| Jerald
Young
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.
Article Directory: http://www.articlecube.com To learn more about
the divorce recovery process and how you can speed up your return
to a "normal" life, go to www.SmoothDivorceRecovery.com
To get a free assessment of your Divorce Recovery Stress Level
go to 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.
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