started actually resting. That took time. It’s been four years since my separation, and rest still isn’t a permanent fixture in my life, but it’s getting closer because I can feel what it does when it’s there. Blame is mostly gone too. Mostly. It’s a sneaky one.

When I’m not in emotional upheaval, everything runs more smoothly. Simple to say. Not simple to live.

I’ll come back to this theme again. It’s the kind of thing that needs repeating.