by Dominique Walmsley MA LMHC, Seattle Mind Counseling

Divorce is painful for many, even long after the legal settlement.  It changes the fundamental platform of security on which you have built your life. It affects not only your conscious understanding but rattles the unconscious bonds that you have habitually trusted as you moved through life. Our basic need for security motivates us to form relationships. Conversely, when we end significant relationships, we can go into a tailspin before ultimately regaining our equilibrium.

It is useful if you can incorporate and understand the “tailspin” portion of the post-divorce recovery, so that the emotions that you experience make sense; and more importantly, if you have children, it is helpful if you can understand their emotions that result from the divorce.

The feeling of loss is central to the pain of divorce. This feeling could be about property, but it is more significantly about the security of the relationship, the familiarity of dealing with choices and threats to the family, the attachment to objects of emotional value, and of relationships and support of the extended family on both sides. Children in particular, have a hard time dealing with these losses, because they are not mentally in charge of their destiny till they become mature. They rely on their parents to assess what is of value, and to teach them how to let go of things that are unhealthy. Hopefully, parents are emotionally in a position to help their children through the losses that they will encounter in divorce, but if parents are suffering from the losses themselves, it will be more difficult. Children are finely attuned to their parents’ emotions, because they are wired to learn through emotional attunement (through picking up emotions and making meaning of them by “watching” their parents.)

To those who have never been through a divorce, it seems a mystery why people suffer so much in the process. The pain and confusion and frustration with one’s partner endures for much longer than people expect, and the emotions are much more active than they feel them to be. Because of these phenomena, people don’t get enough support or feedback from others, nor do they feel comfortable letting others know about the level of distress. This further distorts the message in our culture about the emotional recovery from divorce.

Attachment Theory

Attachment Theory states that people are deeply affected  at an unconscious level, by the abandonment of significant others. No matter what you want to believe, whether you think you are feeling those emotions, they are there. People have coping styles that allow them to compartmentalize those emotions, and therefore you will encounter people who say that they are doing well, or that their children have not suffered. That there is trauma, or discomfort to a stressful degree,   is the case with almost all people unless they are so well-adjusted that they never experience any distressful anger or flatness, nor ever hear from their significant others that they are not listening to them. Check yourself.  Remember that the score given to the stress of divorce is second only to death of a spouse.

Getting guidance to grow through the divorce process will make it more possible that your children will grow through this too and not have to experience mysterious tension between you and your ex. Dealing with the underlying hurt emotions that are inevitable with a breakup, will allow you to grow in an understanding of how you came to be part of an intense argument or a withdrawal from the issues that your partner brings to your attention. In Collaborative Law divorces, you can employ a coach who specializes in Attachment Theory. You can locate such a person by searching for Emotionally Focused Therapy practitioners. You can read up on Emotionally Focused Therapy as it relates to improving marriages, and gain more knowledge about the underlying attachment feelings inherent to our species, but not much has yet  been written about Divorce Coaching from this perspective.