News

I wanted to share my thoughts about my conversation with Amanda Krill on finding hope (your voice, yourself, and your dreams) after a significant relationship ends.

The holidays can be a particularly difficult time of the year, between office parties, family get-togethers, friendship reunions, and holiday dinners. They all often lead to an increased amount of emotional distress.

What sort of emotional distresses?

• Emotional sensitivity– You feel easily hurt. Small things tend to set off your emotions. You expect to be rejected and prepare for the worst.

• Emotional reactivity– When something upsets you, you tend to react strongly....

Divorce is the second greatest life stressor after the death of a loved one.

People experience the stages of grief and loss in much the same way:
Denial / Anger / Bargaining / Guilt / Depression / Acceptance.

These stages of grief are experienced differently in divorce. Often one person (the initiator) wants the divorce. The other (the recipient) might want the marriage to continue. The initiator may feel more of the guilt and responsibility. The recipient may cycle between bargaining and...

Divorce With Dignity is a divorce facilitation service with the goal of getting people through their divorce in a holistic, cooperative, peaceful, and cost-effective way. One of the benefits we offer our clients is referrals for additional services they may need to make the divorce a smoother transition. For example, some clients may be in situations where they have a need to seek therapy or counseling during the divorce process. In these cases, we refer them to professionals like Susan...

Transformations and changes are showing up in my divorce support groups!

My divorce support groups that begin as eight-week series often evolve into groups of people who continue on by joining the next session, and then extend their participation with series after series. The reasons are varied, but most of them feel that getting to the next level of healing is right around the corner, and they are motivated to keep working toward that goal. In the past month I have been hearing so many...

Divorce almost always entails a lot of negative emotions and consequences. It’s difficult to see anything positive in it. But it actually can be an opportunity for you to transform your life on an emotional level and change your lifestyle for the better. When intense things happen in our lives they often cause us to have to change radically.

Patterns that may have been formed long ago can keep us re-creating the same scenarios, even when they are not healthy positions for us. When these...

There are 7 stages of grief and loss that you will experience when going through separation.

The universal stages of grief and loss that are most recognizable are: denial/sadness, depression, anger, bargaining, and acceptance.

There are two other stages of grief that a person goes through during separation of a major relationship. It’s hard to look at the last two stages when you are deep and raw in grief.

The sixth stage is recovering from the damage caused by the relationship and...

Everyone seems to think that relationships are things that just happen. Not so. Relationships need to be nurtured so they can develop into good relationships, or they become dysfunctional and fail.

Why do relationships fail? We may notice that we seem to continually get into patterns with lovers, friends, and family that don’t serve us or help us to grow. This brings us to a crossroads of deciding what to do next. One option is to decide not to have relationships for awhile and we throw...

Divorce With Dignity is a divorce facilitation service with the goal of getting people through their divorce in a holistic, cooperative, peaceful, and cost-effective way. One of the benefits we offer our clients is referrals for additional services they may need to make the divorce a smoother transition. For example, some clients may be in situations where they have a need to seek therapy or counseling during the divorce process. In these cases, we refer them to professionals like Susan...

Divorce is a scary and overwhelming thing. Sometimes people know they are unhappy in their marriage, but have trouble deciding what to do about it. Should they stick with the “known”, or jump into the unknown territory of divorce? How does one go about making the divorce decision?

One of our Divorce With Dignity referral associates is Marriage & Family Therapist Susan Regan, MFT. We asked her to share with us some of her thoughts on this topic.

Susan, in what ways do people...