While You Wait....
During the divorce process you will need to learn to wait. This is especially difficult if your divorce starts with an immediate event. Most divorces don’t go through that period but a small population do. They have police involved, money is gone, a kid gets taken, someone goes to jail, and all of a sudden your world is turned upside down. In these situations, there’s a mad rush as things are happening and getting done.
When in this mode of urgency, everything you do feels like it has to be done ‘right now.’ It’s how you feel. It’s how it is. What is extremely difficult though is after the ‘emergency’ is over, you have to get down to the mode of existing without an emergency. Every email is not immediate. Every move does not have to be double guessed. Every action does not need to be noted. Now, after the emergency has passed, you wait.
What do you do while you wait? Keep emailing your lawyer? Maybe. Constantly follow up with the other parent while the kids are with them on text or your parenting app? Not a great idea. Obsess and fester over why your ex is such a jerk and terrible, what an idiot they are? That’s an option. Better yet you can spend all your time thinking about how they did not even appreciate you or anything about you. Do you think that is a good use of time? Oh, you can fixate on your kid’s school or the other parent not working and make that your whole life. That’s an option I’ve seen chosen too.
It does happen that after one emergency another will follow. You will need to prepare. I suggest that obsessing over why the other person is a jerk is not going to help you. Assuming others will understand there is a lie or that the person is awful is a mistake. You need to do the work to explain your story. Get ready and that means preparing yourself and your team in an effective way.
The truth is that of course you are going to spend time thinking about a lot of things and story lines. Learning about your options and thinking about them makes sense. You are also going to want to do something about it. Over the years though I’ve learned that, generally, you didn’t marry a total idiot. I have also learned that you have not gone totally unappreciated. Generally too, the fight over school choice is not about the school. Relationships are hard. They just are. Give yourself space to breathe.
Coming out of a divorce has a lot of emotional baggage. It just does. The longer the marriage in these types of situations the more difficult it can be to emotionally process why someone did what and how to move forward. This baggage can cause the rumination or fixation on ancillary issues. This mind-frame can turn into a harmful crutch. You will need to figure out how to move forward with your prior story lines having to share space with new ones.
Feel free to obsess over whatever you want. But, I want to encourage you to turn the lens onto yourself. Work on yourself. Think about what you can improve. Everyone can use a reset. Are you eating right? Learning new things? Exercising? Sleeping? Did I mention exercising? I’m not saying run 4 hours a day. But are you releasing physical energy? Do you talk to family or a friend? Are you laughing? Are you working on your listening? Are you focused when you speak? Practicing some form of discipline? It’s important to talk but are you focused? Is what you are doing worthy of your time?
I suggest you use your time wisely while you wait, exert some sort of discipline, and work on yourself. You have to wait anyways and what better way to spend your time than on yourself…?