The ABCs of Surviving Divorce - A what you get article

With divorce comes many odd feelings, I know cuz I have been there and done that. My personal feelings were of relief and happiness. My life was instantly better. Some people are not so lucky.

This is from MSN.com and it's a pretty good article. Maybe it will help someone reading this page.

Enjoy.

According to Roberta Apuzzo, creator of the counseling and therapy program "The ABCs of Divorce," a divorce must be lived in order to be truly understood. Here are her experiences and observations in getting past this emotionally draining process and resuming your life.

I've dedicated a good deal of my life trying to help other people realize the possibilities for growth, at the end of a so-called permanent relationship. Once my divorce was final and while still raising three young children, I went back to college majoring in psychology.

I wanted—needed—to search for answers that would help me make sense of my new single lifestyle. I also wanted to have the right answers for the personal growth and spiritual well-being of my children. Twenty years ago, after completing a series of master classes in family and marriage counseling, I helped develop one of the first 24-hour hotlines for divorced women.

With the assistance of author and publisher Bernard Butler I've created some basic life lessons called "The ABCs of Divorce." Our goal is to prove that success in life and love is once again an assured possibility, even after a thing called divorce.

It's often said that two of the most stressful situations encountered in life are death and divorce. Sadly, for many couples divorce represents the death of a deeply personal relationship. The emotional chaos surrounding divorce offers the unique perspective for gaining powerful, personal insights that can make our lives infinitely more meaningful, rewarding, and harmonious.

As far too many American couples are aware, more than 50 percent of all marriages now end in divorce. Each year 2 million people get divorced and the courts make custody decisions for over 1 million children. According to the U.S. National Institute of Health, the average marriage lasts only 11 years and divorce annually costs Americans more than $1 billion. The following are selected insights from "The ABCs of Divorce" that can speed your recovery from this emotional rollercoaster.

A: ANGER to ASCEND
"He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." -Proverbs: 18:32

Anger: First, understand that retaining anger from the divorce process will eventually make you sick! Anger translates into stress and stress takes a huge physical and emotional toll from your daily life. Lose the anger, forgive and forget. Uncontrolled anger only accomplishes two things—it makes you sick, or it makes you crazy.
Ascend: Take the first step in managing the divorce crisis: Ascend! Get to higher ground and adopt a positive supportive frame of mind for every situation you meet during the marriage dislocation process. Begin to meditate, visualize, and carry out an action plan for the kinds of solutions you want to happen in your life. Then one day your whole environment will shift, and everyone—including you—will have a more positive attitude about your circumstances. You will begin to discover solutions that will make every facet of your life more fulfilling.

Joanne's Story
Joanne is a high-powered attorney who, upon arriving home two days early from a corporate retreat, finds her beloved spouse in bed with the children's nanny. "I really lost it. Here I'm plowing the north 40 while lover boy was playing doctor with my children's supposed keeper. Worse yet, the kids had a play date at a mutual friend's home. They had the whole damn house to themselves. Meanwhile, I was working my tail off to keep us together economically and socially. Everyone knew. I mean, everyone knew he was sleeping with her. I was sick, I hated him and I hated myself for being so obtuse. It really hurt to know that he valued our marriage and personal relationship so little, that he could be so insensitive and cruel.

"That Friday evening I took every stitch of clothing he owned, most of which I bought. I put them in the bathtub, filled it with Clorox, and let them soak overnight. He was livid, I was elated.

"Three days later I was with a client who decided to divorce his wife of seven years and marry his dental assistant. He had come to the firm—and in particular to me as a friend—to help him hide his assets. I slapped him twice in the conference room for asking me to compromise my legal principles. The firm's senior partner had to separate me from seriously harming the guy.

"I realized at that moment I was way out of control—a little late, but it really scared me. I went to see my ex that night and we had a long talk. He was lonely and depressed. He said I bossed him around too much and that he hated me for the way I made him feel. Then I realized that in any situation there are the proverbial three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth. That honest, open conversation was the beginning of closure for me. I put some of my anger aside and started to move on with my life."

"The ABCs of Divorce" is a means of discovering the truth of your marriage layer by layer. However, we believe that you should approach the real reason for the breakup only after you've become emotionally grounded. Joanne was fortunate, she was able to openly accept her share of the responsibility for the dissolution of the marriage, and move from a dysfunctional union to emotional freedom. This leads to how most people feel during and immediately after the crisis of divorce.

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Take care.