Category: Divorce

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Feel destroyed?: Remember the Fire Lily

I am writing this blog from a hospital room. I have had a week of feeling absolutely destroyed. Can you imagine hearing the words that after 8 years, you might be in cancer remission? I heard those words a couple weeks ago but as the days ensued, I have had side effects that have put me in fear of being fed intravenously for weeks to come.

Sometimes life brings us a break, only to slam us down with something that feels even harder than the last blow. For me, the cancer treatment has caused scarring in my intestines that has made it impossible to eat for almost two months. Two months. Everyone who knows me knows that I absolutely live to eat, so not being able to have solid foods for such a long time has been quite the humbling experience. I am jokingly calling it my “wedding weight loss plan” but it has been pretty frightening. I watched my sweet mama go through a rapid weight loss that left her looking like a Holocaust victim, so I have some trauma that recurs when I face these trials for sure.

My sweet husband read me a devotional awhile back that told the story of the Fire Lily. Fire Lillies are a beautiful flower that only regrow in the event of being destroyed, most commonly by a forest fire. But when they do experience regrowth…awww the beauty.

Isn’t that the way in our journeys sometimes? We really don’t reach our full potential, or develop real empathy, or experience God at the deepest level, until we are smothered by experiences or trauma that leave us forest-fire dead.

I have seen some images lately of destroyed people: People destroyed by war, by life circumstances. I have met with people knocked down by divorce, betrayal and abandonment. But resilience can come when the trauma lifts, the sun shines again and we realize the strength we have because of Faith and Family and Friends….

Today, I got a little break and the scarring is letting liquids pass through. They were able to remove the tube down my throat and tomorrow we will try something a little more fortified and before long, I will be eating along with my family and friends. I am determined to be a Fire Lily.

How about you? What situation in your life needs to be overcome with the perseverance that asks you to push through scorched earth?

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,


Sonia

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Divorce: You aren’t married anymore

If you had told me, when I was getting my degree to be a mental health therapist, how many people I would walk with through divorce, I would have been shocked. Therapists go into the work we do to heal relationships and promote connection, not division. But oftentimes, the decision to end a marriage is an empowered one, when someone has been emotionally, verbally or physically abused. It can also be a decision made by one partner, leaving the other with little choice but to comply. Whether the divorce is somewhat amicable or whether it is one full of hostility, there is a dynamic that often occurs when old marital habits linger well past the moment the divorce is final. This is not healthy for the two people getting the divorce and it can be very confusing for the extended family and friends that get caught up in the drama.

Divorces often occur when one or both spouses have reached the end of their tolerance for whatever issues have come between them. I have heard them all: infidelity, non-existent sex life, verbal or physical abuse, a slow growing-apart over time, terrible communication, conflict over parenting roles….what else??? So many reasons! But even when one or both spouses believe they can’t live another day with that person they sleep next to every night, they often have not thought out what the day to day will look like when they are no longer under the same roof.

In marriage, there are roles we take on because we are in a partnership. We do things like grocery shop, mow the lawn, change the lightbulbs, take the kids to the doctor’s office, do the taxes, write the Christmas cards, not just because we love doing those tasks but because we are a member of a team. There are also things we sacrifice in order to promote long term marriage or family goals. We commit to helping the system run because we have an expectation that at the end of our life, we will have someone to hold our hand and help us navigate the changing seasons, using the trust, love and money we have built together. No one works that hard thinking they are going to hear the words, “I want a divorce.”

Strangely, there are a lot of folks out there that think they can ask for a divorce and also still have some of the benefits of being married to the person they have scorned. There is an assumption that if mom always took the kids to the dentist, she will continue to do so. Or if dad always did the bills and taxes, he will still look out for the interest of the family when it comes to the finances. Nope. When there is a divorce, it is sometimes hard to accept that those roles will change and new normals need to be fashioned so that everyone in the family can move forward. In other words, if you ask someone for a divorce, you no longer have the right to ask them to put you first. They do not have to work around your work schedule, change their plans to accommodate yours, be the only one who is responsible for caring for the house…or caring for the kids… When you reject someone by leaving them, do not expect them to immediately respond to your texts or jump when you need them. Those are responses that you get from a spouse. If you want to earn trust over time to have some of those niceties, you need to do some hard relationship building work…the hard work you didn’t do when you were married. 

There is a cultural badge of honor given to people that can be friends after a divorce but if you think about it, if you can be good friends, what kept you from fighting for your marriage? Is there any chance that you are being somewhat abused or manipulated in the “friendship” as well? I often coach clients to change the face of their ex to someone who is only an acquaintance when they are trying to unwind their long time habits. Would you watch the acquaintance’s cat when they went out of town? Would you answer their midnight call? If the answer is no, you might need some support as you establish new boundaries with someone who is no longer your ride or die.

Divorce is painful. It is messy. It can leave some scars. But be careful not to implement a new system that is just as painful as the system you are trying to end. As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,
Sonia