Please Take Our One Minute Divorce Coaching Survey

As part of our ongoing effort to provide the clients of Equitable Mediation Services and Coaching the best possible experience, we would kindly ask that if you find yourself contemplating divorce, in the midst of a divorce or are already divorced, you please take our quick four question survey:

Click here to take the Equitable Mediation and Coaching survey

And while you won’t win any trip to Aruba or a new car (sorry about that!) please know that by answering our survey you will ultimately be helping out those just like you whose lives have been touched by divorce, allowing us to better design and tailor our programs and resources to meet your and their needs.

PLEASE NOTE: No personally identifiable information will be collected as part of this survey and the results will be used for our internal purposes only. Thank you in advance for your help!

Staying Friends with Your Ex-Spouse

Staying friends with your ex-spouse can be a tricky proposition because if you don’t have children together, you really need to examine the reasons why you’d want to since it may do you more harm than good in the long run.  Certainly there is the short-term benefit of the comfortable but is that really what you’re looking for out of life?  If you wanted comfortable, my guess is you might not have even gotten divorced!  But something inside of you said I need a change and recognized that your current relationship wasn’t doing you any good or letting you grow as a person so you undertook a major life transition and got a divorce.

As a divorce coach and life reinvention coach I like to think that even though the people I work with find themselves touched by divorce, there was a reason they found their ex-spouse special enough to get married.  On the flip side I also have to recognize that it may have been a time and place because who they were isn’t who they are or want to be.  So before you decide if staying friends with your ex-spouse is a good idea ask yourself these three questions:

1. Am I staying friends with my ex-spouse because I hope there may be a chance of reconciliation? If so working with a divorce coach and life reinvention coach can help you examine the world of possibilities which lie ahead of you including the often intimidating re-entering of the dating scene.  When you have something to look forward to you spend less time looking back.
2. Is staying friends with my ex-spouse going to create feelings of jealousy for me when I see they’re living the life I had always imagined we’d be living? Did you and your ex-spouse have big plans to move to Hawaii, climb Mt. Everest or learn to ballroom dance together and now that you’re apart, those dreams will never come true?  Nonsense!  You’re still you and were a critical part of that equation.  If the desire still lies within you, working with a divorce coach and life reinvention coach can help you live that life.  You don’t need to be a part of a “we” in order to do great things.  Who knows?  Maybe it was your ex-spouse who was weighing you down!
3. Do I feel guilty because I’ve begun my new life with a sense of adventure and purpose and my ex-spouse seems to still be stuck reliving our divorce? Ah yes… you’ve moved on and they haven’t – a tricky place to be.  But it’s my guess that during your time together you felt responsible for their happiness which is not the way to look at things.  We are each responsible for our own happiness and it’s not up to you to help your ex-spouse get past your divorce.  Perhaps you want to direct them to a divorce coach and life reinvention coach who can help them move past their past as you’ve got some living to do.

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Cheryl Dillon is a divorce coach and life reinvention coach and Managing Partner of Equitable Mediation Services – a New Jersey based firm that provides divorce mediation to clients throughout New Jersey and divorce coaching services to clients throughout the United States.  Ms. Dillon may be reached at (609) 375-8533.

Divorce Coaching and Divorce Mediation: Perfect Together

Divorce mediators in New Jersey meet with those who are contemplating a divorce, those in the middle of their divorce having come from another mediator or perhaps a lawyer driven process and those seeking assistance for post-divorce issues such as parenting plan modification, child support modification or spousal support modification.   But no matter which phase of the divorce process clients find themselves in, going through it can be a stressful and emotionally charged situation for both parties involved.

While mediation can help you handle the legal and financial issues you face, working with a divorce coach will help you manage the emotions you face both during your time in mediation as well as after you are finished with it.   When you’re in the middle of a divorce, it seems like your world has ended and that there is no path forward worth pursuing.  But life does and will go on and so it’s important to me that you get the help you need to build a path towards your future and realize that your life doesn’t have to end with a divorce.

That’s why divorce coaching and divorce mediation work so well together.  By working with both a divorce coach and a divorce mediator you’ll be able to work through all of the issues that come into play be they pre-divorce, during divorce or post-divorce in a calm and rational manner moving yourself from emotion based thinking to logic based thinking.  This has two benefits.  First by making decisions in a calm and rational manner you can truly begin to understand the impact these decisions have on both of you and you children.  It becomes less about winning and getting everything you can and more about what do I need to be happy and making a plan to get there.  Second it allows you to remove yourself from the toxic swirl some people find themselves in during a divorce which can drag them down to the depths of despair and make them lose sight of what’s really important.  You want to define your divorce, not have your divorce define you.

But regardless of what path you take to divorce be it the preferred alternative of mediation or the more contentious route of collaborative divorce or litigation, one thing is clear: working with a divorce coach will benefit you before, during and after your divorce.  Long after the final papers are signed and you’re now finding yourself living the life you always knew you were meant to live, you’ll be thankful you worked with a divorce coach to get your priorities in order, figure out what was important to you and executed a plan to get there.   Divorce doesn’t have to be difficult and recovering from a divorce doesn’t have to be either.  With a little inner-work and reflection combined with the helpful partnership of a divorce coach, you’ll be able to see your future and get there in no time, even though at this moment, things may not be exactly clear.

Cheryl Dillon is a Divorce and Life Reinvention Coach and Managing Partner of Equitable Mediation Services.  She can be reached at (908) 864-2177.

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