ARE YOU FEELING CAUGHT UP IN THE SHOW?
Happy 4th of July!!!
It occurred to me that this wonderful day of celebrating with fireworks all around us is also a visual representation of what many people divorcing are feeling: they want to explode, go off, and have a hard time controlling their emotions!
Divorce is the end of something very important in anyone’s life and many emotions can arise such as:
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- Regret over broken commitments
- Anger over the wasted years of intimate thoughts and emotions
- Sadness in the death of their relationship
- Fear for what will happen to them
- Loss for the life they had
- Worries over their financial security
- And the emotions go on……
With some divorcing couples, each party is able to process through these emotions, outside of the divorce. Yet, for other couples these emotions end up getting played out as part of the divorce and it becomes: Fireworks!
For these firework couples whom have children, it is the children that end up being caught up in the show and having lasting trauma caused by their parent’s divorce, many times leading them to repeat their parent’s path in life – creating the Generational Cycle of Divorce Trauma in their family!
If you believe you are involved in a ‘Firework Couple’ dynamic or you work with ‘Firework Client Couples’, here are some ideas that might help reduce the emotions and prevent this trauma for their children!
1) Acknowledge that this is a very difficult time for them AND let them know they are not alone, everyone who goes through divorce experiences the same grief cycle as those that lose a loved one.
2) Let them know that it is OKAY to lean on mental health professionals to help them with their emotions for a short while AND help them understand that each person in their family will need to go through this grief cycle.
3) Help them reframe their divorce experience by explaining their divorce as: ‘The uncoupling of the marriage contract’ and the ‘Beginning of a new business contract called: The Children’. They will continue to be in each other’s lives for many years and the family is still the family (from their children’s standpoint), just living in two homes instead of one.
4) Look for opportunities to move your client to a space of ‘Hope and Acceptance’ (even in small little ways), to help bring down the intensity of their emotions.
5) Ask them: What do you imagine your life and your life with your children 10 years from now? This will help YOU focus on the things that are most important to them AND can be used to refocus their energy and emotions when they are getting too emotional about things that are not part of that future vision.
As a child product of high-conflict divorce and as a parent co-parenting in an increased escalating dynamic, I know that had my parents (or my co-parent and I) had this type of support from professionals around us, the emotional levels would have been reduced and I and my children would have had healthier childhood experiences in our lives.
Let me know if you find this useful in supporting ‘YOUR Firework Clients’!
~ Janet