Divorce with Adult Children: The Challenges

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Going through a divorce with adult children still presents problems for families. While it may be easier for an adult child to understand the situation better than a younger child, there are still challenges that a family will face.

Divorce with Adult Children: Things to Expect

Emotional Stress

It’s easy to think that divorce will only hurt young children, but divorce with adult children can be challenging too. It can still certainly emotionally affect their grown children. Parents will lean more on their adult children for emotional support, which may not happen with younger children. The parents share more about their personal details with adult children, which can lead to the children feeling uncomfortable and taking sides.

Grown children can also be angrier with their parents, because they think their parents should have divorced earlier. They can carry guilt if they find out their parents only stayed together in an unhappy marriage just for their sake.

Be Understanding and Supportive

While parents are entitled to separate if they choose to, it’s important that the parents try to speak to their kids with facts instead of with emotion. The act of divorce is emotional. However, joking or making rude comments about the other parent is harmful and can lead to a divide.

While divorce with adult children will not lead to custody battles or switching homes during the week, it can still have other implications. Adult children may need space and time to accept that their parents are getting a divorce, so make sure they are given that space if they need it.

Celebrating Holidays

When going through a divorce with adult children, you will still see issues around holidays. This could include trying to determine where the family will spend Thanksgiving or Christmas. If the divorce is amicable, then the best solution will be to try and get the family together and celebrate as one unit. If the divorce was messy, then you may need to split the two holidays with your former spouse. Another option would be to celebrate those holidays on different days than your ex is.

While many people may not think of the tolls of divorce on grown children, it certainly can affect them. It may affect them in different way than it does young kids, but it still will be difficult. Don’t dismiss their feelings and try to work through this difficult together.

Toxic Marriage: Signs To Watch For

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Ending up in a marriage where you’ve fallen out of love can be tough to grapple with. It can also be hard to tell when exactly this shift has occurred. However, there are some common signs of a toxic marriage you can look out for. That way, you can know when your marriage may no longer be working out…

Toxic Marriage: Common Indicators

No longer friends

One sign of a toxic marriage is when you feel like you aren’t friends with your partner anymore. It’s important for a couple to be friends as well as lover. You should be able to hang out and have fun, just like you would be if you were only friends.

If you find that you can’t do that anymore, though, then it could indicate things have turned toxic. This is especially true if you find yourself feeling awkward of frustrated when hanging out with them. Once you can no longer be friendly, your marriage itself will begin to weaken.

You can’t compromise

Something else which is important for a good marriage is compromising. Being able to compromise with your spouse is important for keeping the peace. As you strike a balance with a compromise, it shows that you and your partner can still work together to find solutions, even if you disagree at first.

Not being able to compromise can be an indication of a toxic marriage. Instead of being able to meet in the middle, you’ll both fight over who is right and who is wrong. This shows that you and your partner don’t respect each other’s feelings or opinions anymore.

You imagine a marriage-free life

A pretty apparent sign that you’re in a toxic marriage is when you’re already envisioning a life outside of it. When you thought about your future before, you probably envisioned being with your spouse. The goals you had planned out were something that you felt you could achieve alongside your spouse, while helping them do the same.

Now, it could be the case that you don’t even think about them being in your plans anymore. Rather, you imagine yourself doing things on your own. At this point, it can be pretty clear that there’s a lack of connection between you and your partner.

Peaceful Divorce: Minimize Conflict

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Most people assume that a divorce is going to have a lot of conflict. However, many separating partners actually have a relatively peaceful divorce. While it may not always be easy, making a few changes can help you keep conflict to a minimum…

Peaceful Divorce: Avoid Fights

Start off properly

Having a peaceful divorce depends a lot on how you bring up the divorce itself. Depending on how you break the news to your partner, they’ll be more or less likely to get upset. For instance, if you place all the blame on them and get very emotional, they’ll probably respond in a similar, angry manner. This can set a very negative tone for the rest of the divorce

Instead, you want to tell them your feelings peacefully and calmly someplace private. Don’t just start blaming them for everything that went wrong. Rather, explain how you feel and how you hope you can go about matters without conflict. In this situation, your partner is much more likely to agree with you.

Think things through

Your friends and family are very important for helping you during your divorce. At the same time, they’ll also want to give their input on the situation. While their intentions may be to help you, their unsolicited opinions may get overwhelming. In fact, they could influence you to make bad decisions if they’re biased against your ex.

Therefore, if you want a peaceful divorce, you have to think things through on your own. It’s important you have a space you can go to where you can get a clear head and consider what’s going on. That way, you can make the best decision without being influenced by others too much.

Be careful with social media

Many couples who wanted a peaceful divorce had those efforts undermined because of social media.  What usually happens is one ex will make very negative posts about their ex. Of course, it doesn’t take long for the other ex to see these posts, get angry, and change the entire tone of the divorce going forwards.

As a result, you should be extra careful with your social media posts. Avoid talking about your ex, and the divorce itself too. In fact, it may just be best to take a break from social media altogether during this time. That way, you won’t even need to worry about it!

Modern Dating: What To Know

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

It’s not always easy to get back into dating after you’ve gone through a divorce. That’s especially true if you’ve been out of the dating scene for some time. Modern dating comes with a couple of its own unique quirks. Knowing what these are can help you better prepare for when you try and get back out there…

Modern Dating: Unique Trends

The “ghosted” problem

The term “ghosted” had become pretty commonplace in the modern dating scene. Basically, it’s when someone completely stops communicating with you after you thought they were interested. Instead, they’ll either block your number and email, or just flat out ignore you.

This seems pretty harsh, but many times it’s not because of something you did. Rather, the person in question wanted to end things anyways, but also didn’t want any conflict that could come with it. The important thing is to not let it get to you!

Serious relationships take time

It can also take longer to enter a “serious” relationship in the modern dating scene. The thing is, it isn’t always a simple as just going from dates to dating proper. It takes a lot longer for potential partners to feel comfortable with “locking into” something exclusive.

In generally, it usually takes around two months for couples to enter a serious relationship. Before that, you want to make sure you don’t come off too strong. Let things develop naturally, and it’ll be a lot easier to see if your relationship will survive in the long-term.

Online dating is big

A lot of modern dating makes use of online dating sites or apps. In fact, one in five relationships begin via online dating! One in six marriages also began as a relationship created through an online dating service. As you might expect, researchers anticipate these numbers will only increase as time goes by.

Of course, dating online is a bit different than meeting people in-person. However, there’s a lot of convenience which comes with online methods. Plus, it gives you a quick way to filter your results to better find someone you’ll get along with. You just have to be careful about the potential risks as well!