Here are some suggestions
that may be helpful:
Professional counseling may help
you through this difficult time of your life. You
are enduring many
changes in your life and often a torrent of mixed emotions. A skilled counselor
should be able to assist you to make carefully thought out decisions and
guide you in finding tools to deal with the emotions you are experiencing.
As Catholics, we believe that marriage
is permanent and indissoluble. The beauty and wisdom
of this teaching may bring additional pain to those
who are separated or divorced. Seek a counselor who
can appreciate and validate the significance of this
situation.
Be as healthy as you can be! Get
plenty of rest and exercise. Maintain a good diet
and do not lean on
alcohol or drugs. Remember, you are never alone. Begin and end each day with
prayer.
Divorce and your Family
The ripple effects of divorce are
felt throughout the family. The children are most
deeply affected as
their day-to-day life has changed significantly. It is often a difficult
task to put aside the burden of one's personal emotional difficulties as
one hopes to guide their children through this traumatic time.
No matter how much parents try
to hide marital conflict, children sense the tension.
Once the divorce is
announced, their reactions may go through many of the same stages that they
would if a parent had died. Initially, they may deny the reality of divorce,
insisting that the separation is only temporary. Denial is followed by anger,
which may be directed at one or both parents, or turned inward. The third
stage, depression is marked by fears of abandonment, of ridicule from friends
and classmates, or of life-long misery. Conscious acceptance of changes that
divorce brings marks the final stage. However, it is not unusual for children
to harbor unconscious hopes long after the divorce is final that their parents
will reconcile someday.
Children's emotional reaction
to crisis
In assessing children's behavior
at times of crisis such as divorce, it is always
important to compare their behavior to how they behaved
prior to the crisis. Secure and happy children have
a better chance of handling crisis and recovering
quickly. The primary concern of most people, including
children, is their own personal safety. In the time
of a divorce crisis in the family, it is important
that parents reassure children that they will be
protected - that they will be safe.
