When people think of divorce, the big conversation seems to stem around money.  How much, and who’s getting it?  But eventually the issues that walk into my therapy office are the ones that dig deep into the soul.  “How did this happen?  Could I have changed it?” Or maybe, “Should I have left earlier? Why didn’t I see the red flags before we got married?”  I have a firm belief that if you don’t dig into all of the emotions, questions and personal responsibility in the divorce, then you will repeat your issues in your next relationship.  But more importantly, if you don’t acknowledge all of the emotions surrounding this massive change in your life it will affect you, mind body and soul!
Divorce represents many things in your psyche that need to be addressed in order to heal and be happy.  You need to look at how your expectations of your future have just changed.  It’s as if we write a script for our life and then halfway through shooting it, the script changes.  Now what?  Another huge piece that I help my clients work through is the fact that their identity changes after divorce.  “I am no longer so and so’s wife, or husband.  I am no longer part of a married, seemingly stable family.  What the heck does it mean to my feelings of safety and identity to call myself SINGLE?   Who am I now? How do I relate to people now? How do they see me? How do I see myself?”
The biggest piece of the Individual Therapy, or the Divorce Groups that I lead; help divorcees take back their control!  Instead of reeling at the affect of the divorce, I help my clients find the control in their lives again. Their joy returns when I help them write that new script to their future!  Divorce is a major change in someone’s life.  But it’s how they deal with their healing in the aftermath that will help them create a new, amazing future.
Written by Shauna Hoffman, MA, MFT

DIVORCE, THE AFTERMATH
Appeared in the June Issue of Santa Clarita Magazine.