Expert advice for women going through divorce

LAST week we started sharing powerful advice from medical doctor and in sightful premartial counsellor, Dr Sharon Earle Edwards, for women getting married. Dr Earle Edwards reminded women to ‘be the right person in order to attract the right person’. This week we continue with her advice for women going through divorce.

• Know your rights. Get a good lawyer — you and your ex can’t share a lawyer.

•Get good counselling for yourself first and also for your children. The healthier you are as you cope with separation and divorce, releasing bitterness, practising forgiveness and learning and taking responsibility for your part in the breakdown of the relationship (because no relationship breakdown is one-sided), the easier it is to move on.

• Retool. Sometimes it might mean going back to school or learning new skills. It might involve opening a business or it may involve other areas of personal development including gaining more parenting skills, time management skills, financial management skills, etc — all of these skills together can help her to move into this phase of divorce in a healthier way.

Q: Indeed, people are breaking up, but people still want to find love and a connection with that special someone. What would you say is the secret to finding love after a divorce?

A: There is no one secret to finding love after a divorce; however, in the Fresh Start Recovery group that I co-facilitate for the past 21 years, one of the things we stress often is that you know you are ready to remarry when you don’t need to remarry.

Heal

So the first key I would say to finding love after a divorce is to heal as well as possible because if not, you would be coming from a vantage point of woundedness and are more likely to make a similar mistake or even worse mistake in choice of partner, either out of desperation or out of blindness to challenges with the new person. Sometimes the new person may not have the desired qualities. Many people get focused on the fact that they don’t want to make the same mistake, but sometimes they choose a different flavour of the same ice-cream. For instance, a person who had a challenge with a gambling husband may end up this time with a workaholic. Now, in her mind there is absolutely no resemblance between someone who squanders money in gambling and someone who may be extremely frugal and industrious, until she recognises that there is (still an) addiction. It’s just an addiction affirmed by society, namely ‘workaholicism’. Awareness of such challenges would be more possible if she is further along on the journey to healing. You may not get completely healed, but the further along one is on the journey, the less likely one is to make the same mistake.

Pray

In addition to being intentional about healing, pray. Some people would like another relationship but they don’t believe they can ask God for that and that might be because of poor self-esteem or they feel like they don’t deserve a second chance so they cant ask God for a second chance.. or they’re ambivalent about the whole issue of divorce and remarriage. And if there is ambivalence, especially in Christian circles, one would have to work through what one believes and gain deeper insight, hopefully under the guidance of someone who can take you through the theology of divorce and remarriage so that you are in a position to make that decision because some people may sabotage the love relationship they could have because deep down they feel they don’t deserve it or they shouldn’t get married.

Build friendships

Additionally, work on building friendship and friendship-building skills. Working on the (friendship) skills would leave you in a more balanced position and whether or not you get into another relationship, you will feel love and support regardless of the outcome.

Identify preferred qualities

Finally, identify the qualities that you are looking for in a mate and be clear on them. The second time around can be an opportunity to let go of choices that are really superficial and get really deep in terms of the character that you are looking for. So, it could really be an opportunity to get a better relationship if approached in a healthy, mindful way.

Join us next week for the final in our marriage and divorce series. In the meantime, feel free to send comments to familyandfaithmagazine@gmail.com and visit familyandfaithmagazine.com.

Shelly-Ann Harris is the author of God’s Woman and the Goodies on Her Tray. She is also the founder of Family & Faith Magazine.