Divorce and the Family
How to Heal Your Heart and Protect Your
Loved Ones
Chapter 1 - Introduction
(excerpt)
How To Use This Guide
This book is literally
a blueprint that will provide you with important information
about healing and maintaining your immediate family relationships
and relationships with your close friends during and after
a divorce. Many divorcees find they often share the same
friends, co-workers or even confidants as their partner.
This can make divorce challenging not just for the couple,
but also for their friends and family.
Taking Sides
During A Divorce
Many parents worry
their children will side with one parent or another. In
the best of circumstances, it is important that both parents
respect each other enough to encourage the children to
love each parent equally.
Children are easily
persuaded, so unless your ex is truly a horrible person
or someone dangerous to your children, you should not
encourage your children to take sides.
Of course, when it
comes to divorce, your children may not be the only people
you have concerns with when it comes to taking sides…
People often worry
about who they should take "sides" with during
a divorce. For example, a couple may share the same friends.
If this is the case, who gets the friends? It seems like
an absurd analogy, but in today's society this is often
the way couples think of divorce.
Will this type of thinking
end anytime soon? Only with great effort and change within
the public at large. Unfortunately this mindset is propagated
by highly publicized divorces, like that of Jennifer Aniston
and Brad Pitt for example. Here you have a classic case
where not only is a divorce publicized, but the general
public goes around wearing t-shirts with the emblems,
"Team Jennifer" or "Team Jolie" or
even "Team Pitt."
The good news is you
are likely not a celebrity, so you probably will not have
to worry about friends and family walking around with
t-shirts showing their support (or lack of) for your cause.
You may find however, that you feel closer to some of
your former friends than others, and your ex may feel
the same way.
When it comes to your
parents and those of your ex, the situation may seem even
more complicated. The best way to handle this is to be
true to you. During and after divorce, you have many stressful
events to concern yourself with. There is no reason at
this point to worry about whether you should still attend
your ex's grandmother's 80th birthday. Time will tell
if this is an appropriate gesture or not.
Many people find the
best way to cope is simply to move on, to limit contact
with their ex to visits with their children, and with
their new partner or wife if they remarry. You need to
literally learn to "navigate" your way through
sticky situations.
It seems difficult
at first, but eventually you will find the practice habitual.
You will learn what makes you most comfortable, and more
importantly learn what makes your children and extended
family most comfortable.
You will need to learn
to navigate the waters of divorce however, by knowing
and understanding what to expect before, during and after
a divorce. You can use the exercises and tools in this
guide to help preserve the integrity of your family, and
ensure your children grow up in a safe, secure and loving
environment, even if you do split from your partner.
