Divorce Recovery & the Myth of Time ? Time Alone Does NOT Guarantee a Smooth Recovery from Divorce

Divorce Recovery & the Myth of Time ? Time Alone Does NOT Guarantee a Smooth Recovery from Divorce
After divorce, we often hear people tell us, "Time heals
all wounds," or "Just give it some time," or "You'll feel
better in the morning?" Used like this, time is seen as
some type of healing source. But is it, really? Will the
passage of time really "heal all our wounds?" Will it
actually bring happiness to our life after divorce? Or is
there more to it than that?

1. An Example of How Time Alone Does Not Heal the Pain of
Divorce

Faye, my sister-in-law, was a teacher and school
administrator. When I met her, she had already been
divorced for five years. She had gotten the house, the
kids, the car - and the humiliation of having her ex, also
a school administrator in the same school system, leave her
for one of Faye's teaching colleagues. For the next fifteen
years, Faye only mentioned her ex and his wife in
derogatory or cynical terms. She threw herself into her
work. She tried to begin new relationships - all to no
avail. She died an early death from cancer without ever
getting past the personal hurt and public mortification the
divorce caused.

2. Another Example of How Time Alone Does Not Heal the Pain
of Divorce

The daughter of a divorced man, Robert, approached me to
help her dad recover from his divorce. He and his wife
argued over renting out the basement in their house. He
opposed renting it. She rented it anyway to a single mother
with an infant. One day the renter's ex came to the house
and murdered his former wife and child. Robert could not
take it and divorced her. He took the divorce hard. He
isolated himself from his friends and family and started
drinking heavily. How long he had been divorced? 13 years!

3. Time Alone Will Not Heal the Pain of Your Divorce

If time is supposed to heal all wounds, shouldn't 13 to 20
years surely be enough! They weren't. Time alone heals
nothing. Andy Warhol, of all people, got it right when he
observed, "They say that time changes things, but actually
you have to change them yourself." It is not time per sé
that facilitates recovery from divorce, but what we do with
that time, as Laura's story below illustrates.

4. A Success Story - How Time Can Be Used to Make Divorce
Recovery Successful

Laura had been divorced four years. The pain was as fresh
as if it had happened yesterday. She was so distressed she
literally could not even say the name of her ex out loud.
She had been told, "Give it some time and the pain will
subside." She did, but it didn't. She was at her wit's end.
She said, "I'll do anything" to get rid of the pain. For
five weeks she worked with me on the tasks of making a
smooth divorce recovery - dealing with her reactions,
finding her personal resources, removing her barriers to
change, etc. Afterwards, she not only was able to talk
about her ex, but even was able to meet with her twice to
recover some of her belongings she had been unable to
retrieve. She used the time to make the change herself. She
was on her way to a successful life after divorce.

5. What's the Point?

Time by itself heals nothing. Spending our time looking for
what can be done that we can personally control is far more
productive than sitting in the shadows waiting for time to
"make things right." Our job is to use our time to deal
with the emotion-based as well as the rational demands of
making a smooth recovery from divorce.

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To learn more about the divorce recovery process and how
you can speed up your return to a "normal" life, go to
http://www.SmoothDivorceRecovery.com To get a free
assessment of your Divorce Recovery Stress Level go to
http://www.SmoothDivorceRecovery.com/Stress My name is
Jerald Young and I help divorced clients return to the
mainstream of life with renewed hope, unfettered by the
chains of anger, resentment, and shame that accompany
divorce.