To survive divorce over 50 and prosper is a big challenge, but this does
not seem to be deterring growing numbers of couples from splitting up
in their later years in what has been called "gray divorce."
Whether you view it from the woman's perspective or the man's perspective.
Whether it is agreed on by both of you or not.
Whether you litigate, mediate, or collaborate.
Whether you have children or not.
Whether you significant assets, pensions, liabilities, or not.
Divorce is always challenge, and when you're over 50 it has its own special hurdles to cope with. It is a challenge with significant potential rewards to be sure, but a challenge nonetheless.
This is a game in which everyone loses something. While the benefits to you may well eventually outweigh the costs, don't act as if there will be no costs. The effects of divorce are felt broadly and deeply.
When you are over 50 you are much more likely to live the rest of your life without an intimate partner after divorce.
Your relationships with family, friends, children will be affected in often unexpected ways. You can figure that some will become closer and others will drift away or even slam the door as they leave.
Your involvement of the
legal system will take away personal privacy.
Its not something to be entered into lightly or casually.
Divorce has a powerful ability to stir up a lifetime of fears, disappointments, losses, regrets, and anger that you may not have been aware of for years and the longer you have lived, the more you have to stir up. This can be overwhelming, especially if they take you by surprise.
This tends to be particularly strong in men, perhaps because they often don't have the same kinds of friend networks that women do.
If you are thinking that this is one "opportunity" that you would just as soon not take up, you're not alone. If you decide to simply sidestep the feelings and just muddle through, you can do that. Lots of people do it with divorce.
The danger in the "just keep slogging on" strategy is that it greatly increases the likelihood that you'll make the same mistakes in your next relationship. Divorce rates for second marriages suggest that this happens more often than one would expect if indeed people do learn from experience.
So, why would intelligent, well meaning people repeat mistakes when there are ways to move ahead?
To survive divorce over 50 as well as possible, you must function in two realms: the one of what's going on inside you and the one that's happening outside you.
From my own experience, I think that there's too much information and opinion about divorce coming at you from all directions, but very little of it treats what you're feeling as important. It felt to me like most people were saying that my emotions were important, but they seemed to really have neither time for feelings to get in the way of a timely and efficient process of divorcing nor the wisdom or knowledge to actually be helpful or even just passively supportive.
When it comes to having any idea of what to do
with difficult thoughts and feelings, the work of Byron Katie has done
more for me than any other source. You can learn more at her website.
By following the links to her blog, youtube, etc. you will find a world of helpful information with step-by-step procedures and examples of what to do.
Her book, Loving What Is, sums it all up beautifully and is the format from which I most often access her help, though depending on your age and electronic savvy you may find any of the sources best for you.
And, once you've learned to use the tool she provides they are applicable not only to surviving divorce over 50, but to any other personal challenge.
See Byron Katie on Amazon . . . HEREYou do only have a certain amount of time and energy when so much is required just to survive divorce over 50 and it can be a great deal of help to have someone else pull together checklists and resources. To some degree this website and ones like it do that.
At the very least, these kinds of resources are starting points for deeper research on your own. You can use professionals more effectively and efficiently when you have focused questions and concerns. Paying for an attorney's time to try to figure out what you are asking can become expensive.
It describes a wide variety of issues and traps in the divorce process so that you can be prepared for what's happening and not finding yourself being fooled or caught having to make a decision faster than you're comfortable with because you didn't foresee it.
It gives you disinterested third party opinions on what the important issues are likely to be so that you can come to your own conclusions about how you want to proceed.
It saves you time in digging all this stuff out so that you can take care of yourself and your family through this stressful time.
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This one is sold through ClickBank and comes with a 60 day money back guarantee. If they don't deliver, they don't get to keep your money. I know it works because I have returned a product there and it was as quick and easy.
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P.S. Yes, getting through divorce over 50 sane and solvent is a course in survival, but once you know that and work to take charge, it gets easier.
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