I haven’t met anyone who says that getting divorced isn’t tough. It’s tough for three main reasons:

1.  You are required to negotiate what for most people is the most significant deal of their life.
2. You are in huge emotional turmoil.
3. The person who was supposed to support you through things like this is now “the other party”.

Add to that varying levels of hurt, abuse (real or perceived), betrayal, grief, anger, resentment, etc., plus individual situations like you may still be living under the same roof, it’s no wonder it’s tough – REALLY tough.

Another problem is the standard process for getting divorced; for most people, the go to method is through solicitors, and solicitors are paid (by the hour) to support you. Only you. Adversarial lawyers can be brutal – not all of them are, but if you’re feeling hurt and angry and resentful it can feel really great to have someone on your side who is going to fight for you.

The thing is, fighting through solicitors is not only massively expensive, it’s also the most damaging thing you can do to your already limping relationship with your ex, very often the father or mother of your children. And fighting encourages fighting, and as things escalate, so does the resentment not to mention the legal fees.  

So just like fighting invites fighting in return, so the opposite is true too – kindness invites kindness, empathy invites empathy, and love also has a place in a divorce, just a different kind of love.

I’m a mediator and a relationship coach and I help couples to navigate the bumpy journey through any part of it: from even giving it one last chance, to deciding to separate, working out how to manage things in the short term, negotiating the divorce terms, the formality of the divorce process, to life after divorce.

But you don’t necessarily need my help – it’s possible to do all this yourselves, and if you can, then for most that’s the best method of getting divorced.

The practical and formal parts can all be done online, but how do you get to those all-important agreements? How do you sit down and discuss how to dismantle your dream of happily ever after amidst the grief, hurt, anger etc.?

There’s no one size fits all, but there are some ingredients that are crucial, and others that may help smooth the way.

First of all, you need to take personal responsibility

This is a time to be brutally honest with yourself. There may be things that your ex has done that are dealbreakers for you, but most of us can admit that we haven’t been perfect ourselves. So setting aside for the time being, EVERYTHING that they have done – rewind back to when you first met and consider all the times that you have behaved in a way that may have contributed to creating a rift between you. Some of these may have been things that you did to yourself, for instance tolerating aggressive/angry behaviour, even condoning it.

This is a challenging exercise, and needs to be done with huge amounts of self-care. There is no place here for blame – instead bring love, understanding, acceptance and forgiveness of yourself. In order to give yourself the understanding that you were doing your best in each moment, and that sometimes your best was a long way from good enough. And to forgive yourself for not being able to do better in those moments. This process will help to soften you towards you ex – not to “let them off the hook”, but to begin to be able to see the things they have done in the same way.

We also need to take responsibility for everything we think and everything we feel

If we blame others for how we think and feel, we get stuck in victim mode. The phrase “he/she made me feel” should be banned in my opinion – it implies that we are victims of our circumstances and things that happen outside of us, when actually the opposite is true.

It may initially feel like we are letting them off the hook, but the truth is that if you can fully embrace this, then you will be taking back your power. You will become stronger and more stable in the face of words and actions of others.

When we are caught up in the resentment, anger, even hatred of another person, we are giving them the power to hurt us, so our emotional state is overly affected by what they say and do in a way that could be described as co-dependent. Once we begin to take responsibility for how we feel, we become more emotionally separate from our ex, and therefore less reactive. Not in a way where we feel nothing – that’s shutdown. There’s a healthy balance somewhere in the middle of the scale from fully co-dependent to fully independent, called interdependent – that’s where we need to live in ALL our relationships.

Have those difficult conversations

Once we have some experience of taking full responsibility, we can begin to try to have those difficult conversations. The key to having effective conversations is listening. And hearing. When the conflict between you escalates and the hurt, anger and resentment return, it’s almost impossible to hear. In order to do this well you need to be able to hear beyond the words to what’s really important to the other person. Even if they are expressing themselves in ways that come across as aggressive/defensive/judgemental etc. This not easy, and is why it’s so important to practice self-empathy before you begin, to build up your strength and resilience.  

Society has taught us that a debate model of communication is the way to conduct an argument. It’s actually the quickest way to escalate a conflict and drive a wedge between two people, even people who love each other deeply. A dialogue-based conversation where the two people are seeking a win-win outcome is much more likely to help you to connect through the conflict and so find a solution that works for all.

Finally, you will also need to be able to communicate what’s important to you 

When you can do this with real consideration of yourself and your ex, you are likely to speak more slowly, notice how what you say is received by the other person, take time to check how what you’ve said has been understood, not talk over each other, try again if necessary, take a break if needed, notice if one or other or both of you is struggling to stay in dialogue mode and say so to get the conversation back on track…

Empathy is like the oil needed for all the parts to run smoothly:

1. Self-responsibility with empathy
2. Listen to the other with empathy
3. Speak with empathy

If you can do all of that, the negotiation will become easier and you will have taken huge steps towards being able to co-parent as your children would like you to.

If you can do this yourselves – that’s the best. However, it’s not easy, so if you can’t, I recommend you ask for help from trusted sources, sooner rather than later.