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The 8 Keys to Trust in a Post-Divorce Relationship – Part 1

May 20, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

key

You’ve probably heard recommendations from other experts about how long you need to wait after divorce before you start dating.  These other experts recommend that you wait anywhere from just 1 year to 1 year for every 4 years you were married.

I disagree with these one-size-fits-all recommendations.  I believe that the only requirement for you to be able to successfully date after divorce is that you’ve finished your time in the Divorce Pits.  The Divorce Pits are where you experience the most painful feelings of divorce – grief, anger, guilt and rejection.

I hope you can agree with me that you wouldn’t want to date someone consumed with the Divorce Pits.  So, if you’re consumed with them, you’re probably not going to find someone who wants to date you either.  (You can find out if you’re still in the Divorce Pits by taking the assessment at http://www.functionaldivorce.com/fdas.html.)

Once you’re out of the Pits, you’re cleared to date.  There are all kinds of ways you can meet people to date and I’ll save a discussion of that for some other time.  The point I want to get to here is that your dating should be helping you to determine what you do and don’t like about yourself and others in a relationship.  There are all kinds of things that people do and don’t want in a relationship, but the one thing that EVERYONE WANTS is to be able to trust their partner.

For many of us post-divorce, our ability to trust another isn’t quite working ideally.  That’s why I recommend you build your trust in yourself first (read more at http://www.functionaldivorce.com/blog/2013/05/06/trust-yourself/), then build your trust in friendships (read more at http://www.functionaldivorce.com/blog/2013/05/11/who-can-you-trust/), before trusting someone in a committed relationship.  The question I always get from my clients about this is how do I know if I can trust someone?

You can feel pretty confident about trusting someone in a committed relationship by using 8 different keys.  These keys are things that you need to examine both in the other person and in your ability to give to them.

We’ll start with the first four keys today and save the other four for next week’s article.

The first 4 keys to trust in a post-divorce relationship are

  1. Clarity – Clarity refers to the ability you and your partner have communicating with each other AND in the clarity you each have individually about being in the relationship.  Are you both open and clear about what you want from the relationship?  Are you both clear about what needs you’d like to have the other meet?  Are you both clear about what you are and are not willing to do in the relationship?  The important point about each of these questions is that you’re clear individually without any pressure from the other person or fear of losing the relationship and that you’re able to clearly communicate this to each other.  (You should also be aware that after divorce we all change a lot, so just because you’re clear about what you want today, next month, next quarter, next year, your needs of the relationship may change and you both need to be willing to continue being clear for the duration of the relationship.)
  2. Compassion – Compassion refers to the ability you’ve each got to care for the other.  Compassion in a healthy relationship MUST be two-way.  There are times when one partner may need more compassion than another, but if the flow of compassion is only one-way, the relationship isn’t conducive to building the level of trust necessary for a long-term committed relationship.
  3. Character – Character is who you each are as individuals and in the relationship.  It’s not unusual for people to behave one way in front of others and another way in the privacy of their relationship.  If you find that you’re not behaving like yourself in a relationship, that’s not a healthy relationship for you.  If you find that you don’t care for the way the person you’re dating regularly behaves, then they’re not the right person for you.
  4. Competency – Competency can sound like a funny criterion for trust in a dating or love relationship, but it’s really important.  Would you want to be in a relationship with someone who is simply incapable of meeting your needs of the relationship?  I doubt it.  That’s why I believe it’s critical that you get some clarity on what you want in a relationship and what you’re willing to give to a relationship.  Once you know that, you’ll have an idea of whether or not you’ve both got the competency to be in a relationship together.

I know that this is only half of the list, but it’s a lot of information!  These aren’t necessarily simple keys.  They require careful thought and a deep awareness of your feelings.  But armed with these first keys, you’ve got a great starting point for figuring out if the person or people you’re dating are right for you to enter into a deeper relationship with.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Get clear about what you want in your post-divorce relationships.  You might be looking for your next great love or you might be looking for someone to hang out with and just have fun.  It’s important that you get clear about what you want so you’ll be able to know if dating someone is in your best interest or not.  AND so that you’ll be able to have clarity telling the other person what you want.

How might you determine if the other person is compassionate?  In my experience, this is one of those keys that takes time to evaluate.  You might be able to tell enough about someone’s lack of compassion quickly.  However, if it’s not glaringly obvious that the other person isn’t compassionate, then seeing how you both act in stressful situations is probably the quickest way to determine your level of compassion for yourselves and each other.

If you’re in a relationship with someone, do you like who you are when you’re with them?  For most of us who divorced, when we take an honest look back at our marriage we can usually find something about ourselves in the marriage that we’ve since changed or are in the process of changing.  There was something about what our marriage had become that caused us to be less than ourselves.  It’s so very important that you not enter into another relationship that might cause you to not appreciate yourself 100%.  So, if you don’t like whom you are when you’re with someone, it’s time to end that relationship.  If you do like who you are when you’re with someone, the relationship just might be working and you might be closer to building trust.

Is the person you’re in relationship with capable of meeting your needs?  Are you capable of meeting theirs?  If your answer is “yes” to both questions, you’ve got another key for building trust in this relationship.  If not, then this relationship probably isn’t in your best interest to continue for long.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Do You REALLY Trust Yourself?

May 6, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | 1 comment

self-trust

Divorce is one of those life events that can cause you to question EVERYTHING.

At least that’s what happened for me.  Somehow my change of marital status caused me to wonder if anything about my life was what I thought it was– was any of it real?  How could I know what was real and what wasn’t?  After all, I had thought I’d be married to my ex-husband for the rest of my life and that wasn’t true so what really was true about the rest of my life?  I felt hopelessly lost.

Slowly, though, I began to understand that the only path out of a life of being hopelessly lost was to begin to trust myself again.  I needed to believe that I could trust myself and that I was the only one who would know what was and wasn’t true for me.  Knowing which path to take is different from actually walking down the path.  The walk, for me, took a while because I was walking blind-folded.

When I look back at that time in my life, I know that it took me longer to walk the path to self-trust than it might have.  I didn’t know where the path was headed or what was required of me to successfully walk it.  But I know it now.  I know the path now because of my own journey and because of the journeys I’ve been honored to watch my clients make too.

I’m going to share my knowledge with you so you will be able to walk your own path back to self-trust without a blindfold.

Before I start with the how-to’s of building self-trust, it’s important to define the term.  Self-trust is the ability to make decisions, to know that your emotions and feelings are real, and to take care of yourself.  It’s a fairly lengthy definition, isn’t it?  Basically, self-trust involves trusting yourself on EVERY level – cognitively, emotionally, logically, intuitively and physically.

I’ll bet you’re wondering, “With a concept this big, where do I start?”  You start with a decision to build your self-trust and then you roll up your sleeves and begin to work.  It won’t be (at least not for most of us) a magical process that once you make the decision you’ll automatically have a wonderful sense of self-trust, but with consistent work you’ll definitely make significant progress in a fairly short period of time.

Here are 6 steps you can use to build your self-trust:

1.  Eliminate victim mentality.  Victim mentality is living in the belief that things happen to you and you have zero impact, influence or control over what happens to you.  I’m not suggesting that you can’t be a victim.  What I’m suggesting is that you don’t want to let that be your entire story.  Yes, bad things do happen and you can choose how you move on from those things.

As an example, suppose you are divorcing because your spouse cheated on you.  You can either live the rest of your life feeling like a victim of your spouse’s choice or you can come to accept that your spouse’s choice was hurtful and you can still move on with the rest of your life regardless of what your spouse has done.

2.  Eliminate negative thoughts about yourself.  Regardless of whether or not you’re going through divorce, most of us have negative self-talk – you know, those voices in your head that are constantly criticizing you in some way.  A friend of mine calls them the shitty committee.  Learning to quiet those voices and recognize them for what they are is an incredibly powerful skill.

Most of the time, those hyper-critical voices are that way because they’re trying to protect you from something.  For years, my negative self-talk revolved around not liking myself.  It took a while for me understand what was behind those messages, but I finally realized that it was because I wasn’t trusting myself to know what was best for me.  I would often defer what I wanted to what my ex-husband wanted.  Once I came to this realization, it was much easier for me to quiet those negative thoughts and pay more attention to what I wanted.

3.  Recognize your strengths and successes.  This has a lot to do with self-esteem and knowing that you are capable because you have innate strengths and because you’ve been successful in the past.

I’ve written a previous blog post about how to do this and instead of re-writing it here, I’ll just direct you to that post: http://www.functionaldivorce.com/blog/2012/03/30/a-quick-and-simple-way-to-dump-divorce-depression/

4.  Become aware of what you’re thinking and feeling.  Now that you’ve eliminated a bunch of the stinking thinking in the first 3 steps, you’re ready to start being pro-active with building your self-trust and it all begins with paying attention to what you’re thinking and feeling (both physically and emotionally).

There are a couple of different ways to do this.  The first is to ask yourself at least 3 times during each day just what you’re thinking and feeling at that particular moment.  Once you have that answer you can then decide what if anything you want to do to improve how you’re thinking and feeling.  The second way is to journal about your thoughts and feelings.  Most people are more aware of their thoughts than their feelings.  If this is you, you might want to journal by using the phrase “I feel…” as many times as you need to so you can get everything out.

5.  Keep your word to yourself.  Believe it or not we all make promises to ourselves every day: “I won’t eat any more sweets”, “I will start a daily exercise routine today”, “As soon as I finish this report, I’ll take a break to clear my head before starting my next task.”  The thing is that despite our promises we wind up eating a fresh-baked cookie a friend brought over to share, we skip a day of exercise and soon we’ve stopped exercising all together, and we skip taking a break because we talk ourselves into believing we didn’t really need it after all.  Breaking promises we make to ourselves, sets us up to have a poor level of self-trust.

I used to be especially bad at keeping my promises to myself involving rest, relaxation and fun.  I’d usually feel guilty if I wasn’t working and pushing myself all the time and yet I’d hate myself for not taking care of me.  It was really a vicious cycle.  What I discovered by allowing myself to keep my word to myself about rest, relaxation and fun was that I had LOTS more energy for getting my work and workouts done.

6.  Learn from your mistakes.  This is the biggie when it comes to divorce.  It takes two for a marriage to not work.  (I know that might be an offensive statement to some, but it’s what I believe and if you’d like to discuss it with me, please do!  You can reach me at karen@functionaldivorce.com.)  Learning what your part in the divorce was will go a long way toward helping you build your sense of self-trust because you’ll know that you can take care of yourself.

It took me a while to recognize that I played an active part in my divorce, that I wasn’t a victim, and that there were things I could learn from my failed marriage.

Yes, this is really the master’s level of self-trust.  Being able to realize that you are going to make mistakes at times and still trust yourself because you are willing to learn from your mistakes will allow you to take appropriate risks and live a wonderful life.

Once you’ve conquered these 6 steps, you’ll be well on your way to trusting yourself again.  So, the next time something happens in your life that changes everything, your ability to trust yourself will help prevent you from feeling hopelessly lost again.  Even if you do wind up questioning EVERYTHING, you’ll be able to trust your answers because you’ve learned to trust yourself.

 

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Make the decision that you can trust yourself even if you aren’t sure you do right now.  Making the decision is always the first step in making a change.  Learning to trust yourself is critical to having a wonderful life.  Emerson said “Self-trust is the first secret to success” and I agree completely!

Take the checklist above one step at a time.  Start at the top of the list and work your way through each step.  Some may be easier for you to do than others and you may want to re-do some steps along the way, but if you work through them in this order it will be easier for you to master each of them.

Know your limits.  This is one of those extra bonus things about trusting yourself.  As you trust yourself more you’ll know exactly when you need to ask for help and what kind of help you need.  If what you know you need is someone to help hold you accountable to doing what you need to do to build your trust, then give me a call (817-993-0561) and let’s spend some time putting together a strategy to get you on your journey to feeling better about yourself and your life.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

 

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Divorce and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

April 1, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk

As I’ve mentioned before, I do a lot of reading and I’ll often be reading several books at the same time.  I’ll pick up whichever one fits my mood when I have a few moments to read.

One of the books I’ve got open these days is The Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life by Glenn Beck and Keith Ablow, M.D.  I found one particular passage interesting because it reminded me about perspective and how my life has changed since I got divorced.  The passage is actually a quote from Robert Pirsig’s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which I read about a year after my divorce was final.  Here’s the passage:

The trap consists of a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake.  The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole.  The hole is big enough so that the monkey’s hand can go in, but too small for his fist with rice in it to come out.  The monkey reaches in and is suddenly trapped – by nothing more than his own value rigidity.  He can’t revalue the rice.  He cannot see that freedom without rice is more valuable than capture with it.  The villagers are coming to get him and take him away.  They’re coming closer…closer!…now!…

There is a fact this monkey should know:  if he opens his hand he’s free.  But how is he going to discover this fact?  Be removing the value rigidity that rates rice above freedom.  How is he going to do that?  Well, he should somehow try to slow down deliberately and go over ground that he has been over before and see if things he thought were important really were important and, well, stop yanking and just stare at the coconut for a while.  Before long he should get a nibble from a little fact wondering if he is interested in it.  He should try to understand this fact not so much in terms of his big problem as for its own sake.  That problem may not be as big as he thinks it is.  That fact may not be as small as he thinks it is either.

When I got divorced, I felt like that trapped monkey – terrified and held captive by my fears about what I thought was important at the time.  What I thought was important back then was that my life after divorce needed to work pretty much exactly the same as it had before my divorce – except that I now had an ex-husband.  This was the fact whose nibbling I ignored.  I ignored the reality that one person cannot be as productive as two people working together.  I ignored that it would take me longer to do all of the household chores on my own instead of sharing them with someone else.  I ignored the fact that caring for 3 attention-loving pets on my own would be more of a challenge than it was when I was married.  I ignored these realities and expected that I could do it all with at least as high a quality as had been done pre-separation and divorce.

I kept ignoring all of these facts about my home life and kept expecting that I could and should do it all as had been done before.  I also kept expecting the same high-level of performance from myself at work, at the gym and at play.  I expected so much of myself that I virtually eliminated any time for myself – any down time to just relax.  I had built a very elaborate trap for myself – one that kept me frazzled and eventually led to burnout.

Today, more than 10 years later, I’m amazed by what an elaborate trap I had created for myself.

The thing is, I’m not the only person who got divorced and created a trap.  I regularly meet and work with divorced people who create their own elaborate captivities.

Back then, just like the people I meet and work with today, I simply wasn’t capable of identifying my captivity when I got divorced.  I thought it was just how my life was and that somehow I was defective because I couldn’t keep up with everything I thought I had to keep up with.  Today I know that wasn’t the case.  Today, I know that back then I wanted my rice (all my expectations of myself) and didn’t realize I was selling my freedom to have it.

Like most people dealing with divorce, I’ll bet that you are holding yourself captive unnecessarily too.  Check out Your Functional Divorce Assignment to help you identify and loosen the bonds of your trap.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

What trap are you in?  There are all kinds of traps people create for themselves when they get divorced.  Maybe your trap is similar to mine in that you expect your life to be pretty much the same.  Maybe your trap is a belief that you’re too old to ever find another significant other.  Maybe your trap is a belief that you have no employable skills and no way of getting any.  Or maybe your trap is something else all together.  It could be big or small, the size doesn’t matter.  What does matter is identifying how you are feeling captive.

What are the reasons you believe your trap exists?  Come up with every single reason your trap is real no matter how small or how big.  You might want to write them down so you can get them out of your head and make sure you’ve got them all covered.  Besides, having them all listed in one place will help you with the next step.

For each of the reasons, ask yourself “Is this reason 100% true?” and “What makes this reason true?”  I wish I had known how to ask myself these questions when I was recovering from my divorce.  What often happens when I compassionately ask my clients both questions is that they’ll start to get a nibble of a fact they had been ignoring.  That nibble will often lead to a new idea or a new perspective that allows their trap to be loosened – at least a little bit – which will often entirely change their trap if not eliminate it completely.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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How to Calm Your FEARs

March 17, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

FEARs

When I got divorced, FEAR was my constant companion.  I was afraid of almost everything and I spent a lot of time imagining catastrophes that could happen to me.  Some of the catastrophes I vividly pictured were being trapped in my home by a tornado (that was the happy version – the worst version was just being obliterated by a tornado), being poisoned by the food I had bought at the grocery store, being killed in a car accident, and even losing my job which would cause me to never work again and having to live on the street where I would die a painful death.

Luckily, none of my catastrophes have come to pass, but I wasted a HUGE amount of energy and time living with the fear of them.  And yet, being afraid is a common part of going through divorce.  There are so many changes happening all at once that can seem to threaten survival if your FEARs take hold of you like mine did.

Could I have worked my way through my divorce without wasting so much energy and time on being afraid?  YES!  But I didn’t know how then.  I know how now and that’s what I want to share with you – exactly how to calm your FEARs.

You can look at the word fear as an acronym – FEAR – which stands for False Expectations Appearing Real.  Each one of the catastrophic fears that I had were actually FEARs.  They were just expectations that I made come terrifyingly alive for me even though they were not real events.

The first thing to remember about FEARs are that they are based on a loss of trust.  When you have False Expectations Appearing Real you’ve lost trust in something.

When I was afraid of being obliterated by a tornado, I had lost my trust in being able to take the necessary precautions in a tornado warning.  When I was afraid of being poisoned by the food I bought at the grocery store, I had lost my trust in the food production, safety and distribution organizations. When I was afraid of being killed in a car accident, I had lost my trust in my ability to drive defensively and my trust in the fact that most other drivers are going to follow the rules of the road.  When I was afraid of losing my job, I had lost trust in my ability to perform at work even though I was still doing so.  When I was afraid that I would never work again, I had lost my trust in myself.  When I was afraid of living on the street, not only had I lost trust in myself, but I had lost trust in my friends and family too.

Now, losing trust is a normal part of going through divorce.  It makes sense to have a questioning about trust with respect to relationships when you’re going through divorce.  However, generalizing the loss of trust about relationships to other things is where FEARs start. So as easy as it can be to question your trust of other things in your life when you go through divorce, actually losing trust can lead to creating catastrophes where there are none.  And this is exactly what I did when I went through my divorce.

The second thing to remember is that what you’re FEARing is probably not happening now.  In fact, that’s the best way to start calming a FEAR.  Just ask yourself if what you’re FEARing is true right now.  Is it happening right now?  Usually, it isn’t.  Usually, your mind is just going down the path of creating a wildly vivid movie of your FEAR.  But, the moment you’re able to push the pause button on the movie you’ve been creating by acknowledging that it’s not happening right now, you’ve just started calming your FEAR.  Your FEARs will calm because you’ve changed your focus, if only for a moment, to the fact that it’s not happening right now.

The third thing is to help your thoughts change the channel from the FEAR movie as soon as you pause it.  There are millions of other thoughts you can have instead of becoming engrossed in the movies of your FEARs.  The easiest way to change the channel is to become engrossed in something else.  For some people exercising works great.  But if it’s the middle of the night when your FEAR movie-fest starts, it’s not too practical to start exercising.  What I think works even better at any time of the day or night is to write down what your FEAR is and then write down as many things as you can think of to prevent that FEAR from becoming real.  Another thing that can help any time of the day or night is to ask yourself what is happening now.  What are the sounds you’re hearing, the things you can see, what are you touching, etc.  Just by bringing yourself as fully into the reality of your surroundings as possible can help to quell the FEARs and change that channel.

Fears are a normal part of healing from divorce.  The thing is that sometimes they can get out of hand and become FEARs (False Expectations Appearing Real).  By having a plan in place that can help you change the channel when your FEARs start playing in your mind, you’ll be able to calm them quickly.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

What are you FEARing?  People FEAR all kinds of things when they get divorced.  Maybe you FEAR being alone for the rest of your life.  Maybe you FEAR not being able to find a job when you return to the workforce.  Maybe, you’re like me and you FEAR eating the food you bought at the grocery store.  Whatever it is that you FEAR, acknowledge it.  By acknowledging your FEARs, you’ll have more control over them instead of being ruled by them.

Now that you know what they are, prepare for you FEARs to show up. Understanding that your FEARs might show up again even after you’ve identified them will put you well on your way to calming them.  They’ll become a movie you’ve seen a hundred times where you can recite every line of the dialog by heart.  You’ll just need to remember to ask yourself, “Is what I FEAR happening now?” as soon as the FEAR movie starts to play again so you can pause it for just a moment.

When the movie is paused, pick one of the three options to change the channel. If your FEAR movie starts playing at a time when you can exercise, you might want to do that.  If your FEAR movie starts to play at a time when it’s not possible to exercise, you can either write down your FEAR and as many things as you can think of to prevent it from coming true or you can start becoming firmly engrossed in your surroundings.

Whatever you choose to do to change the channel when your FEAR movie starts will be a HUGE boon to you calming your FEARs and being able to move on with your life after divorce.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Update These Documents after Divorce

March 11, 2013 in Financial Divorce, Functional Divorce, Legal Divorce | Permalink

paperwork

When you get divorced there are all kinds of paperwork and documentation you need to update, change, create and just be able to put your hands on at a moment’s notice.  It can feel overwhelming to have to deal with all of this on top of the emotional turmoil of divorce.

To help make things a bit easier on you, here’s a table with the most common documents you’ll want to make sure you’ve appropriately dealt as you complete your divorce.

Document Name

Purpose of Document*

Changes to Consider**
Social Security Card Personal identifier for individuals in the United States If part of your divorce decree included a change to your name, you’ll want to file that change with the Social Security Administration and receive a new Social Security Card.
Driver’s License Grants a person the right to legally drive.  It’s also commonly used as picture identification. If part of your divorce decree included a change to your name, you’ll want to file that change with your state’s Driver’s Licensing office and receive a new Driver’s License.
Property Titles (for real estate, motor vehicles, etc.) Used to identify ownership of property Transferred ownership and any name changes
Retirement Plans (e.g., 401K, IRA, pension plan, etc.) Monies that are set aside for an individual’s retirement and can be released to a beneficiary upon the death of the individual Make sure your beneficiaries are updated to reflect your new marital status.
Life Insurance Policy Provide for your family after your death, pay for your funeral costs Make sure your beneficiaries are updated to reflect your new marital status
Will & Trust Can identify the persons or entities that will receive your property when you die, for you to appoint a guardian for your minor children, appoint those you wish to manage your estate, revoke or alter a previous will Make sure your beneficiaries are updated to reflect your new marital status
W-4 Helps your employer to withhold the correct federal income tax from your pay Make sure to adjust your number of dependents to reflect your newly single status
Medical Treatment Authorization and Consent Form Used for those situations where minors are unaccompanied by either parents or legal guardians.  Because your children may be in different care situations than when you were married, you might want to make sure whomever is watching your children has the ability to help your children get appropriate medical care.
Medical Power of Attorney Designates a person that you trust to make health care decisions on your behalf should you be unable to make those decisions. You’ll probably want to make sure you update who this person is.
Directive to Physicians and Family or Surrogates Designed to help you communicate your wishes about medical treatment if you are no longer to make decisions due to illness or incapacity. You’ll probably want to make sure to update who this person is.
HIPPA Authorizations at each of your doctors Allows you to indicate who besides you may have access to your medical information. If you had originally filled out forms at a doctor’s office allowing information to be left with your spouse, you might want to change this.

 

*  The purposes identified in this table are just casual descriptions.  For legal descriptions, you’ll want to contact the appropriate authority.

**  The changes to consider are just suggestions.  You’ll want to work with the appropriate authority to verify which changes are appropriate for you.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Which of the documents above do you currently have?  For each of the documents listed in the table that you’ve already got, take the time to review and update them.

Which of the documents do you not have? For each of the documents that you do not have, look at the purpose of the document and determine whether or not you want to have it.  If you want to have the document, make an appointment with the appropriate professional to have the document created.

Where are your documents? There are some documents that you’ll want to keep handy.  You’ll want to make sure that the appropriate family members know where you documents are kept.  You’ll probably also want to make copies of the documents for yourself and family members in case getting to the originals may not be speedy enough.

There are other documents, like the HIPPA Authorizations at each of your doctor’s offices that they’ll keep the originals of and that you’ll just have copies of.  You’ll want to keep tabs on these as well in case you need to update the information on them in the future.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Changing Your Mood Might be as Easy as Changing Your Shirt

March 3, 2013 in Emotional Divorce | Permalink

colors

One of the most curious things that happened when I was going through my divorce was that I started to wear black almost all the time.  What was so curious about it was that I had always loved color, but for some reason I didn’t understand then, I was drawn to wearing all black for quite a while.  It was really different for me and many of my friends commented on my new wardrobe choices.

At the time, I didn’t think too much about it.  And after about 6 months, I started to wear more colorful clothing again.

A few years ago, while doing research about emotions and ways that environment affects our moods, I found there is a wealth of research on how colors affect our moods and vice versa.  I was really surprised by what I learned because it explained why I had been drawn to different colors while I was going through the worst of my divorce.

Here are some of the things I’d like to share with you about color and how it can affect or reflect feelings:

Black Many of us associate the color black with mourning and that was my first guess as to why I was drawn to it during the worst of my divorce.  Well, according to color therapy theory, black is also the color that gives us space for reflection and inner searching.  I have to tell you that I was doing a whole lot of thinking and trying to figure things out while going through my divorce and so this makes a lot of sense to me.
Blue Blue is the color of a beautiful Caribbean sea and the color of a sunny sky.  Like a sunny day spent lazing on the beach, blue is the color of relaxation.  Color theorists say that blue also promotes relaxation and healing.
Red Red is a VERY energizing color.  You probably remember from watching cartoons when you were a kid that when characters were angry their eyes became red.  You’ve probably also heard the phrase “seeing red” to indicate that someone is angry.  Red intensifies emotions, especially anger.
Yellow Yellow is an interesting color from a color theory point of view.  It is said to stimulate mental activity, promote feelings of self-confidence and increase alertness.  Who wouldn’t want a healthy dose of those feelings?
White White light contains all the colors.  If you need clarity in your thoughts, white may just be the color you need to see more of.

 

So does this color theory work?  Many believe it does.  I know that I enjoy being surrounded by colors and that some days I prefer one color over another.  I know that when I feel confident and calm, I do tend to wear blue.  When I’m feeling vibrant, I tend to choose red.  And when I need things to be more organized and clean, I tend to choose white.

What color are you wearing today?  Is it a reflection of your mood or thoughts?  Is it just the first clean thing you grabbed to put on?  Or is it your signature color?  You just might be surprised about what the color of your shirt says about how you’re feeling and thinking.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Determine if color therapy could be useful in your life.  This week, have some fun noting the colors you wear each day and how you feel.  At the end of the week, compare your color/mood combinations to the list above and see if your moods matched the colors.

If you find a correlation between the colors you wore and your moods, experiment with adding more of the colors you were wearing when you felt good.  Adding pops of the colors that help you to feel good into your home and office could help you to get back to and maintain a good feeling.

If you don’t find a correlation between the colors you wore and your moods, don’t worry, it just means that you’re probably not especially sensitive to colors right now.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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I’m NOT in 1st Grade Any More. I’m NOT Exactly Married Any More. Why Should I Send a Valentine?

February 11, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

valentine

When was the last time you read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet “How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…”?  I can’t tell you the last time I read it, but when I started thinking about what to write about with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, the first line of this work came to mind.  I’ve quoted the entire sonnet for you below.

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

I love the to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

It’s an amazing read, isn’t it?  And for many people dealing with divorce, it’s a painful read too.

So often we marry with the belief that our love is the ideal kind that Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes about.  And divorce “proves” to us that our marriage must not have been based on love at all – at least that’s the conclusion I jumped to when I got divorced.  It’s also a conclusion I’ve heard many of my clients jump to as well.

What I’ve learned over the years since my divorce is that my marriage was based on love to begin with, but that my marriage didn’t continue to grow in love and that’s why it ended in divorce.

Most people do marry for love.  Odds are you and your former spouse did too.

So then why is reading this sonnet so painful to so many people going through divorce?  I believe it’s because we forget what love is and assume that because we’re divorced or divorcing that we must not know what it is.

I believe that love is something that extends beyond the romantic type that is most often associated with Valentine’s Day.  We’re surrounded by love every day.  If instead of getting caught up in the chaos and confusion of divorce along with the daily grind of making a living and meeting our responsibilities we could focus for just a few minutes on the beauty all around we would experience love.  Or maybe you can focus on yourself for just a few minutes, be gentle with yourself and allow yourself to breathe slowly and deeply, you’ll experience love.  Or maybe seeing the joy in your child’s face when they see you will remind you of the love you’re blessed with despite divorce.

I think that the key to experiencing love (I’m not talking about the romantic kind here) is being able to freely give it.  But you know, I can get so caught up in daily living that I often forget to express the love I have for my friends and family.  I know I’m not the only one who forgets.  I know that sometimes it can be difficult to express love when you’re struggling with the repercussions of divorce, but I also know it’s vital to making it through divorce and moving on with your life.  That’s why believe you can use this Valentine’s Day as a gentle reminder that we each have the opportunity to tell the people (and animals) we love how much we truly do love them.  And the best part is that you’ll usually hear how much you’re loved in return.

Who will you say “I love you” to this Valentine’s Day?

Your Friendly Coaching Assignment:

Seriously, who is on your list of needing to get a Valentine from you?  Yeah, it’s different than when we were in first grade and gave one to everyone in our class.  It’s also different from when you were married and knew who you had to get a Valentine for.  These days, you get to make your own list of those folks you love.

A Valentine isn’t necessarily a card.  A Valentine can be a quick email saying “hi, I’m thinking about you”, a call, a text, a bouquet of roses, a conversation, a hug, a special event or, yes, even a card.  It’s not so important how you tell someone you love them as it is that you simply tell them.

Have fun.  I sure hope you have fun letting your friends and family know you love them.  To me, that’s the beauty of Valentine’s Day – a whole day set aside to let others know you enjoy your relationship with them.

 

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Divorce is Tough. The Mortgage Doesn’t Have to Be.

January 31, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Financial Divorce, Functional Divorce, Legal Divorce | Permalink

home

By Mark Watson, Loan Officer, Guardian Mortgage Company, Inc. www.guardianmortgageonline.com

This is a terrific article.  It’s jam-packed with information that I am so happy to be able to share!  I’ve added just a few comments in square brackets []. 

If you are going through a divorce, you are probably exhausted by all the details and decisions that have to be made as the two of you separate. Even in the most amicable situations it can be very emotional. [Remember there are the 5 facets of divorce – social, emotional, legal, financial and functional – that all overlap.  So it makes sense that in the midst of making the decisions required to divorce that you would experience a lot of emotions.]  There is usually a lot of discussion about the house as it usually represents the family’s largest asset. [Dealing with an asset would be an example of the financial facet of divorce. When dealing with the financial facet of divorce it’s best to remain primarily in a business mindset instead of an emotional one because you’ll be better able to make decisions you can live with for the long haul.]

While divorce is a tough process, resolving the mortgage doesn’t have to be. According to Mark Watson, Vice President of Guardian Mortgage Company in Plano, Texas, there are three things homeowners can do to make it easier on themselves:

  1. Make realistic decisions.
  2. Understand your loan options.
  3. Seek help.

Make Realistic Decisions.

In many divorces, the home is refinanced in the name of one of the spouses and any profit or losses are negotiated between the couple. Sometimes the home is sold, and sometimes there is a long-term agreement in place about the home. Occasionally, a house with no mortgage is given to one spouse as part of the divorce settlement.

“It makes no difference to the mortgage company whether or not the name changes on the mortgage,” notes Watson. “However, the spouse no longer living in the home usually does not want to be responsible for it. Plus, they may want some cash out of it.”

If there is no mortgage on the home, and one spouse plans to keep it as part of the settlement, the process is simple. “The attorney prepares a quit-claim deed and records it as part of the divorce,” says Watson. “The home belongs to just one spouse from that point forward.”

Most homes have a mortgage, though. There are a number of questions that must be answered in order to pick the right process for your situation, but the most important is “which spouse can afford to keep the home after the divorce?” It is often the most difficult as there is often a lot of emotional attachment towards the house that may not have anything to do with the financial realities of the situation.  [The best way to answer these questions is from a business-minded perspective.  The “businesses” to be considered are the financial business of each spouse post-divorce as well as the business of raising happy, healthy children.]

The spouse with primary custody of the children will often want to keep the home to provide a stable environment and to stay near school and friends.

“I often see couples where the wife isn’t working and hasn’t worked in years,” says Bruce Rayburn of The Rayburn Group of Ebby Halliday Realtors based in Plano, Texas. “This makes it very hard to qualify for a refinance. Even if both spouses were working at the time of the divorce, it doesn’t mean either spouse can afford the mortgage with only one salary.”

“Even getting child support is often not enough,” Rayburn adds.

Besides the amount of income required to qualify for a refinance, the source of the income makes a difference. “For conforming loans ($417,000 or less in most areas of Texas), alimony and child support cannot count towards qualifying income until there have been at least three months of steady payments. In addition, the paying spouse must be required by law to pay for at least three years after the closing date of the sale,” notes Watson.

“For FHA Loans, the requirement is six months of payment. Furthermore, if the amount of alimony or child support is greater than 30% of the borrower’s income, then a full year’s worth of reliable payments is required.”

Understand Your Loan Options.

Many couples believe that they have to sell or refinance the home in order to finalize the divorce, which is not always the case. Sometimes sale or refinance of the home is delayed for months to years.

According to attorney Penny Phillips of Plano, Texas, many families with children want to keep the family home for them until they are older and/or in college. “In this case, one spouse will sometimes agree to wait to get the equity out of the house until after the children have left,” says Phillips.

In Texas, a lien can be placed on the house – called an Owelty Lien Agreement – such that one spouse will own the house, but the other will still retain rights to equity that was present in the house at the time of the divorce. This gives the first spouse the right to make improvements and to own the home, but the second spouse will get his or her share of the equity later when the kids are grown or the market improves or whatever reason the couple has chosen to wait.

“It is a win-win because the owner-spouse gets the benefit of all improvements and equity growth in the meantime, but the other spouse still gets the benefit of all the years of contributing to the equity when they were married,” adds Phillips.

“Since the home is not sold or refinanced, there is no need for the remaining spouse to get qualified for a new mortgage until the cash-out time. They just need to keep making timely payments. This is a good solution for situations where the divorce is fairly amicable and the spouses can work together for this common goal. I always advise that they tell the mortgage company about the divorce, however, as both partners need to continue to get notices about the loan,” says Phillips.  [Just because a divorce starts out amicably doesn’t mean it will stay that way.  To keep a divorce amicable for the long-haul requires regular, respectful communication.]

“We generally see Owelty Liens when a couple is in the process of refinancing the home,” notes Watson. “You don’t need to wait a specific amount of time to use it, and it has the added benefit of letting you do a “special purpose” refinance and go up to 95% of the appraised value of the home. This provides more equity at the end of the process.

“Current “cash-out” guidelines for refinancing in Texas allow for financing up to 80% of the loan value. A special purpose refinance allows you to get an extra 15% out of the home, which is then shared between the couple as per the terms of their divorce. I always talk to my clients about Owelty Liens because it can make a big difference if one partner is trying to buy another home, for example. Also, if the other partner finds out after the fact that they could have gotten more cash out of the refinance and didn’t, it can cause more unhappiness all around.”

Seek Help.

Dividing up the marriage assets is emotional and financially risky if you are not sure what you are doing. Early in the divorce, both spouses should consult their mortgage provider, realtor and CPA as well as an attorney in order to review their options and the financial and tax consequences of certain decisions. These objective outsiders will help you navigate your particular situation and direct you to other resources. In addition, they can act as a go-between if the divorce is contentious. [One other divorce professional you may want to contact when dealing with the financial questions of divorce is a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst.  These people are trained in how to help couples develop different scenarios for an equitable division of assets and debts.]

“It is a false economy to do a divorce yourself. I’ve seen couples ruin their credit by doing it wrong. In one case, so many mistakes were made; one partner almost went to jail. It’s not worth it,” said Phillips. “Plus the experts can tell you about Owelty Liens and other ways to get the best out of a bad situation.”

“Lack of communication makes the divorce harder,” says Rayburn. “I often will work with both spouses in a divorce to help sell the old home, refinance and/or find a new, less expensive home if that is their post-divorce reality. I’ve even helped people through multiple relationships over the years because I was able to facilitate communications between the parties.”

“I often give my clients a list of good appraisers to call on,” says Watson. “Even if they don’t plan to sell or refinance right away, they need an appraisal in order to fairly determine the value of the home for the divorce settlement. I can then take that appraisal and show them how much equity is in the house so they can have more meaningful discussions.”

As with most issues related to divorce, there is no single best way to handle your mortgage. Divorcing couples must take a long look at their finances, and make realistic decisions based on a thorough understanding of their options.

Have more questions about how to handle your mortgage through divorce? Contact an experienced loan officer like Mark Watson at Guardian Mortgage Company today about your specific situation. Guardian Mortgage Company has been serving North Texas since 1965. Mark Watson (214) 473-7954 or MarkWatson@gmc-inc.com.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

If you’re at the point of trying to decide what to do with the marital home, focus on the business decision you need to make.  Despite how much you are attached to your home, the fact is it’s just a thing, a place.  Spending your energy deciding how to best deal with this marital asset instead of what it represents will help you come to the best decision for you – the decision that you’ll be most comfortable with in the long haul.

If it’s difficult for you to separate the business aspect of this decision from the emotional one, give me a call at 817-993-0561 so we can schedule a Complimentary Consultation and together we’ll figure out a way for you to have an easier time making the decisions you need to make as part of your divorce.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Just finished a great book – Raising the Kid You Love with the Ex You Hate

January 25, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce, Legal Divorce | Permalink

Raising the Kid

Edward Farber, PhD is releasing his new book Raising the Kid You Love with the Ex You Hate next week.  I was lucky enough to receive an Advance Reviewer’s Copy and I do mean lucky.

Ed’s book is full of fabulous advice about how to make the business of co-parenting work after the business of marriage has failed.  The basis of his advice about successful co-parenting hinges on these three principles:

  1. Your child needs both parents
  2. Reduce parental conflict after the separation
  3. Both parents make decisions

Parents who can agree to abide by these three principles will have a headstart in helping their children be happy, healthy adults.  To be implemented well, each parent needs to be consistently focused on them and communicate regularly with their ex to make sure they’re on the same page.  Continuing to interact with your ex after divorce may not be something you look forward to, but, as Dr Farber points out, it’s necessary to being able to raise the kid you love.

I really appreciated reading this no non-sense approach to making co-parenting work along with the real-life stories from Ed’s practice, but probably the best part of this book is the fact that he shares ideas for non-ideal co-parenting situations.  He offers suggestions for dealing with an ex who is more interested in revenge than in successfully co-parenting, for how the co-parenting arrangement will naturally need to change as your kid grows older, for dealing with an ex who has emotional, psychological or addictive disorders, and even for dealing with kids who may be embellishing the truth to get into your good graces.

This book is an ideal resource for parents who are divorced or divorcing and committed to continuing to be great parents.

You can check out the book at Raising the Kid You Love with the Ex You Hate.

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Wrapping Up 2012

December 21, 2012 in Emotional Divorce, Financial Divorce, Functional Divorce, Social Divorce | Permalink

Most of us tend to be forward thinkers.  We’re always looking at what’s next.  As soon as we finish one thing, we rarely take the time to savor our success before we’re off to the next task or adventure.

This time of year, most Americans are gung-ho about their New Year’s resolutions before the struggling of achieving them sets in over the next few days.

One of the best ways to build the strength and determination to achieve your New Year’s resolutions is to build your belief in yourself by spending a little time reviewing all the good things that happened in 2012 – especially those things that help you know you can achieve your resolutions.

When you’re going through divorce, it’s especially important that you take time out to savor the good things.  For most people, divorce has a way of coloring things with a more negative cast.  The thing is there are usually good things that happened during the past year too.  It’s worth the time to find and appreciate them so your world view can be a bit rosier and happier.

When I review all the things I’ve done, accomplished, and experienced in the previous year, I’m always amazed at how much good stuff I packed into the year!  It takes me a couple hours to review my calendar, my business results, photos, my facebook wall posts, and my tweets for the previous year.  Besides allowing me the time to appreciate my family, friends, business associates and clients, my year-end review helps me to prepare for the coming year and set more realistic resolutions for the New Year.

 

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

 

Make your year-end review a priority and schedule a couple of hours for it.  Once a year, it’s totally worth taking this time for yourself to review where you’ve been and see where you’d like to go.

Gather together your calendar, pictures and anything else that will help you remember all the good stuff from 2012.  You may be like me and want to check out your facebook wall too!

Keep your appointment with yourself.  Enjoy reviewing all the wonderful things that you got to do, see, and accomplish in 2012.  Use the oomph you get from this to help you set and accomplish the resolutions you’ve made for yourself.

Schedule more time if you need it.  I find that sometimes people need a bit more time to get through their year-end review when they’re going through divorce.  Sometimes the review can trigger some other emotions that need to be worked through.  If that happens to you, don’t worry, you’re not alone.  Allow yourself the time you need to process your thoughts and feelings and then get back to enjoying the good things.

If you’re ready for an outside perspective and ready to get the help you deserve to make 2013 your best yet, reach out to me by email at karen@functionaldivorce.com or by phone at 817-993-0561.  We can schedule a Complimentary Consultation to help you put your plans in place for making 2013 your best year yet!

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