HEALING AND CREATING A NEW LIFE

Healing and creating a new life after abuse are multi-faceted processes. Often, they feel overwhelming. You usually begin the work of creating before you’re healed, so that makes it harder. Here are steps to navigate your path.    

Take Space

First, allow yourself space to reflect on your partner’s behavior and how it aligns with your relationship expectations. Without this, you never begin.

During this time, you question their behavior and see if they’ll change. Love and hope lead you to struggle to make the relationship work only to discover you cannot fix them. You research, read, seek help, and look for answers to the puzzling question of why your partner hurts you. You discover who hears and encourages you.

Complex emotions also arise. Grief is part of healing; it’s painful to recognize your partner hurts you. The Time It Takes to Leave an Abusive Relationship highlights the importance of having time to process what happened.    

Make a Leap of Faith

Next, rebuild trust in yourself that you lost during the abuse. Restore your confidence that you will be okay on your own. Loss in self-esteem and confidence are common emotional injuries from an abusive partner. If this feels like a big roadblock, seek help from a therapist or coach. Also, supportive friends help with this.

You will have to take a leap of faith. Making changes often feels like you’re jumping off a cliff into the unknown.Welcome fear because it exists as a sign you’re making progress, not a signal you are making a mistake. Look for people and resources that help you navigate through it. 

Envision a New Life

Envisioning what you want is the next step to healing and creating a new life. Revive your healthy expectations of a loving and supportive relationship. Identify any roadblocks and begin to plan solutions.

As you envision, you will develop expectations. Some are beneficial and some may not be.   Envisioning without developing expectations is unrealistic. What’s important is giving energy to those that fulfill your values and desires and discarding any ego-driven ones that are unhelpful.  

Beneficial Expectations

Beneficial expectations are needs. Here are some important ones:

• Being safe from your abusive partner
• Receiving a fair monetary settlement and determining a budget
• Designing visitation around children’s best interests
• Developing healthy co-parenting guidelines

Add others that are important to you. Use this list to plan and make decisions. Develop relationships with supportive family, friends, and professionals to assist in their accomplishment.

Not-so-Beneficial Expectations

Ego-driven expectations are wants, what your ego desires, which aren’t always necessary. Everyone has an ego, and it’s human and healthy to have desires.

Disentangling your wants from needs can be challenging. Here is an example from my past. Caution: absorb this as a lesson, not a suggestion. In this situation, my children were safe; that isn’t always the case.

During the process of divorce, I resisted the children going with their father for a two-week vacation with his family. The destination was several states away, and I believed my two-year-old was young for that separation. The judge decided otherwise, and the children did well. Afterward, I realized that my resistance was more about my wants and the newness of being separated from my children. Grieving resulted in my acceptance and adjustment to this divorce reality.  

This illustration demonstrates how letting go of your first reactions sometimes represents new wisdom. It’s important to distinguish what is important and beneficial from your non-essential desires. In the example, my avoidance of a long separation assumed it was best for my children. I eventually realized the importance of both parents taking vacations and breaks from single parenthood.

Keep moments of disappointment in perspective. They do not reflect who you are or what you deserve. Be patient with yourself and rely on supportive resources.  

Prioritize Your Expectations

This exercise helps you sort your expectations into needs and wants.

1. Divide your paper into two columns with “needs” and “wants” as headings.
2. List things you need; these are non-negotiable. Use the list of beneficial expectations to get you started.  
3. List your wants. Don’t let thoughts of selfishness hamper you. Although no one receives everything they want, it’s healthy to acknowledge and pursue your wants.  
4. Review the lists to make sure each represents authentic needs or wants.
5. Needs are the highest priority, the ones you want to work hardest on receiving. {My next blog will address situations where needs are frustrated or disbelieved by the divorce process.}
6. Prioritize your wants according to what matters most, since no one gains everything they want.  

Take this list into divorce plan discussions. Attorneys find their jobs easier when their clients are clear about what they need and want.

Flexible Planning to Heal and Create a New Life

Plans assist you in making changes. However, the actual steps you take will change according to what you experience. They will change in response to circumstances you cannot predict. This means you may need to revisit your expectations and readjust them.  

Use The Serenity Prayer[i] to help you let go of circumstances you don’t like but cannot change. Use “I affirm” to replace “God grant me” if that works better for you.  

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

You began your journey of healing and creating a new life by grieving and letting go of your partner changing. Knowing when to let go becomes an asset throughout your life.

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[i] Steve Rose has an excellent article on the meaning of the Serenity Prayer: https://steverosephd.com/the-meaning-of-the-serenity-prayer/