Divorce Diaries: Lessons From the Trenches
Welcome to Divorce Diaries, where host Cary Jacobson, attorney and mediator brings you real stories, hard truths, and practical advice on navigating divorce and family law. Whether you're going through it, considering it, or just curious, this is your place for clarity, confidence, and resilience.
Divorce Diaries: Lessons From the Trenches
EP #2: Emotional Healing, Co-Parenting, and Decision Making with Guest Carrie Mead
In this episode, host Cary Jacobson, attorney and mediator, explores the emotional complexities of divorce with guest Carrie Mead, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor. Learn how Carrie utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy, neuroscience, and mindfulness to support women facing issues like emotional abuse. Discover the keys to effective co-parenting during and after divorce, as we address the fears and uncertainties that loom large in this journey. Carrie sheds light on the importance of informed legal advice to dispel myths surrounding child custody and financial concerns. Through this episode, we aim to foster a supportive environment for our listeners, acknowledging the unique and diverse paths through which individuals navigate their divorce journeys. Join us in extending heartfelt gratitude for the stories shared and the connections formed in this episode of Divorce Diaries.
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Welcome to Divorce Diaries, where Cary Jacobson brings you real stories, hard truths and practical advice on navigating divorce and family law. Whether you're going through it, considering it or just curious, this is your place for clarity, confidence and resilience.
Cary Jacobson:Hi, welcome to Divorce Diaries: Lessons from the Trenches, where we will share real stories and expert insights to help you navigate the divorce process with less stress and more clarity. I'm your Cary Jacobson, and today I'm thrilled to have our guest, Carrie Mead. Carrie Mead is a licensed clinical professional counselor and holds a master's degree in counseling from McDaniel College here in Maryland. Mrs. Mead utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy, neuroscience principles and mindfulness approaches to facilitate healing and learning for her clients. Creating a safe and judgment-free zone is Mrs. Mead's highest priority for her therapy clients.
Cary Jacobson:Today, Mrs. Mead primarily works with people who are experiencing chronic stress and debilitating anxiety and depression. Many of Mrs. Mead's clients are either considering divorce or recovering from a toxic or emotionally abusive relationship. Mrs. Mead runs psychotherapy support groups for women contemplating divorce, women in divorce recovery and families experiencing alienation from their children. Today, Carrie will share her expertise on managing the emotional side of divorce, preventing those common mistakes and building a foundation for a brighter future. Thank you, Carrie, for being a guest today.
Carrie Mead:Yeah, thank you so much for having me, and I'm really happy to be able to talk about this subject with you and your listeners.
Cary Jacobson:Thank you so much. So, Carrie, can you tell us a little bit about what brought you into, you know, becoming a therapist?
Carrie Mead:Yeah, I think it's kind of a joke between my friends and I that I was always a therapist. Before I was a therapist, I was always the person that people came to for advice or wisdom or insight, so it was kind of my natural calling, I guess. If you like, I actually became a therapist as a second career after the birth of my children, and I think that actually brings a unique aspect of things. Going into the learning of being a therapist as an adult, you know, a mother and a wife is different than going straight into grad school when you're 22 or something.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely yes. I also went to law school later, not after children, but definitely a little bit later than normal, so it is a different world. Was there anything in particular that drew you to working with people going through divorce and families in that situation?
Carrie Mead:Yeah, for what I noticed is I'm in private practice, I'm one person, I see clients all day long, so I'm always looking for themes, the types of things that come up repeatedly in sessions, to see what's really going on in our environment, our community. And disproportionately. I have been seeing a lot of women, I would say, over the last three or four years who are in this stuck, ambivalent state about their marriage. What do I know? What do I want, what do I need? Am I going to get what I want and need and deserve in this relationship? So it just sort of, I guess, snowballed maybe that that just became a focus that I, that I started to take more trainings in and then I started running support groups to bring these women together. And now you know it's not everybody I work with but ultimately relationship problems at home will impact every area of functioning. You know for all of us if we're having a hard time at home.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, so you mentioned the support groups. So what type of support groups do you run? Who are the typical people who participate in those? Who might they be good for?
Carrie Mead:Yeah, thanks for asking about that. So the most popular support group I run, unfortunately, is Women Contemplating Divorce. That started out as just a trial basis, really in my mind. Let me see if I can get some people together, since I have so many individual clients that are experiencing this. What would it be like for these people to come together and share their experience? That was almost four years ago that I ran the first group and then it was one group a year and then it was two and then it was three and now it's kind of ongoing.
Carrie Mead:So women come into that support group from all different levels. Sometimes they've separated or they've just moved out or they're nesting. Sometimes they've never even mentioned the word divorce to their spouse. So people really do come into that group from all different walks of life. Generally speaking, there's some sort.
Carrie Mead:For most people there's some sort of either psychological or emotional abuse going on. There's often drinking problems, there's often gambling problems, there's often low level violence or threat of violence. So some really unhealthy dynamics. But the main thing is that these women feel so alone. They can't talk to their friends or their family. Maybe they come from a family where no one gets divorced or all their friends seem to be happy. So people feel really isolated during that time. So I think that's why the group is so popular, that everybody's kind of in the same boat, even though their circumstances are different. Um, and then I also run groups for people in divorce recovery. So when the divorce is finally over and you're sort of like taking stock of all the damage or all the feelings, um, I have that group. And then about once a year I run a family um a group for families who are experiencing alienation or estrangement from their children, and that that can happen in high conflict divorce, as you know.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely. So it sounds like you're kind of meeting people all across the spectrum of the process, both before they're even contemplating it, deciding whether or not that's the route they want to take after they have gone through the divorce, and then potentially, you know, later if they're estranged.
Carrie Mead:Yeah, yeah, yeah, cause it's, it's. It's not a one and done thing. You don't. People have this, this fantasy that they're going to get divorced and suddenly feel better, or that they're going to have two mediation sessions and it's all over, and it's. It's ongoing. I mean, particularly if you have children, it's ongoing. This person's going to be in your life for high school graduations and wedding days and the birth of your first grandchild. So it's an ongoing process.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, for those who are, you know, dealing with the emotional side, obviously divorce can be an incredibly emotional time. What are some of those biggest emotional challenges that you see people face?
Carrie Mead:so a couple of things like people get really stuck like in in the feeling of guilt and shame. You know, I'm, I'm, I must be a bad person, because person, because I don't want to stick this out or keep my wedding vows, or I see people that get like really ashamed of, like why did they cheat on me, for example? Or if I was a better spouse, they wouldn't, you know, have this gambling problem or they wouldn't drink as much. So there's a lot of guilt and shame that just clouds judgment. And then, additionally, people will sometimes get stuck in emotional reasoning. So I feel guilty, therefore I must be bad. You know I must be a bad person. I feel overwhelmed. Therefore my problem must not have an answer. So we don't want to get caught in the trap of emotional reasoning Although there are a lot of emotions during this time trap of emotional reasoning, although there are a lot of emotions during this time, Right, absolutely.
Cary Jacobson:Are there any specific habits or coping mechanisms that help people stay grounded and, to you know, through the divorce process, to avoid making decisions you know, financial decisions, custody related decisions from an emotional standpoint as opposed to more of a fact based approach?
Carrie Mead:Yeah, so this sounds counterintuitive, but, like, honestly, make space for all the emotions. Like, if you feel like you need a good cry, have a good cry. If you feel like you need to, you know, break eggs in the bathtub because you're so angry that you just discovered something make space for all the feelings so you can sort of work them out and then, when you're calm and that might be like the next morning I mean, don't ever underestimate the power of good night's sleep. You know you have all these feelings. If you have all these feelings and you're enraged or grief stricken, you can't. You know the brain doesn't work in such a way that you can feel that deeply and also make good decisions.
Carrie Mead:So go, feel your feelings, take the space you need. Have a really good night's sleep, start afresh the next day. You may find that you have answers that you didn't have the day before. You may find the next morning that that problem doesn't feel so overwhelming that it did the day before. So make space for the feelings and be really conscious, like right now I'm in my feelings, so I'm not going to make these decisions. Or hey, I just woke up and I feel really clear headed and maybe I'm going to clear my calendar and spend the next two hours working on that assignment my divorce mediator gave me to do, because I feel like I can do it today. So listen to yourself and obviously all the normal things like journal, meditate, take walks, talk to friends, but only to the friends and family who you can really trust and who are really wise guides. Not all of your friends are going to give you the best advice. Although they love you, they're not always the best source of advice. So to be discerning.
Cary Jacobson:Yes, it is something that we, as a divorce attorney and mediator here all the time. You know, everybody has had a situation so that everybody wants to give advice, though it's not always the most helpful advice.
Carrie Mead:So pick your guides discerningly.
Cary Jacobson:Yes, absolutely, and I'm sure this comes up often, especially in your contemplation support groups. But what types of fears have clients you know addressed? Things that they're concerned about, whether it's you know how things are going to look after divorce or whether they even want to pursue divorce at all, because of things that they are worried about.
Carrie Mead:Yeah, I think that the biggest overwhelming fear that I see in women is all stems from lack of knowledge about the divorce process and, here in Maryland, about Maryland divorce laws.
Carrie Mead:So the biggest things I hear is like he says I'm not going to get access to my kids. Or he says if I want a divorce I have to move out and I'm not going to be able to afford to move out. Or he says the kids are never going to come on Christmas again because he says so. So there's a lot of fear about these empty what I think most often are empty threats that are made up and not based in fact, and that keeps people really, really stuck, being afraid that they're going to lose custody of their children or something of that nature. Of course that would scare any mother or father. So I think lack of knowledge is what drives a lot of the fears and my biggest advice to people is please pay the couple hundred bucks and get a consultation with a lawyer to understand if any of the threats that you've been given can be substantiated in Maryland law can be substantiated in, you know, in Maryland law.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, that is something that we see too, though it's it is, you know, more challenging in that some people just don't take that step of initiating the consult right Because they're so concerned about the fears that they won't take the next step to get the knowledge to overcome those fears.
Carrie Mead:Yes, and I'm sure you see this, I see this in my practice a lot. I will give people phone numbers, I will point people in the right direction, give them options, and it might be six months or a year later that they make that initial call and there might be another six or month year until they make this follow-up call. But just kind of following in the other things that you see people being careful about, of course, is just not seeing their kids every day, not being able to imagine being around their children every day and, of course, financially, how could we afford two houses? What's going to be the damage to our children if they have to transfer back and forth between two homes? Which, again, are all good questions and things that people should be thinking about, yes, and definitely things to be concerned about.
Cary Jacobson:But finding a plan to address those Right Exactly Are there. You know those. For our listeners who may have children you mentioned, you know one of the fears being not being able to see the kids every day. Are there any particular ways that those listeners can prioritize their kids' well-being during the divorce process or even after?
Carrie Mead:Yeah, I mean, first of all, I'm a therapist, so I'm going to give a plug to like family therapy or child-centered play therapy for children. Like give your kids a space. That's all their own. Kids are very intuitive, so if they see mom crying or mom trying not to cry every day after school, they're not going to necessarily come to you with their fears and concerns. A lot of kids will try to take care of you as a mother. Or some kids are going to act out. They're going to feel the destabilization in the home and then they're going to get poor grades or they're going to fight with their siblings more often and then you're going to get angry in turn. And so like give your kids space to feel their feelings and to work with someone who's not emotionally charged around it.
Carrie Mead:But also, the library or Amazon have great children's books on divorce. There are so many children's books aimed at little kids and adolescents to talk about divorce or having two homes, different family structures. So your librarian can be your best friend in a time like this. It's a great way. Bibliotherapy is a great way to talk to kids about their feelings and give them like a outside opinion. In other words, if you remember the book series, like the Berenstain Bears, for example. I don't know if they have a book on divorce, but they have a book on pretty much every topic that a family's ever run into, and that is really different than talking about me and my kid, because we're talking about the Berenstain.
Carrie Mead:Bears and we're talking about little brother, but it's relatable, so it's like a safe way to talk to kids about feelings and big topics.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely Always. There's usually a book for everything, so it's just finding the one that's going to meet your child where they are, meet your child where they are for sure. Do you see any common challenges that your clients parents face when transitioning to co-parent co-parenting? So now that they've separated, they're co-parenting. You know any common themes that you run into?
Carrie Mead:Well, it's this I learned in grad school many years ago, which is like there's no point to get divorced if you're just going to argue all the time after you divorce. So I say the one common Pitfall is that you talk every day and you still fight every day about the same things you fought about when you were married. So try not to attend every fight. You're invited to Figure out your priorities, your values, what are the most important things, and it can't be everything, so you're going to have to let some things slide. So that's one thing. It's also like just understanding you are losing some control.
Carrie Mead:There will be someone else serving dinner. There will be someone else serving dinner. There'll be someone else making choices about what a child can wear or not wear, or if they're brushing their teeth at night or how late they're staying up, regardless of what your parenting plan says. When that custodial parent has the child, you're not in. You know the other parent has a child, you're not in control, and that's that causes a lot of anxiety, which causes a lot of fights. So just be careful of that trap. And then, of course, introducing new partners which, depending for your listeners right now, if they're contemplating divorce or newly divorced. They're probably not even thinking about dating, but it will happen for most people. So you have to consider the possibility that you or your partner will be dating someone else. And what is it like? How are we going to introduce our children to that person?
Cary Jacobson:Yes, absolutely so. There's a lot of things there the introduction to significant others that you know. One thing that sometimes comes up when we are putting together a separation agreement, a marital settlement agreement or even just a co-parenting agreement for those who have not been married, is including language. You know, having that conversation ahead of time so that everybody's on the same page as to what that's going to look like. You know. So. How long do you have to be dating before that introduction happens? Do you have to tell the other person beforehand? You know. So. Those are, you know, important pieces and I think are helpful in having that conversation ahead of time so that everybody knows what, what you're looking at in the future of doing it. So someone's not just surprised oh, now you, all of a sudden, you know your kid is meeting someone for the first time and that person's moving in the next day.
Carrie Mead:You know so exactly, and that's a very emotional time too, and, as a therapist, when I'm working with women, it's a very emotional thing about their partner dating anyone else or themselves being in a relationship. Most times people are just not even interested. You know, they think they're never going to date again.
Cary Jacobson:Um so it is hard to put yourself in that future like set your future self up well that language yeah, so what advice would you give someone who is feeling stuck and uncertain about their future? You know, after divorce, yeah.
Carrie Mead:So I would just say listen, you're gonna feel really uncertain. It's extremely uncertain times, um, that's pretty natural and normal. So just because you're uncomfortable thinking about the future doesn't mean that the future is bad. So, going back to that emotional reasoning, I feel anxious there for something. Something bad must be happening, not necessarily Like we. Anytime there's a change in our environment, we're going to naturally detect that, you know, from a very like neurobiological response, and it's going to feel a little dangerous. But remind yourself, I'm uncomfortable right now. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what next year is going to look like, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Right, as soon as we feel anxious, we assume bad things are happening. Right, as soon as we feel anxious, we assume bad things are happening. I can't tell you how many people, carrie, I see down the line. You know that are extraordinarily happy. So much this new living situation. So just try to remind yourself you're not going to predict good things for yourself in the future, but they are possible and they will. Things will normalize.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, I hear those success stories as well, that you know it took so much time for them to make the decision, but then, years later, how, how they're thriving in the new situation. Absolutely.
Carrie Mead:Yeah, exactly.
Cary Jacobson:What role do you think, as a therapist, that therapy plays during the divorce process and how can it help someone, emotionally and practically, who's going through the divorce process?
Carrie Mead:Yeah. So there's a couple of things there Like, first of all, we want to be able to give clients a different perspective than what they currently have. So, remembering, we don't know your spouse, we don't know your mother, we're not invested in your, in your child's future, the way that you are, your friends are, your mother is. So we have a neutral outside perspective. We can look at things from sort of that 30,000 foot view and say, like we've seen your situation in its own iteration, but similar in so many other people. Here's what we predict might happen. And if you do this, we can predict this might happen. It may not, of course.
Carrie Mead:You know we're not fortune tellers, but we give people perspective and we give them space and we offer like a neutral ground. You know, and I just want to say here too, with my divorce contemplation groups, I always start out by saying I'm not invested in whether or not you get divorced or stay married. I'm invested in you knowing why you're doing what you're doing. So therapy is here to help you make the right decision for yourself and your friends. God love them. Can't always do that, because they might really like your husband he might be really fun or they might hate your husband. He might be a complete jerk and that's going to get in the way of some of the advice they might give you or some of the support that they offer you. So we're neutral outside objectors. That really helps. You know you have a different perspective than or a different experience than you will with people who know you and your family really well.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely. For those who might be hesitant to try therapy, is there anything that you would tell them to encourage them to try it?
Carrie Mead:Yeah, again, I just want to say hesitation about starting therapy is so natural, I know anytime I've ever gone to therapy, it's always been like, oh, I probably need to do this, I probably should do this, maybe I'll do it next month, maybe I'll do it by the end of the year. Right, I mean it's natural. We resist what we need often and we sort of know going into therapy that we're going to talk about hard things, we're going to talk about things that are unpleasant or might make us feel guilty or ashamed. So all of it's natural. But I say it's one of those situations where you have to maybe do it scared. Don't let fear or hesitation or ambivalence stop you.
Carrie Mead:For every good thing that we do in the world, there's usually some amount of pain and fear involved in it and so, okay, so I'm scared, I don't want to pick up the phone, I don't want to turn on the computer for that first video session, but I'm going to do it anyways. And honestly, if you think about your life, you've done this so many other times in other hard situations, whether it's accepting a job or whether it's moving across the country or leaving home for college, going to a funeral. I mean there's hard things we have to do, and we have to do those things even when we're scared. And this might be just another one of those times and it's worth it, you know, like. And if it's not worth it, you know, if you're six weeks in and you're like, this is the worst experience of my life. Okay, maybe you have the wrong therapist, maybe you're not ready, and that's okay, but you won't know unless you try, and that's okay, but you won't know unless you try and for most people it's worth it Absolutely.
Cary Jacobson:And I would also say, like you mentioned, you have to find someone who is the right fit, because you have to be able to mesh personality wise and feel comfortable and, you know, confident in the person that you are working with in order for to to really be able to open up. And it's you know, um, and everyone you know does things differently and there may be a different approach that one therapist has as as opposed to someone else. So absolutely.
Carrie Mead:thank you for saying that. Yeah, thank you for saying that's so important. I always say not every therapist is right for every client. Not every client is right for every client. Not every client is right for every therapist. I do. I consider myself an intuitive person, so I try and check in with people. If I feel there's any like I'm not sure we're, you know, meshing, I'll try and check in. I always give people permission. Hey, if I'm not the right therapist, you'll know in a couple of weeks and that's okay. I'll help you find somebody who's a better, you know, a better fit for you, and it's it's. It's about your healing experience, it's not about my ego or whatever. Right?
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, yeah. What advice would you give to someone who is just trying to make that, that decision? You know, should I stay or should I go? That's probably one of the ones that I see the most common in, like the, the, the mom Facebook groups right, how do you know when it's the end? Is there anything in particular that you tell those folks that they should be looking for?
Carrie Mead:Yeah. So so one or two things that pop into my head when you ask a question like that is like A is there like repeated physical violence? Is there addictions, gambling? Is there like abuse of alcohol and situations where where, of course, change is possible always, but where you see your partner, oh, he's done these behaviors for the last five or 10 years. There's no, he doesn't think he has a problem. There's no like insight. There's no, well, I'm going to go to. There's no going to therapy. There's no reading books or listening to podcasts or sort of like someone stuck in these destructive ways.
Carrie Mead:In situations like that, I say you probably have all the evidence you need cognitively to know that this isn't gonna change, but whether or not your heart catches up with that, your soul catches up with that, that takes some time. So that's one thing. And then that ambivalence piece. I would also say that, just in general, like again, this is natural. You are making a massive decision that's going to affect you and your children and your extended family for a long time. So I'm glad to hear what people are thinking through but not rushing to a decision. They're not leaving a note on the kitchen counter or you know, it's one more day that dirty laundry's on the floor. So I'm getting divorced. I mean, I never work with people like that, of course. But but, people, it is going to take you some time because this is a massive decision.
Carrie Mead:So don't be, don't let that say you're off track. But if you have overwhelming evidence in front of you that you have a danger, a potentially dangerous situation or, at a minimum, emotionally, psychologically abusive situation on your hands, you have to look for evidence that supports that there's any chance of change from that person, right? So if they started therapy, if all of a sudden they're attending faith services or they're listening to podcasts on a regular basis and talking to you about things, or you notice they've gone from drinking six beers a night to three and then three to one, that that would be evidence like, hey, maybe things are shifting here. But if everything's just the same and it's always been the same and there's denial of a problem, that's a really challenging situation for you to be in and you don't want to be stuck in a fantasy that things will just change because he loves you so much or you love him too much to leave. You know, you got to really look for the facts of your situation.
Cary Jacobson:I think sometimes it's just hard for people to acknowledge some of those facts.
Carrie Mead:Yes, oh, yes. I mean I will say as a therapist I quite often have to be the first person to say to someone I think your relationship is emotionally abusive. And people have a really hard time hearing that and I understand that. But I also don't think I can do my job well if I don't point out what emotional abuse is, what psychological abuse is, how it's showing up in your relationship and how it's impacting your ability to think and see clearly. But it is. There's a lot of resistance to thinking that we would be in an abusive relationship because most of us think if we were in an abusive relationship we would leave. But nothing is that simple, yeah.
Cary Jacobson:In your experience. What is one common mistake that you've seen people make during the divorce process that could have been prevented, and how can our listeners avoid it?
Carrie Mead:Yeah. So I definitely see people rush through the process to get to the other side. You know I'm moving out, I'm buying a house. I'm just going to take half the savings. That's liquid. I'm not going to fight over the retirement or, you know, the family heirlooms. And then they have a new set of problems on their hands because their spouse is sitting in a house that's worth half a million dollars, but they didn't take half of it, they just took the 20 grand that was in the bank account. So people are short sighted because they feel so uncomfortable in the situation that they're in. So I would just say I know we were talking about feeling stuck and ambivalent, but also, don't rush it, because you got to think about your future self. Your future self is going to have an apartment with no furniture in it. Your future self doesn't have the potential income of two people paying into retirement. Now you're down to one. So you really have to think strategically about your future and that may mean the process takes longer.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, that is definitely something that we see often, you know. I think it happens more commonly with women than men. They just want it over so that they can avoid the conflict, and they're not necessarily thinking long term from that financial standpoint. Right, yeah, Carrie, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today. Before we wrap up, can you let our listeners know where they can find you and learn more about the services that you provide?
Carrie Mead:Yeah, thank you so much. Yes, well, I'm here in Maryland, so I am licensed to work with anybody in the state of Maryland. You can find me at my website, marylandtherapycarrie. com, or social media and Facebook MarylandTherapyCarrie. com. Yeah, that's easy to me, yep.
Cary Jacobson:And is there any final piece of advice or encouragement that you would like to leave our listeners with today?
Carrie Mead:Yeah, I just like to say this is probably a decision you're going to have to make where you don't feel 100 percent certain about it. You might feel 85 or 90 percent certain and that might have to be enough to be enough. There's always going to be a part of you that's sad, a part of you that's dealing with grief, or a part of you that feels love or hope for the future and that can get in the way of making you feel 100% certain that this is the right path. So you may have to do it with less certainty than you would like to get out of that mode of being stuck. If you're at 50%, that's not a good time to make a decision. If you're at 60% not a good time. But if you're at 85% 90% and your friends and your trusted tribe are helping you understand that no one knows your situation like you. It is ultimately your decision, but you might never feel 100% sure about your decision.
Cary Jacobson:Awesome. Thank you so much for that and thank you for being a guest today, and I greatly appreciate having you.
Carrie Mead:Yeah, thank you so much.
Intro/Close Speaker:I appreciate the opportunity to be here as well, thanks, Thanks for joining us today on this episode of Divorce Diaries. Remember joining us today on this episode of Divorce Diaries. Remember every journey is unique. No-transcript.