The Value Of Counseling As You Navigate Your Divorce

by Tonya Ratliff, LPC, NCC, ACS

Tonya Ratliff is the Owner and Director of Counseling Services for Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to her individual, couple, and family clients, Tonya is also the lead facilitator of the Walk With Me® Grief Support Group, an aftercare program sponsored by Wm. Sullivan and Son Funeral Home in Utica, MI.

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The decision to end your marriage — whether a long time coming or the result of an irreconcilable event — brings with it a range of emotions, frustrations, and logistics that few can fully anticipate. The emotional support provided by a caring counselor can make the difference between merely “surviving” and navigating through your divorce with the ability to heal and move forward into your new future.

First, counseling offers you the opportunity to tell your story again and again to a listener who is not involved. The need to tell your story is important to understand. Each time you tell your story, you create the opportunity for a different aspect of your experience to resonate for yourself. As you process with words the range of images, memories, and emotions you have endured, different features of these visceral experiences will become a bit more tolerable. Hearing your own words about what happened ‘hit the air’ can take some of the punch out of them.

One aspect of initiating a divorce that is often stressful is what and how to tell family and friends about what happened. Discussing it first with a counselor can provide insight into how best to inform those around you—who likely have their own opinions about your marriage and your decision to divorce!

Counseling also provides an outlet for expressing your darkest feelings. As a counselor, I often refer to our emotional worlds as consisting of our good feelings and thoughts, our bad feelings and thoughts, and our really ugly feelings and thoughts! We rarely reveal our ugly parts for fear that we will frighten those around us. Sometimes, they are even too scary for us to really acknowledge and express out loud. Sitting with a counselor provides the opportunity to speak your ugliest, darkest fears, express your intense rage, and your deepest despair. Unlike confiding in your family or close friends, you don’t need to worry that you are overwhelming your counselor. It is—quite simply—an emotionally safe place.

Counseling allows you to “sit” with your feelings for as long as you need. The divorce process is often times a slow one—both emotionally and legally. Family and friends may grow impatient with you because it is very difficult to see someone they care about suffering. Many around you will try to “cheer you up,” distract you, or—in very subtle ways—convey that your emotions are too intense for them.

The animosity and hostility that are often features of a divorce proceeding are unfortunately, often fueled by the attorneys involved and by the requirements of the court system itself. It can be very confusing, especially when you may have silently vowed to conduct yourself with integrity and humility, only to be encouraged to “get all you can get” by an overzealous attorney. Attending counseling during this time can provide accountability for staying true to yourself through this arduous process.

Divorce is essentially a grief journey. You are grieving the life you had and the future you had imagined. With grief comes the need for adapting to the changes ahead and allowing yourself to thoroughly feel all those emotions of loss. Managing on one income, moving into a different home, and—most significantly—enduring drastic changes in your time spent with your children are just a few examples of required restructuring of your life that can often seem impossible. Counseling can provide a space and the time to sort through it all outside of your own head.

After the grief… comes the learning. Following the emotional upheaval and recovery, comes the opportunity to consider your own mistakes, misunderstandings, and behaviors that contributed to the breakdown of your marriage. Recognizing and “owning” your part in it allows you to understand how you will do it differently moving forward into a future relationship. This awareness, insight, and heightened understanding of what you need from a partner is vital to making healthy choices for yourself in the future.

As you emerge from your divorce experience and begin to rebuild your life, the continuing support provided by counseling can offer opportunities to try out new ideas and consider new possibilities. This ongoing process allows you to acquire a new perspective unencumbered by the vested interest of family and friends.

It is possible to not only survive your divorce, but to come out the other side with a stronger sense of who you are, what you need, and a wisdom born of enduring one of life’s most difficult challenges. The emotional support and unconditional counsel of a caring professional can assist you every step of the way.