Getting divorce advice from other people can be confusing. It’s obviously going to varying depending on that person’s experience and your particular circumstances means that some advice may not apply to you. The advice may change with time also because time helps to bring a different perspective and perhaps a different understanding to a situation.
It’s been some seventeen years now since Kimberly’s divorce and here’s what she would advise others facing divorce now:
I tell people this all the time—to get counseling for the children. At least try, see what comes of it, even if it looks like they’re OK.
A lot of times children don’t know how to express themselves and if they did, they don’t want to express it to you. Sometimes, and quite often, they feel that they are the cause, so they don’t want to say the wrong thing to you. Going to counseling certainly is not going to hurt them and in a lot of instances it gives them an opportunity to speak to someone outside of the house and that can be very helpful.
The second piece of advice I would say is to look at what happened in the relationship. Two people make a relationship and two people break a relationship. Figure out what went wrong or that didn’t work, because if you don’t, in my experience, you’re going to get into the same kind of relationship again. If you want to have a change in the relationship, figure out what it is that needs to change. If you want to have the same relationship over again, then fine.
And don’t be in such a hurry. Many women feel that they need a man to complete them. This silliness of “I’m whole with you.” That’s ridiculous. We are all individually whole people and we need to learn to be comfortable with ourselves, love ourselves and be comfortable with ourselves before we go out looking for somebody else. That person shouldn’t complete you, that person should be an added bonus to your life, but you should be a whole person without anybody else.
Another thing would be to let women know that if they’re alone now and they’re not used to working on their finances, not to be afraid of it. It is not something only men know how to do, that women are just as capable if not more so than men; especially from an investment perspective. I took courses. I learned from trial and error and I went to the local college. There’s a lot of women who get divorced are very nervous about the money aspect. I want to encourage them to not feel that they can’t learn. It’s just as easy to learn as anything else and they can do a good job at it just as much as men can.
My advice? Don’t isolate yourself, talk to other people … and read my blog 😉
This is the last post in Kimberly’s series and I’d like to thank her for sharing her journey and insights. Coming up I have some more awesome guest posts and then I’ll be sharing Tina Swithin’s story. Tina’s been divorced since 2009 but has been involved in a long and continuing custody battle. She blogs at One Mom’s Battle.
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