Divorce

The answer isn't always to stay together. 

Transcript

0:00:54.5 Charlotte: One of my specialty areas over the last 24 years has been relationships, all manner of relationships. But I have worked a lot with married couples who find themselves in conflict. And I don't believe that the answer is always to stay together, I don't. I believe that the starting point is looking at the circumstances and the relational dynamics that are causing the conflict. And whether, or not those are, for instance, situational or whether it is due to unresolved limited thinking, lack of compromise sometimes unresolved wounds from the past, maybe by one partner, it's typically by both because it takes two. What is it that is causing the symptomatic presentation of conflict? 

0:01:59.2 Charlotte: And once you're able to identify that, if it is situational, helping people transition, navigate change, in a way that's more effective. Where they can actually work together versus work against each other, letting them bridge the gap of their fears that can occur when there's high stress, high pressure, and get back to that place of unity. Where there is unresolve around maybe past hurts and disappointments towards one another, that then needs to be dismantled and looked at. And when I say looked at, it's looking at those experiences from each other's point of view, being a mediator, having a different lens on things, shifting the perspective so that empathy can be reached. The art of listening really, truly listening can be reintroduced to the relationship, so that the space can be held for both parties to be in their feelings and to be able to consider each other's vantage point.

 
0:03:19.1 Charlotte: It's so crucial when working with relationships, regardless of whether, or not the answer is to stay together or to get divorced. To find a means of equalising and harmonising the relationship, not just for the couple themselves, but for the children, that are often involved in the family model. Children, although so very, young in a certain scenario, children pick up on everything, people underestimate how much children sense and feel. And whether, or not your conflict in the marriage is one that is externalised it's volatile, or whether it's one that is more internalised, and little more, controlled and contained. Children can feel when there is discord. And children are... Yes, they're sensitive. Yes, they absolutely need the consistency, that a harmonious environment provides, and the strength and security found founds in strong parenting.

 
0:04:50.9 Charlotte: But I really, through the years have seen that, what children need more of is, they need to know the truth. Children are greatly affected when their sense of the world, Even if they don't have an intellectual concept of it, but they're feeling that something's wrong, something is off, and you're smiling, and telling them everything's fine, that starts to make them question their own perception. And they then start internalising their own fears and anxieties to a greater extent, the conflicts, the breakdown in harmony, is being normalised. And that I have seen create greater problems for those children later on in life. Because they are taking on that model as normal when inside, something's telling them different, this isn't normal, but this is what we were shown, and this is what we were taught. And so it's not always the answer to stay together.

0:06:02.3 Charlotte: I feel that in certain situations, it's actually a gift to accept the fact that you are no longer meant to be together. That the passage of time in which you've shared has come to an end. And in accepting that putting energies towards going separate ways with as much respect and as much grace and as much release as possible. So that each party can move on, and into their life without a necessary friction and even more importantly without carrying those same patterns of behavior into new relationships.


0:07.01.4 Charlotte: And there is always, always something to be learnt about ourselves most especially in conflict rather than pointing fingers and being in the blame and the shame game. Looking at okay, having more appropriate boundaries, being responsible for your part in the equation, and where it is that you can choose to learn and to grow and to mature. I have helped people stay together, that have been considering divorce and the quality of their relationship has greatly improved. But I have also helped people move through, what could have been a tragedy of divorce with a much greater sense of completion, and inclusion with the children and by and large, much more freedom, ultimately in the end.