What is Divorce Counseling?

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the process of divorce? Perhaps challenging emotions are coming up. Logistics may seem impossible to iron out. Adding in the stress of navigating children, shared friends, and family members can cause communication to feel harder than ever. Divorce counseling is a process that helps guide you through these struggles.

Constructive outcomes in divorce require cooperation. Divorce counseling can aid you in building the skills necessary for working together. These skills are necessary even if you did not feel like much of a team during your relationship. They provide mutually beneficial paths to figuring out finances, assets, living situations, and any other shared concerns.

You can engage in divorce counseling prior to or following a divorce. Pre-divorce counseling happens when you have decided to end your marriage and have not yet taken legal action. A therapist will meet with you as a couple to hear your concerns. If you aren’t sure that divorce is the best solution, the therapist will be with you in examining what isn’t working. If you have settled on divorce, the therapist will assist with formulating a plan.

Post-divorce counseling happens in the aftermath of legal action. The realities of going through divorce are heavy. Trained professionals can help you and your former partner have tough conversations. You will have the opportunity to learn how to better manage the transition and process a range of emotions. Divorce ends marriage, not connection. Having a neutral space to define the next version of this connection is important.

Space to move through your separate feelings around divorce is also beneficial. Individual post-divorce counseling is a way of shaping who you are outside of marriage. A one-on-one therapist will address mental health concerns after divorce (anxiety and depression are common) and help you set goals. Identifying and shifting relational patterns so you can build healthy partnerships in the future can also happen here.

Therapists who are experienced in practicing couples therapy and relational therapy for individuals are best to seek out for divorce counseling. Similar communication and conflict resolution skills are useful in divorce counseling. The licensed therapists at The Couples Center have the expertise to guide you on your path forward both before and after divorce.

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Frequently asked questions

When is Divorce Counseling Needed?

Divorce happens in multiple stages, each with their own unique characteristics. Professional support is there to let you know you are not alone in the process. Feeling overloaded by the amount there is to navigate is human. Talking to someone with your former partner and on your own helps to process emotions, figure out logistics, and build skills. Although divorce counseling is valuable at any time during divorce, below are several points where it can be particularly useful.

When you are thinking about divorce

If you have considered divorce but aren’t sure, divorce counseling may be helpful. Divorce counseling is a space to evaluate the current state of your relationship. You and your partner can look at your overall patterns, your conflict cycles, and the reasons divorce is on the table. Sometimes opening up these lines of communication can end up keeping marriages together. Other times, talking these issues through leads to a more amicable decision to pursue divorce.

When you are planning your divorce

There is a lot of preparation involved in divorce. Tensions might also be running high between you and your partner. Divorce counseling can help you manage these emotions while developing a plan. When the right pieces are in place, your divorce can move forward in the healthiest way possible. Elements to consider are how you will separate your belongings, how you will handle legal proceedings, how you will talk with any children involved, and desires for custody arrangements.

After divorce has occurred

Complex emotions linger following a divorce. Forging a new type of connection is difficult. Returning to day-to-day activities feels strange after such a life-altering process. You and your partner can better navigate these issues by continuing to speak to a professional together. You can also address the impact of divorce on loved ones, which is especially important when children are involved. Separation and co-parenting are big changes for kids to adjust to – getting on the same page through divorce counseling makes the transition smoother.

In the process of redefining your life

Engaging in individual divorce counseling following a divorce can help you move through your grief process. No matter how tough the end of the marriage was, it is still a loss. Fully feeling your grief creates space for finding meaning in this new chapter of your life. A trained therapist will hold space for present pain and future possibilities. Individual divorce counseling allows you to break old cycles, recognize attachment patterns, raise your self-esteem, learn to appreciate being alone, and eventually prepare for dating again.

Benefits of Divorce Counseling

Attending divorce counseling is an excellent way to be proactive about getting the help you need. There are numerous benefits for both you as a former couple and you as an individual. You can improve communication, develop insight, rehearse conversations, and boost your mental health. Below are specific areas in which divorce counseling has been shown to make the process of divorce smoother.

Understand the dynamics of the relationship

Wondering how you got here is prevalent in the face of divorce. Divorce counseling helps you understand the dynamics that caused the relationship to deteriorate. You and your former partner will have an opportunity to take accountability for the roles you each played. A therapist can help you move from a place of guilt, shame, and blame to one of acceptance around how patterns have shown up.

Communication also improves through understanding the dynamics of the relationship. You and your former partner might have argued often due to having different communication styles. Although you are no longer together, there is still much to build healthy communication around. For example, you might need to determine your boundaries and your needs going forward. It is common for talking to feel strange or tense at first. Divorce counseling is there to teach you how to move past these barriers and have productive conversations.

Process challenging emotions

A breadth of emotions come up for both parties when going through divorce. Anger, sadness, hesitation, fear, and uncertainty are all able to be processed in divorce counseling. Processing these emotions in the presence of a therapist ensures that each person is heard. Skills learned in divorce counseling can help you and your former partner respond in a way that is validating.

Individual divorce counseling is another valuable space for processing emotions. You might not want to share everything with your former partner, and that’s okay! Exercises such as roleplaying assist with working through personal feelings in the marriage. This helps grow your ability to identify issues, engage in a healthy amount of self-responsibility, and make divorce-related decisions from a grounded place.

Get insight from a neutral third party

Many ex-couples find themselves barely able to speak to one another when they enter divorce counseling. If this sounds like you and your former partner, the presence of a therapist can alleviate tension. A therapist in divorce counseling will act as a neutral third party who provides insight, makes observations, and interrupts unhelpful cycles. This allows you to increase your receptivity to trying something different.

You and your former partner may also have trouble co-regulating. You may be driving each other’s nervous systems into fight/flight/freeze mode rather than calming each other down. This is a natural response to long periods of unresolved conflict. A skilled therapist will know how to remain regulated and act as the regulator in divorce counseling. Essentially, the therapist’s nervous system will “speak to” the others, giving the signal that it is safe to remain in connection.

Build healthy coping skills

Coping skills are sometimes the best way to manage overwhelm. Those that are unhealthy in the long-term, such as turning to substances or rushing into new connections, can be tempting when all that is involved in divorce feels like too much. Divorce counseling teaches healthy alternatives. Several examples include maintaining routine, making time to exercise, practice self-compassion, leaning on your support system, and discovering new hobbies.

Relational coping skills can help mitigate arguments between you and your former spouse. For example, you might commit to taking a twenty to thirty minute break when conversations escalate. Having a set time (i.e. once a week or once every other week) for necessary discussions is also beneficial. Divorce counseling can be this set time or aid in setting expectations for this set time.

Navigate how to speak with loved ones

Loved ones will have their own opinions about your divorce. Sharing the news is daunting when you are not sure how it will be received. Speaking to a therapist in divorce counseling assists with figuring out how to navigate these conversations. You and your former partner can discuss your timeline and determine if you will speak to loved ones together or separately.

Boundaries around the types of conversations you are willing to have with loved ones may also be necessary. Divorce counseling can provide space to practice letting people know what you are and are not okay with talking about. It can also be a space to practice asking for the support you need from loved ones, such as a listening ear or help with day-to-day tasks.

Alleviate mental health symptoms

Struggling with your mental health during the process of divorce is human. It takes time to process loss and adjust to your life having changed in a significant way. Research shows that depression and anxiety are likely to worsen following divorce. Working with a therapist in divorce counseling can help alleviate these symptoms, increase overall wellness, and improve quality of life.

Divorce has a tendency to diminish hopefulness for the future. You might have trouble envisioning how anything could be good again. Divorce counseling can also help you see that, while you cannot change the past, fulfillment is available to you in the future. Shifting your perspective to one of self-empowerment sets you up to eventually find new joy, passion, and love.

Goals of Divorce Counseling

There is no one correct way for divorce to look. Divorce counseling is an avenue for working with a professional to decide what is best for you and your former partner. The amount of interaction you would like to have, how you divide your lives, and how you engage with your next chapter is individual to you. Several divorce counseling goals aid in shaping what these areas look like are below.

Agree on next steps

You and your former partner might be coming to divorce counseling from a place of disagreement. You may be at odds on how you want the process to look or if divorce is the right next step. One goal of divorce counseling is to get you on the same page. A trained therapist will be able to point out discrepancies and guide you toward reaching agreements. This will help you and your former partner begin to develop a plan together.

Develop a sustainable plan

It is important to be realistic about the process of divorce. Many steps, logistics, and emotions that take time to work through are involved. You might want to move forward immediately after there has been agreement on next steps, however developing a sustainable plan is crucial. Another goal of divorce counseling is for both parties to sit down and decide what this looks like. A therapist can help you consider all angles – giving friends and family the news, considering children, emotional needs, legal needs, and shared assets.

Feel at home with yourself again

The goals of divorce counseling extend beyond the concrete and into your emotional life. Divorce counseling is a form of therapy, and the overarching purpose of therapy is to help you feel at home with you. This means finding ways of engaging with your former partner that are mutually satisfying. It also means coming back to yourself through a one-on-one process focused on allowing grief, stepping into your own agency, and making room for future possibilities.

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Deciding to divorce takes courage. Experiencing overwhelm, grief, communication challenges, and uncertainty about the future is natural. Working with a trained professional comes with great benefit at any point in the divorce process. Divorce counseling is a way to improve interactions with your former partner, come to agreements on major issues, and center your own mental health and wellbeing. Get started by booking a session with a qualified couples therapist or individual therapist at a reputable practice such as The Couples Center.

Gal Szekely2024-03-19T21:49:44-08:00December 27, 2022|divorce & breakup|