Getting More Divorced
As a high schooler, I dutifully took two years of French. It wasn’t the brilliant language immersion experience many of our children experience now where the teacher only speaks in the language being learned. My teacher spoke partly in English and partly in French, and I left high school partly knowing French.
In college I thought I’d try Spanish instead. I was shocked when on day 1 the teacher adopted the immersive experience and exclusively taught Spanish to us in Spanish. I cried:
How am I ever going to learn this new language if you never stop and speak it to me in the language I have now?
I didn’t see a way forward. In addition to this difficult obstacle that her Spanish speaking teaching presented to me, I was also distracted by the attractive guy sitting next to me (who I later dated). I got my Spanish credits, had a few months of fun dates, but I still only partly know Spanish.
Learning to relate to my former partner after divorce presented me with a similar shock…
So wait - we aren’t married, but we still talk to each other?
We don't connect on all the things, but on some of the things we still do?
I can expect certain things of you, but not others?
We raise these precious kids together, but I don’t get a say in who you are dating?
I used to share so much with you, but now we feel so weird near each other?
Divorce language acquisition was super hard for me at first. Thank goodness I didn’t need to learn conjugations and tenses of words, but I did have to add in some new vocabulary words and sentence structures. Above all, though, I needed to learn one main overarching theme in my new divorce language:
Quit trying to make a connection.
This isn’t typical divorce coach advice, but stick with me.
The very premise of divorce disconnected a profound number of parts in my relationship with my former partner. The mistake that I made, and that I see others make as well, is a good-intentioned attempt to still try to connect in ways that worked before and in ways that work with other people. It was an act done from a good place in my heart, and I am always heartened when I see my clients try it as well.
But in my observation, the two-address families that function best after divorce acknowledge and respect the disconnect first. It doesn’t mean they focus on it, it just means they don’t push too hard or too unrealistically on making a meaningful connection.
What did that look like for me? Grieving what wasn’t going to be. Allowing my former partner to be who he had always been. Making space for a whole new way of life. Looking at relating to him from a radically different perspective. And finally, developing a brand new way of interacting - one that supported each of us in our very different pursuits and lifestyles.
Instead, I learned to turn that desire for connection on to myself, and I recommend you do the same. Use that energy that wants to get it all figured out with your former partner and instead work on yourself. Become the best, most beautiful version of yourself. Learn healthy habits, face grief, process anger, and rise to the occasion of the rest of your life. Connection after divorce begins after healthy disconnection.
I like to call it getting more divorced. Ask yourself, where can I let go a little more? You may find that doing so relieves a little bit of what’s been making it so hard.
