Divorce is one of the most stressful and difficult times. Your whole life may seem upside down and in chaos. You may have serious concerns about whether and how you and your children will be ok, and what the future will be like. Your spouse may be angry, hostile or withdrawn, and may be far from cooperative and accommodating. It is easy to be in conflict and get into arguments, or just not interact. This stress is between the two of you in your relationship as spouses, which has probably ended with a great deal of emotion while beginning a process of ending legally.
While the legal divorce is important, Collaborative Divorce helps parents keep focused on the children whose lives are changing and will be impacted long after the legal divorce is concluded. Divorcing in a non-adversarial manner allows you and your spouse to focus as parents even more than as spouses. That is, you can make decisions considering what you want your children’s experiences to be, and perhaps more importantly, what you want their memories to be when they look back on their childhood.
What do you want your children’s adult memories to be about their family? They could say, “My parents divorced and it was terrible and forever a war. They still won’t talk to one another.” Or, they could say, “My parents divorced. It was a big change, but we never stopped being a family. I always had two parents who loved me and worked together to take care of me.”
If something like the second statement is important to you, Collaborative Divorce can help. Your Collaborative Coach and Child Specialist can help guide you towards building a post-divorce infrastructure for your family that is sensitive to the needs and experience of children. This is more than just a parenting plan. It is developing a system for doing business as parents, and leaving the marital dynamics behind. Your collaborative divorce professionals can help you better understand how to live as a divorced family in a way that focuses on your children (rather than your marital issues) and is sensitive to the divorce being something that is very much about the children.
At Northern Westchester Collaborative Divorce (CollaborateNY.com) we are here to help.