Along for the Ride: Illinois Attorneys Helping Clients Navigate the Emotional Divorce Roller Coaster
Divorce could be briefly defined as the legal technicality that changes your marital status on your Federal 1040 form, but aside from the legalities involved, divorce is also an emotional process that will need attention and further defined as to how you plan to handle it.
According to a recent article by Pauline H. Tesler, M.A., J.D. and Peggy Thompson, Ph.D, not one person will handle their divorce to the same degree as say the neighbor down the street or the co-worker in the next cube. According to the authors, there are predictable emotions that will manage to surface for anyone working through a divorce. How you handle these "normal" emotions is up to you. You could find yourself dealing with them with ease and grace or you could find yourself dealing with a diminished capacity of all logical thought patterns affecting your ability to think clearly or to make rational decisions. For all comparative purposes, the stages of grief brought forth by the legal loss of a marriage closely parallel those experienced when dealing with the death of a loved one. In their article, The Emotional Roller Coaster of Divorce, posted to Woman's Divorce.com, the authors discuss each dip of the Divorce Roller Coaster track:- Denial
- Nope, this isn't happening to us! My marriage is on track! We can fix this!
- Anger
- How dare he or she! After all I've done! How is this fair!
- Resentment
- This is all his or her fault! Surely not mine!
- Bargaining
- We could work this out! You can change! I will change! What if you do this or I do that?
- Depression
- There is nothing I can do! He or she is actually out the door and not coming back!
- Acceptance
- Ok, I am done! Have it your way! There is no turning back! This is over!