The Real Divorce: Cutting the Emotional Ties that Bind

Your divorce decree is only step one in moving into a new life after
divorce. The real divorce is the cutting of the emotional, mental and
physical ties that still bind you to your ex-husband. This is the real
work of divorce recovery: becoming a single woman possessed of
confidence, self-esteem, an enthusiasm for life and most important, a
complete break from the emotional turmoil that led to your divorce in
the first place.

You Must Put Forth Great Effort and Inner Work that will sever your Ties
All too often, women experience the same conflicts with their ex
that originally led to divorce: constant arguments, reactive behavior
leading to emotional upsets, old patterns of reliance, the barrage of
destructive barbs aimed at your self-esteem and deep hurts. To truly be
divorced you must put forth great effort and inner work that will sever
your ties to your ex and you must build a structure that will
facilitate that work.

Let me give you examples:
You and your ex have children together therefore you must be in
contact with one another on a regular basis. Unfortunately, your
discussions with him always end in an argument. Nothing happens easily.
The deep resentments and hurts suffered in your marriage and actual
divorce remain intact. You each know each other’s hot buttons and
continue to push those buttons resulting in upsets. It’s the old
marriage still running the game. You continually get sucked into this
abyss.

Divorce on an Emotional Level
If this is the case for you, know that you have not divorced on an
emotional level. You are an ex-wife versus a divorced woman. Somewhere
inside of you there is still an attachment of some sort to either your
marriage or your ex. You need to look inside to determine where you are
still tied to him.

Lay the Ground Rules for Future Interactions
Acceptance of your new place in life is mandatory. Acceptance comes
from acknowledging that your marriage is over with no hope or wish for
it to continue. Acceptance allows you to live in a way that reveals
freedom from the past. It means living in the present and the future.
It takes work but before you can do this work, you must put in place
new rules that will lay the groundwork for a completely new
relationship with your former husband. These rules are there to protect
you from any further hurts or upsets.

Build a New Structure that Empowers You
You must build a new structure that empowers you versus
disempowering you. Take the analogy of going on a diet to lose weight.
You need to create an environment that will both motivate and move you
towards your goal. To do so you remove all of the temptations that lead
to over-eating or eating the wrong foods. You clean out all the junk
food form the cupboards and replace them with healthy and non-fattening
foods. You create a support system with a friend who you can call when
you feel yourself slipping into your old eating habits. You take on a
partner in your exercise program. In other words, you do everything
that you can to surround yourself with ways to achieve your goal.

Create an Environment that Helps
You must do the same thing when you are working at disentangling
yourself from your ex. Create an environment that will help, not hinder
your progress towards true independence. Remove all the temptations to
stay connected to your ex. Within this framework you are free to do the
inner work of healing.

Patterns Must Change
My ex and I had a fairly amiable divorce and we have managed to move
out of each other’s lives albeit for the children. Or so I thought. In
reading the book, Leaving Him Behind by
Sandra Kahn, she mentioned something that set off a light for me. My ex
has spent a good deal of time around my new home, as his condo has
taken much longer to complete as was predicted. In order for the
children to see him more often I have been extremely accommodating and
have allowed him to be in my home with the kids. He knows the code to
my house lock and oftentimes enters on his own. He has the tendency to
walk into the house, open the refrigerator door and grabs something to
eat, which is exactly what he always did when we were married. Not such
a big deal you might say. But Ms. Kahn says otherwise.

Although we have a very friendly relationship for the most part, he
is not my husband anymore. I have been far too accommodating to him. I
should have created a scenario where it was incumbent upon him to get
into his new place in order to have a place for him and the kids.

This is my house and I should have laid down the ground rules that
said he is to knock on the front door just like any other houseguest.
Houseguests do not help themselves to the food in my refrigerator. This
is him living by the old rules as if this were his home, which it is
not.

Ground Rules are Meant to Protect
These ground rules are meant to protect you and prevent any kind of
situations that could lead to an upset. Obviously the less you have to
do with your ex the better. That is not to say that you cannot have a
relationship with your ex but it has to be radically different from the
one you had while married. There are those women who cannot have their
ex in their lives for any reason other than the children. Their
emotional ties to their ex are still strong and they need to isolate
themselves in order to break those ties.

Set ground rules that determine the nature of this new relationship. These rules might include:

Let go of anything that does not serve you well
Perhaps in the future, when you have cut all of the psychological
ties to your ex that held you back form creating a new life for
yourself; you might be able to ease these rules. I doubt it. What’s
done is done and what is past is past. Let go of anything that does not
serve you well.

Work on healing your emotional wounds
You will be much more successful in healing yourself and moving on
if you have adopted rules and created an environment that keep you
physically and mentally separate from your ex. The work of healing your
emotional wounds and of learning acceptance and forgiveness for
yourself and him demands all your attention. Don’t squander your time
and effort on him. It’s all about you now, you as a single woman with
an exciting and wonderful future in front of you.

Learn more about Shelley at: lifeafteryourdivorce.com