Feeling overwhelmed by divorce guilt? Discover how to break free from societal and internal pressures that make you feel like a failure. This week on "Becoming You Again," we unravel the deep-rooted sources of divorce guilt, especially among women, and challenge the patriarchal beliefs that surround divorce.
Divorce guilt can feel like a heavy burden, but it doesn’t have to dictate your actions or your future. Hear how prioritizing self-care and emotional stability can create a nurturing environment for you and your kids, even amidst turmoil. You'll be equipped with practical strategies to validate yourself internally, break free from the need for external approval, and model resilience for your children. By challenging negative thoughts and resetting your self-perception, you can focus on turning down the volume of your divorce guilt and building a positive path forward.
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Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it shows up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
You're listening to the podcast that helps you deal with all of the mental and emotional baggage that comes along with your divorce. This is Becoming you Again, episode number 177, and I am your host, karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here this week.
I'm going to jump right in because I think it's really important and I have found this topic to be very prevalent among all of my clients and many other women that I have talked to who are going through a divorce. That topic is divorce guilt. Now I'm going to talk about a couple of reasons why we feel divorce guilt. Now I'm going to talk about a couple of reasons why we feel divorce guilt and then I'm going to give you some tips to try and help you if you find yourself dealing with this divorce guilt. Now, the interesting thing about divorce, guilt is very often, whether you are the person who asked for the divorce, or you were the person who was left or was told I'm divorcing you or I want a divorce. Whatever the scenario is, you can still feel divorce guilt for several different reasons.
One of the main reasons why we often feel guilt over our divorce is because of yes, I'm going to say the P word patriarchy. It is because of this system that has been set up that we live within that tells us that divorce is bad and wrong, that there's something wrong with you, with your life, if you get divorced. So what happens within this patriarchal system that we find ourselves in? Is we find ourselves going through a divorce again, for whatever reason? It can be many different reasons but we start to look at our situation and we say things to ourselves like I must not be good enough, I must not have shown up in the way that I needed to to keep this marriage together, or to have my husband continue to choose me, or to want to continue to choose my husband right, depending on if you ask for the divorce or not. Or you may have a story that goes along with this idea that if you get divorced, you are ruining your family, you are ruining the family unit, you are being selfish, putting your needs or wants first, or you may have some other trauma attached to this idea that the divorce is your fault somehow, which is showing up as guilt and shame.
And then society, because we live in this system that we live in, puts kind of this stigma on the idea of divorce that it's bad, that it's wrong, that you should try harder, you should go to counseling. You should definitely try and figure this out, you should work this out. You should just fall back in love with your partner, all of the things right. If you're a 40 something, 50 something, 60 something woman, maybe even younger too right. And you're going through a divorce, there's definitely something wrong with you. You are not going to be as worthy once you are divorced because that marriage gave you your worth, and so you should try and fix it before that happens.
Now again, I do not believe any of this. I do not ascribe to any of this and I teach my clients that none of this is true. None of these systemic issues and the systemic judgment that comes along with a patriarchal system that we live in is true, and it may be the exact story that is hurting you as you tell it to yourself or as you feel. The judgment from outside people whether or not they're actually saying things to you or not doesn't mean that that judgment that you are feeling isn't real to you and it can show up as guilt. So the patriarchy was the first reason why we often feel guilt. And then the second reason often is because of that story that we're telling ourselves.
We will tell ourselves, like this is going to be so terrible. Outside of the divorce I'll never be able to find a good partner. Maybe I'm just going to get like all of the leftovers of the people who either were already married and left by their first partner, or somebody who hasn't even been married yet. And then I question, like well, why haven't they been married, right? And so then you start to tell yourself this other story, or you start to tell yourself a story about, like this divorce is so terrible. What's going to happen to my kids? Are they going to want to be with me? Are they going to blame me? Are they going to grow up with a terrible life?
And then we start to feel guilty about that, like I must not be a good mom, or I must not be a good parent, because I made this choice, and so if you feel this way, let me just tell you right now you're not alone. I know exactly how you feel. I've felt it. My clients feel it. Many, many, many, many, many more women feel what you are feeling. There's nothing wrong with you that you feel this way, but I also want you to know that it's not necessary to feel guilty over your divorce Another story that we sometimes will tell ourselves.
If we're going through a divorce and this typically happens with women whose partners are not super great They've either showed up in some kind of abusive way, whether it be emotional or physical or something else Uh, they often feel guilty, leaving their kids with their ex partner half the time, which totally makes sense, right? We want to protect our kids. We want our kids to feel safe, to feel secure, to be in a place where they don't have to walk on eggshells, they don't have to feel unprotected and, of course, follow the laws that are wherever you are. And if you feel that it's definitely necessary that you have sole custody or more custody of your children, go for that, talk to your lawyer and work toward that. However, if it is more of a case of they aren't parenting in the way that you would necessarily parent, maybe they're just not the nicest person, maybe they're just kind of an asshole to the kids, maybe there's some yelling and things going on, not to say that those things are good they're not.
However, there's often a guilty feeling of like, well, I was able to get out of it, but now my kids have to deal with that half of the time when they're not with me, and a mom or a parent can feel guilty about that, and so when I have clients who are struggling with this idea, there's a couple of things that I really like to remind my clients. Number one you got to take care of you first. You want to make sure that you are mentally and emotionally stable as possible. That means being able to be an emotional adult and understand that you are in charge of your emotions. Your children are not in charge of making you feel a certain way. Your ex partner is not in charge of making you feel a certain way. That is up to you. So make sure that you are mentally and emotionally as stable as possible, because when you do that for yourself, what that does is. It helps you be in a mentally and emotionally stable place for when your kids come back home to you.
I also teach my clients how to be able to validate themselves from the inside without needing outside validation, whether it's coming, whether they're seeking from their kids, from another partner, from their parents, their family, their job, their coworkers, like whatever right. We need to be able to create that validation of like I am good, I am worthy, I am great, exactly as I am, and I see that and I feel that, and I don't need anyone from the outside telling me that that's true. I don't need anyone from the outside telling me I'm a good mom, or telling me I'm making the right choice, or telling me I'm doing the thing that needs to be done. We learn self-trust and how to create that validation for ourselves so that when our kids come back to us, we're not seeking that from them, we're not needing them to show up in a certain way. We just get to create an environment of safety, of love, of stability right now when they're with us, so that when they come home they have a safe place, they have a safe environment, they have a place where they feel like they can be themselves and show up as themselves. Safe environment, they have a place where they feel like they can be themselves and show up as themselves. And then they also have this example of one parent who has the foundational skills and the emotional capabilities to Be an example to their kids on how they can take care of themselves when they're in situations that feel uncomfortable, that they don't like, that they don't enjoy. That's your job is to be that example to them, to show them how to be with their emotions, to not seek that validation from outside sources and to create the safety from within rather than needing it to be all around them at all times. So of course, you want to protect your kids at all times, but often in divorce it's not possible. So you want to create the environment where they can feel protected, where they can feel safe, where they can feel loved.
And when that little voice inside your head says something like, would it have been better if I had stayed? Should I have done something different? Should I have protected them in some other way, you get to remember that the woulda, coulda shouldas are not helpful, that you made the choice that you knew was right for you. And now how do I want to show up, moving forward. That's how we deal with that guilt. When it pops up, we answer it right back.
The thing about our brains is our brain likes to lie to us, and I don't think it's doing it on purpose, right? Our brain is trying to protect us in some way, and often it will just tell us whatever it thinks is going to feel protective, is going to feel safe, is going to feel comfortable, is going to feel like something that we've heard before, and so we can believe that Our brain doesn't like uncertainty and our brain doesn't like anything that feels outside of what we've been feeling for a very long time, because that feels uncomfortable, that feels scary, that feels unknown, no-transcript, that feels uncertain. And so when we're going through things like divorce and thoughts pop in and we're like, oh my gosh, now I have this thought that I should have done it differently, that I should have stayed, that I shouldn't have got divorced, that I wasn't good enough, that I'm doing it wrong, that I'm not a good parent, that I've ruined the family all of these things right, all of these thoughts pop into our head and we start to feel guilty because it feels comfortable, because we felt that way before, because our brain is like well, we've thought these things before and we believed them before, so we might as well just keep believing them, because we know that we understand that belief and anything outside of that feels scary. So you just can't believe every thought that your brain feeds you. You have to be willing to question them. You have to be willing to talk back to your brain and say listen, brain, I'm not married anymore or I'm going through the divorce and, whether or not it was my choice, this is what is. And now what? How do I want to show up? How do I want to deal with this? Who do I want to be moving forward? What do I want to believe about myself and my situation right now?
Because if I don't want to believe any longer that I've ruined my family, if I don't want to believe that I'm not good enough, if I don't want to believe that this was my fault because I didn't show up in some way, then what do I want to believe instead? It is your job to answer your brain when it tries to trick you and tell you that you're the worst, that you've done something wrong. It is your job to take control and answer it back in the way that feels powerful, that feels true, that feels right and peaceful for you. So one thing that I like to talk about when it comes to guilt as an emotion is that it's kind of just one of these underlying emotions that's always going to be there.
I think a lot of that has to do with the society that we live in, because we're just kind of taught well, if you don't live up to these outside expectations or outside standards, there's something wrong with you, and we have so many stories going on in our head, and so it's hard to get rid of that specific idea, that specific feeling of guilt, and sometimes it's just chattering in the background. And what I like to teach is there this is not a problem Having that chatter going on in the background. It only becomes a problem when you start to believe it, when you start to fall for what it's telling you. And so I just teach that we just want to kind of turn down that volume, and you can. This is a skill that you can learn how to do and you can get better at turning down the volume and just tolerating the chatter, tolerating feeling that guilt when it shows up inside of you.
You don't have to believe the chatter, you don't have to pretend like it's not there. You just have to turn the volume down and not make it mean that something has gone wrong when that guilt emotion shows up, because often we will feel the guilt, we will have the thoughts and we will think, oh no, it's telling me I've done something wrong, so something must be going wrong and now I need to change something that I'm doing. But the way to turn the volume down is to just get better at feeling guilt without making it mean we've done something wrong. We must change something. We don't have to tell ourselves that we are bad or wrong or that we've made a wrong decision. We don't have to believe the whole story that it's telling us that we've done something wrong or that you're not good enough, or that the divorce was a terrible idea or that the kids are ruined or any of those things. You get to change the story that your brain is telling you and that helps turn down that volume of guilt.
Some questions to ask yourself are when I change that story, what words do I want to say to myself instead? What does that story look like now? What words am I usually saying to myself and what do I want to say instead? What does family mean now? What does family look like now? What does it mean to be a mom who is divorced? How do I see myself as good enough? What does good enough mean? You get to decide what all of these new stories look like for you. That is resonant and feels right to you and your situation. That is resonant and feels right to you and your situation.
So remember, when the guilt emotion shows up and it's got the story and if you're working on changing the story, continue to do that. It takes practice, it takes time. There's nothing wrong with that. Again, nothing has gone wrong. If it doesn't happen overnight, right.
But when the guilt shows up, just remember. I'm going to turn the volume down on this. I'm not going to believe everything that this guilt emotion and these thoughts are telling me and I can just let it be there. I can just let the guilt stay within me for a moment to moment when I feel it, but I'm not going to let it rule the decisions that I make moving forward. I can allow space for this guilt. I can allow it to be present within me and not make it mean I'm bad, I'm wrong. I'm terrible.
All right, my friends, go out there, get better at feeling guilt, get better at redefining your story and what things mean to you as you go through your divorce. You got this. I believe in you and I hope this is helpful and, as always, I will talk to you next week. Hi, friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real-life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to karinnelsoncoaching dot com. That's www dot karinnelsoncoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.
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