How-to Avoid Conflict During Divorce

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Divorce is never easy. The process will often stir up conflict between spouses as it brings out strong emotions and feelings. It is not uncommon to feel anger, sadness, hurt, and disappointment. You will find the process to be much smoother when you try to minimize or avoid conflict in a divorce. If you have children, it is even more important to do your best to avoid conflict during divorce. Children do not react well to poorly managed conflict. By managing anger and conflict now, it will also make life post-divorce easier, especially if you have kids.

How-to Avoid Conflict During Divorce: Managing the Process

Don’t Bring Up the Past

It is not uncommon to dwell on the past events and actions that may have led to your marriage ending. Sometimes instead of being helpful, it actually can bring up a lot of anger and pain. Try to avoid getting hung up on the past, or reminding your ex of any wrongdoings. This is sure to lead to an argument, or someone feeling attacked. Instead, work to avoid conflict during divorce. In the words of Dennis Waitley, “Don’t dwell on the past, look toward the future and the positivity that is to come!” If you are going to reflect on the past, do so in a positive, constructive way. That way you can learn from your mistakes and be able to avoid those in your next relationship.

Communication

If you do not feel like you can communicate directly with your soon-to-be ex in a civil manner, it may be best to find an alternative way. You may want to hire a mediator to help avoid conflict during divorce. A mediator is a neutral third party that can help with communication and negotiations during a divorce. They can work beside attorneys to help you come to agreements sooner and with less conflict. Mediation helps you and your ex to come up with a solution based on what is best for your family. This can be a much better option than a judge deciding the outcome of your divorce.

Sometimes you may be unable to communicate with your spouse in a civil manner, even through writing. If a mediator is unable to help, consider communicating through your attorney. Keep in mind that your attorney is your strongest advocate. Plus, they can can communicate on your behalf without getting involved emotionally.

How-to Work with a Financial Advisor During Divorce

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Divorce can be very difficult on your financial situation. If you relied on dual-incomes to make ends meet, or your partner was the only one who worked, this can be especially challenging. Divorce may force you to change your lifestyle and spending habits. If you find finances to be an unpleasant and overwhelming thing to think about, you are in luck. Financial advisors are professionals that specialize in helping people with their finances. Learn how to work with a financial advisor during divorce.

How-to Work with a Financial Advisor During Divorce: Manage Your Finances

Financial Goals

Financial planners and advisors can help you get on track and work towards the goals you want to achieve. Unfortunately, according to a study, only 5% of women work with a financial advisor during divorce. However, these professionals can be as asset as part of a divorce team. In fact, 61% of women who did not use a financial planner wish that they would have worked with one during their divorce.

If you have not already, it is good to sit down and figure out your financial goals. Thinking these through will help you be able to work towards reaching your goals. Some good financial goals include paying off your debt, having a comfortable retirement, and saving for an emergency fund. Others include being able to buy a new home, creating another income source, or building wealth through investments.

Benefits

One of the benefits of using a financial planner is that they can help you evaluate your lifestyle. They will help you take a hard look at your finances both before and after the divorce. This will be helpful for even looking at different things like covering expenses, buying insurance, creating a budget, and paying bills.

Another benefit of working with a financial advisor during divorce is that they can help you look at your assets. This will include hidden gems you may not have remembered, and which assets to fight for during your divorce. Consider things like jewelry, investments, college funds and retirement accounts. The financial advisor will be able to determine what is worth asking for and also set up a plan to help you achieve financial freedom.

Although this is an underutilized resource, working with a financial advisor during divorce is a smart move. They will help you to be able to start off on the right track during and after your divorce. You will be glad they were part of your divorce team.

How-to Prepare for the Holidays as a Single Parent

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves
The holiday season is just around the corner. This is a time for food, festivities and family. However, for some people, this may be a season of firsts as well. Anyone who has just gone through a divorce may be feeling the dread of going through the holidays alone. This may be your first year preparing for the holidays as a single parent. While the season may feel a bit different, you can still make it special.

How-to Prepare for the Holidays as a Single Parent: Creating New Traditions

Plans with Ex

If you are recently divorced and trying to figure out the holidays as a single parent, know that you will need to discuss and coordinate with your ex. This includes visits as well as gift giving. You want to make sure you are not overlapping one another’s gifts, and that each parent is on the same page. Do not try and outdo your ex with lavish, expensive gifts. If the roles are reversed and your ex is giving over the top gifts that are out of your budget, do not throw your kids into the middle of an argument. Instead, you can give your kids the precious gift of time. If your kids will be with your ex, do not show anger when they go off with their other parent. Do not make them feel guilty or conflicted. Let them know you will look forward to celebrating with them when they get back and tell them to have a great time!

New Traditions

Since the holidays will look different the first year you celebrate the holidays as a single parent, try and create new, fun traditions. However, do not forget your old traditions too, as long as they fit your your new situation. You can do this whether you have young children or adult children. If this will be your first year alone without your ex or your kids, make other plans for your celebrations. Spend time with your extended family, friends, or other single parents who may also be alone. Also, remember that there is not a rule that a holiday must only be celebrated exclusively on one certain day. An early, or delayed, celebration with friends and family just gives you an extended holiday season, and can be just as special too. Celebrating the holidays as a single parent for the first time may be a challenge. However, you will be able to get through it successfully. Enjoy old traditions if they are not too painful or no longer fit your family, and create new traditions too. Be considerate of your kids and their other parent, and keep any anger or disagreements to yourself for the sake of your kids. Remember, this will be a new way to celebrate the holidays for them too.

How-to Find a Job After a Divorce: Hitting Your Stride

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Getting a divorce could mean having to reenter the job market. It is common that spouses that were “stay-at-home” parents before the split, but may need to find a job after the split. During the separation period, you will have to take a good hard look at your financial situation. Depending on your circumstances, you may determine that without income, you will not be able to afford the same time of lifestyle you have been accustomed to. Therefore, it is important to know how to find a job after a divorce. With a little time, effort, and patience, it is possible to reenter the workforce.

How-to Find a Job After a Divorce: Reentering the Workforce

Pick a Path

First, to find a job after a divorce, you will have to determine which career path you want to pursue. Keep in mind that just because you went to school for something, or worked in that industry before, does not mean you have to return to that field. It is a good idea to do some research about different career options. Ask your friends about their careers, and if they enjoy them. You could get inspiration from them! Doing online searches is a good option as well.

This is a great opportunity to do some soul-searching and determine what you want to do with your life. Start by thinking about what you love doing and what you are passionate about. Even if you can not turn your exact passion into a career, try and evaluate what it is about that hobby and see if you can apply that into another career path. Perhaps you enjoy playing team sports. Do you enjoy the socialization part of it? Or perhaps the competitive or strategic part of it? These different aspects can translate into different types of careers you could consider.

Set Yourself Up For Success

When trying to find a job after a divorce, you will want to take the steps to set yourself up for success. You will want to make sure to create an updated resume and cover letter so that you are prepared to apply for jobs. Have a friend you trust, or a career coach, to read it and give you feedback. Don’t forget to let your friends know that you are on the job hunt. They may know of positions or have connections that may be able to help you out.

If you don’t already have one, create a profile on LinkedIn. This will help potential employers find you, and help you to connect with others in your desired field. Having an update LinkedIn profile is an important step in the job hunting process. Many employers will even have a spot on their job applications for you to share your LinkedIn account name.

Apply

Applying for jobs can be frustrating and draining. You may hear a lot of “no’s”, or even get ignored, before getting a “yes”. Do not get discouraged. If you are not getting any luck, consider getting a career coach, or speaking with a recruiter. These can be helpful resources when trying to find a job after a divorce.

Education

If you absolutely can not find a job that you like and can support you without going back to school, you can pursue further education. There are plenty of programs out there that are geared towards adult students. Most of these even provide schedules that work around work schedules. This could allow you to find an interim job to be able to make money, plus still be able to take classes. Keep in mind that just because you go back to school for something doesn’t mean you will automatically land your dream job in that field. It could still take time, effort and patience to get to where you want to be. You may have to work some entry-level jobs initially, but you can still get to the career that you want with a little work.

How-to Know if You Need Couples Therapy

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Things have been rough lately, and both of you are feeling frustrated. You may be wondering if you feel therapy or counseling is a sign of weakness, but it actually is a sign of strength. This is a step towards working on making your relationship better. Here are some signs that you may need to go to couples therapy.

How-to Know if You Need Couples Therapy

Lack of Trust

It may be time to go to couples therapy if your trust has been broken. A lack of trust can be detrimental to a relationship. Some examples of how trust could be broken would be catching your spouse in a huge lie, or even finding out they have been having an affair. However, if you and your partner are willing to try and work through this, talking with a therapist where you can openly and safely express yourself may be a good place to start.

Ongoing Conflict

If you and your spouse are always arguing, it could be a good idea to go to couples therapy. Constant conflict is not healthy for any relationship. Additionally, even if you are just noticing that the frequency of your arguments is increasing, it is never too early to stop a problem before it gets worse. Get ahead of the issue and talk to someone.

Something Feels Different

Is there something that just feels off about your marriage? This could be a disconnect physically, emotionally, or mentally. In additon, there could be underlying resentment or distrust that is even pulling you apart. You may not even be able to pinpoint it to determine what it is. Whatever it is, it is worth addressing with a couples therapist.

Lack of Communication

Another reason to go to a couples therapist is if you and your spouse have a lack of communication. For instance, you could live in the same house together, but never have any sort of meaningful conversation with any depth. This could make you drift apart from your partner. A councilor could help give you the tools to communicate better. Above all, this could increase the quality of the conversations you have with your spouse.

In conclusion, couples therapy can be a big benefit to couples that are drifting apart or are going through a rough spot. However, it can also be useful to curb an issue before it even gets big too. It is never too early to get ahead of a problem and work towards a happy and healthy marriage.

How-to Find Work Motivation When Divorcing

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Divorce can be a draining process, and as such, it can be hard to find motivation to do other things. In particular, your work motivation can really suffer. Therefore, it’s helpful to know what you can do to keep yourself going when you’re at your job…

How-to Find Work Motivation When Divorcing: Useful Methods

Divorce and work

Divorce tends to have a negative effect on people’s work motivation for a couple reasons. First, it tends to take up a lot of their attention. Even when they aren’t handling divorce matters, it will stay on their mind, along with what’ll happen afterwards. This can make it hard for them to really focus on their work like they usually would.

There’s also the fact that divorce can impact your current schedule. Different developments may require you to either take time off of work or limit the amount of free time you have. When you’re constantly wondering what new thing may pop up and how you’ll need to react to it, your work may take a backseat.

Be upfront

When you’re working about your divorce at work, your work motivation will take a hit. Therefore, it’s good to let your boss or manager know what’s going on. Being upfront and honest about what you’re going through and how it may impact you isn’t a bad thing. Instead, they’ll be more inclined to help you out in order to keep you motivated at work.

For instance, they may recognize you need some more flexibility in your schedule. Or, you may not be able to do projects solo like you could before. When your boss or manager is aware of your divorce, they can help make accommodations which will solve these problems.

Take care of yourself

A large part of maintaining work motivation comes down to what you do outside of work. If you don’t have a good work-life balance, then it becomes a lot harder to want to work at all. Add in your divorce, and now this can become a serious struggle. In fact, many people may end up leaving their jobs because they feel so overwhelmed.

That’s why it’s important you still find some time for yourself when you aren’t working. While your divorce is a priority, you can’t let it totally take over your life. Rather, you need to be able to still relax to manage your anxieties, even if it means taking a few days off to do so.

How-to Tell Others About Your Divorce: Hard Convos

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

If you are going through a divorce or just got through a divorce, you will have to start to tell others about your divorce. It may feel intimidating or even embarrassing to have this conversation. However, you should not let it feel overwhelming. Take these steps to feel better about having this difficult conversation.

How-to Tell Others About Your Divorce: Steps to Take

Portrayal

When you are starting to tell others about your divorce, you will have to think about how much or how little you want to tell people. You can also decide how you want to portray your divorce. If you are having a nasty, angry divorce, you can decide how much information you want to share about that. You can also channel how you want your divorce is going. For example, you can say to people “I want to have a peaceful, smooth divorce”. It is your story to tell, so you can decide how much you are comfortable with telling people.

Family and Friends

Once you’ve decided what you want to tell others about your divorce, it will them come time to tell people. You will probably tell your friends and family first. Of course, they were probably really excited when you told them you were getting married, so they may have the opposite feelings when you tell them you are getting a divorce (unless your spouse is absolutely terrible).

If it is an amicable divorce, it may be okay to break the news to your friends and family together. However, if the divorce is bitter, it may be better to tell them separately. Otherwise, you may get into an argument during the conversation. This could make your friends and family feel very uncomfortable.

Work

You will likely have to talk with your corkers and boss when you start to tell others about your divorce. The advantage to doing this is that your boss may be more understanding and flexible if you have to take time off or leave for appointments such as going to therapy or to meet with a lawyer.

Tread carefully when you start to break the news to co-workers though. While some of them may be your friends, others may not want to know every detail of your life.

When it’s time to start to tell others about your divorce, keep these tips in mind. That will make your difficult conversation go a little bit smoother. Figure out what you want to say, and then start by telling friends and family, and then possibly people at your work too.

How-to Manage Divorce Anxiety

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Divorce can be a very stressful time for you. All the uncertainty can result in a lot of divorce anxiety. Therefore, it’s good to know what you can do to manage this anxiety in a healthy manner so you can be at ease when it’s all over…

How-to Manage Divorce Anxiety: Helpful Steps

Do some organizing

A big reason behind people’s divorce anxiety is that they worry about not having everything that they need. There are a lot of different things which’ll be important for your divorce. Not having something you need or having the wrong thing can delay your divorce unnecessarily. This can all start to make a person feel pretty anxious.

That’s why it’s good to take some time and get organized. Ideally, it’s best to do this before your divorce even begins. Still, even if you didn’t do that, find some time now to get everything you’ll need together. That way, when you do have to find something such as a document, you’ll know exactly where to look.

Talk to others

Keeping your feelings of divorce anxiety to yourself can end up making them get worse. When you bottle those worries up, they end up being all your brain can think about. As such, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut where you just feel anxious all the time.

Talking to others about how you feel can help to alleviate some of this anxiety. By letting others know how you feel, you can get that anxiety off your chest and receive some helpful advice in the process. Aside from talking to friends and family, speaking to a therapist can help you figure out where your anxiety is coming from and how you can address it.

Pick up a hobby

It’s good to give your divorce the attention that it deserves. However, focusing too much on it can make your divorce anxiety worse. Eventually, you’re going to need something which can take your mind off of things. A great way to do that is by finding a hobby.

Having a hobby gives you an outlet for all that anxiety and stress. Plus, it can also allow for you to meet new people and make new friends. Try to find something which you find relaxing yet interesting, and soon you’ll notice that you won’t feel as anxious as you did beforehand.

Divorce Counseling: Different Types

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

A divorce can be a rather difficult experience. There’s a lot of different issues that you’ll need to take care of all at once. As such, it may help to seek out divorce counseling. This counseling can be a good source of support during this rougher time…

Divorce Counseling: Explore Your Options

How it helps

Divorce counseling can be beneficial for you in a number of ways. Most people tend to feel very uncertain and lost when faced with a divorce. They don’t know what they should be doing in order to prepare emotionally, especially in terms of processing those emotions. Others may struggle to figure out how to move forwards from this event.

A counselor can help you find some of the direction you need. They’ll have the tools and resources which can get your prepared for the emotions you’ll experience. Plus, they’ll also help you figure out what you’d like to do afterwards, and how to best go about achieving these new goals.

Pre-divorce

There’s two types of divorce counseling you can get. The first of these is pre-divorce counseling. This counseling is different from marriage counseling. Whereas marriage counseling helps couples who want to remain together, this is for a couple that wants to split but hasn’t started the process yet.

Here, a counselor will help you and your soon-to-be-ex learn how to properly communicate with one another. This will help make the entire process a lot easier for the both of you. Also, if you have kids, then you can also learn helpful ways to minimize the impact the divorce has on them.

Post-divorce

The other type of divorce counseling to try is post-divorce counseling. Like the name implies, this is for when your divorce is either about to be or already is over. Here, your counselor will help you navigate the grief and other emotions you feel and learn how to turn them into more positive ones instead.

You can also expect to develop some new goals and plans for your post-divorce life. It’s not uncommon for those who have been married for a while to struggle with figuring out what they will do next. A counselor can help you recover your identity and live the life you want.

Pets in a Divorce: Who Gets Them?

Posted on by Robert J. Reeves

Since pets are like children, how do you determine who gets the pets in divorce? This is something that pet owners struggle with during a divorce. This is especially true if both spouses are very fond of the pets. This can be a tricky decision since emotions will be involved.

Pets in Divorce: How to Decide

Housing

Divorce typically leads to one or both spouses buying a new house or moving. One way to help you decide who gets the pets in divorce is to consider your housing situation. For example, if one person will have a small apartment, they may not have as much room for a pet. On the other hand, if one spouse will be living in a larger house with a big yard and fence, that may be a better situation for a dog.

Some apartments or rental situations do not allow for certain types of animals to live there. Make sure that you check those rules before making the decision on who gets to take the animals.

Moving Abroad

If one spouse is moving abroad, this could have an impact on who gets the pets in divorce. There are many rules and regulations about bringing pets into other countries. A pet may have to go through a lengthy quarantine or vaccination process in order to move abroad.

Caretaker

Take a good long look at who has been the pet’s primary caretaker over the years. This may have been a shared effort. However, there may have been one spouse who always took the pet to the vet or bought pet food. In the same way, there may have been someone who did more of walking the dog or scooping the kitty litter. Perhaps there is someone who the pet seems to bond better with or has spent more time with the animal. If so, this could be a deciding factor of who gets the pets in divorce.

Pet’s Best Interest

While deciding who gets the pets in divorce, try and have an objective look at what would be best for your pet. Try and keep your feelings out of it. Which living situation would be more comfortable for your pet? Or which spouse would take better care of the pet?

Emotional Consequences

If you end up being the one who ends up getting the pets in divorce, don’t rub it in. Be mindful and respectful of the other spouse’s feelings. On the other hand, the spouse who does not get the pet may feel heartbroken at the loss. There will likely be a grief process. Talk to a therapist or a friend if needed. Keep yourself busy.

Another option is to eventually consider adopting another animal. However, it may be best to take some time to process your emotions first. Don’t just jump into something. A good interim step would be to volunteer at a pet shelter or foster a pet.