{"id":279,"date":"2010-11-09T15:51:24","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T22:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/?p=279"},"modified":"2010-11-09T19:42:06","modified_gmt":"2010-11-10T02:42:06","slug":"the-decision-to-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/the-decision-to-divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"The Decision to Divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe the hardest decision in one’s life – the Decision to\u00a0Divorce.\u00a0 In my experience it is never a decision taken lightly.\u00a0 Here’s how i\"\"<\/a><\/a>t seems to work in most cases.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0You feel disatisfied or increasingly discouraged with the relationship.\u00a0\u00a0 After many arguments over the same thing, or attempts to get your partner to hear what is so vitally important to you, without success, the thought of ending the relationship begins to dawn.\u00a0 Imagine a bright line boundary – on one side is “Emotional Commitment to Marriage,” on the other, “Emotional Disengagement from Marriage.”\u00a0 You seem to bounce up against the boundary continually, but your commitment to your relationship is stong enough to keep you from crossing over.\u00a0 It looks a bit like this\u00a0 ……………….<\/p>\n

You can go on for months or years, just bouncing up against that boundary.\u00a0 You believe you have let your partner know that you were feeling desparate about your disconnection.\u00a0 You know that you have tried.\u00a0 Then, one day, something happens inside you.\u00a0 Maybe it was another fight over the same thing.\u00a0 Maybe it was just waking up one morning and looking at yourself in the mirror and knowing something has changed inside of you.\u00a0 Whatever the spur – you have crossed over the boundary…and this boundary that for a moment seemed open enough for you to pass through has closed up.\u00a0 It has become an emotional, impenetrable wall.\u00a0\u00a0 Now your process looks something like this:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>\"\"<\/a>When I start the process of divorce mediation with a couple, one of the first things I\u00a0want to determine\u00a0is whether one of the partners has crossed over that line.\u00a0 Almost always this has occurred.\u00a0\u00a0 On the infrequent occasions it hasn’t, a referral to a couples therapist is always made.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

A really important lesson I have learned over the years is that once a person has crossed over that boundary they have made a decision that is unchangeable.\u00a0 If you are the partner who feels left, you\u00a0may experience a wide range of wrenching emotions – grief, fury, confusion, a sense of betrayal.\u00a0\u00a0 My recommendation is to get help with those emotions.\u00a0 Seek out counseling.\u00a0 Read helpful books, like Bruce Fisher’s excellent, Rebuilding<\/a>.\u00a0 Your life has changed – and while you may need to process through the trauma\u00a0 and\u00a0the deep sense of injustice you may feel, once your partner has crossed over the line they will not cross back.\u00a0 While you may be drawn to do whatever you can to try to get them to do this, those efforts will amost certainly be fruitless and (here’s the important part) they will cause you deep and lacerating pain and frustration.\u00a0 My hope for those who have been left is that\u00a0you find the resources\u00a0you need to manage the pain and direct your energy to caring for yourself and slowly discovering your path to recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe the hardest decision in one’s life – the Decision to\u00a0Divorce.\u00a0 In my experience it is never a decision taken lightly.\u00a0 Here’s how it seems to work in most cases.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0You feel disatisfied or increasingly discouraged with the relationship.\u00a0\u00a0 After many arguments over the same thing, or attempts to get your partner to hear what is Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42,4],"tags":[13,23],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}