On the verge of Divorce,
but
Stuck in
Decision Deadlock?
When trying to decide if you should stay together or not, many factors will come into play that cloud judgment.
When the decision seems obvious but you are still unable to make the leap, look for these common factors that can prevent you from moving forward:
**Parental Guilt:
When guilt prevents a parent from doing what's right, they don't honor themselves or their children. Parents must remember that staying together isn't always the best decision for the kids~it can be fantasy based and a grossly unrealistic option.
What to do about it:
Call up your gut instinct, that insight into the future that you have as an adult who can see through the fear and remain focused on the facts. Do what's right no matter how difficult it is; position it as the right choice and the kids will follow your lead. (Read the article I wrote about this here.)
**Cognitive Dissonance:
This is "double~thinking." It occurs when you are looking at a situation as both good and bad at the same time. Thinking like this will put you into decision dead-lock, and it will render you incapable of making a decision one way or the other~as each option seems to be weighted with the same possibilities and drawbacks.
What to do about it:
Stick to the facts. Try to remain neutral and unemotional about what is making you consider divorce. Is there an established pattern that never changes? Pay attention to that, keeping that pattern front and center in your mind as you assess if change is even possible. Reduce your thoughts down to the small details without emotion. If no change has been achieved to date, after years of effort, is it realistically possible that you will find a way to achieve some or not? Just let the history and the facts speak for themselves and allow the situation to be what it is, then decide from that space of awareness and truth.
**Financial Concerns:
This is not the time to base your decision on money, but it is very common for families to stay together because they don't think they afford to divorce. Big no-no.
What to do about it:
Be honest. Try to understand if you are using the money argument as a crutch to keep you from facing the change you fear. Face your fear, step into the present moment, and address the money issues head on. Search the internet to find articles that can get you thinking in a new direction. Contact a money manager who works with beginners and who can guide you into creating a successful financial plan even with money issues at play. (See the article about your money relationship with Helen Kim, under the "HayHouse Radio Winner" in this newlsetter).
To Make a
Financial Shift, follow these simple pointers to get started:
1) Notice how you
think about, spend or hoard money.
2) Link your discoveries to your experiences with money~what you learned about it, why you may fear it.
3) How has this affected the decisions and the life choices you have made?
4) Use the feeling it stirs to motivate yourself beyond the fear and into educating yourself on money matters.
5) See yourself as money~smart NOW, because of the new awareness you are developing. Commit to starting the learning process right away.
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~ Teagin's Current News ~
It is my pleasure to cTeagin Maddox  | ommunicate with you through this newsletter; thank you for your expressed interest.
Since my last newsletter, many things have been developing. I have initiated a special limited time offer for couples coaching based on the demand I received after being approached by a leading national television show about the impact of bad marriages on teens. Many couples expressed their dissatisfaction with counseling that doesn't work, yet they are devoted to the idea of staying together but are trapped in old communication patterns~and the kids and teens are reacting and want the "crazy living" to stop.
The subject of empowering teens and creating respectful and solid family living is very dear to my heart, as I believe that developing life success starts at home, and it starts early. In the absence of proper communication and safe, peaceful home lives, however, kids are sent out into the world ill-prepared.
Many couples want to divorce but feel obligated to the give the children a "normal" life, so they stay together for the sake of the kids and this allows the parents to believe that they are benefiting their kids through their sacrifice. What many families don't consider, however, is that they may actually be destroying their children's emotional and communication development by staying the course.
When the family structure is one of chaotic love~an environment of subtle frustration, unresolved drama, or constant bickering, the impact on kids is tremendous. Such family structures expose kids to illness and anxiety, create a lack of self-worth, invalidates them, reduces their communication abilities and stunts their emotional growth~and most dangerous of all, it knocks their radar for reading destruction and danger right out of the window, leaving them wide open to create harmful situations and destructive relationships in their own lives as they mature, repeating the cycle as their benchmark for normal is off-balance.
If you need help in making the decision to stay or leave, you may find coaching more beneficial than counseling. Visit my coaching page for more information, and to take advantage of the reduced fees to get you started.
If you are seriously interested in understanding the impact of trauma on children, a good place to research is the Child Trauma Academy. Sounds too extreme to think that your chaotic marriage/home environment is traumatic to your children? Don't discount the idea too quickly, this is often how relational toxicity can be experienced by a child who is trapped by age. Becoming aware and facing the reality of what they experience could help you gain clarity over what to do so that you can adequately protect them.
"Over the last fifteen years, the ChildTrauma Academy (CTA) has developed a neurobiologically-informed framework for working with traumatized and maltreated children. This framework is based on our growing understanding of complex issues facing children in today's modern world.
Using a neurodevelopmental perspective has allowed us the opportunity to generate a common set of concepts and principles based in biology that has helped us better understand the etiology of many of problems seen in children with disrupted development; these disruptions can be from any variety of developmental insults ranging from pre-natal drug or alcohol exposure to witnessing violence to intra-familial chaos to outright abuse and neglect."
Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. is the Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy, a not-for-profit organization based in Houston that promotes innovations in service, research and education in child maltreatment and childhood trauma.
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Ms. Helen Kim  |
HayHouse Radio
has announced a very deserving winner in their radio hosting competition~
Helen Kim is the founder of YourMoneyRelationship.com~a company devoted to helping people gain clarity around their relationship to money so they can make conscious financial decisions.
I was very impressed with Helen when I met her at the Hay House event in December; she is knowledgeable, friendly, and approachable.
Getting a grip on your relationship with money and your thinking around it can be so scary and so daunting that it only triggers procrastination and avoidance. The fear of money and the idea of learning about it can be so overwhelming that it paralyzes you from from taking action. It could even keep you stuck in a draining
relationship or a bad job, as the change would require you to face up. The longer you avoid it, however, the stronger the fear can become.
If you find that your connection with money is blanketed in negative thinking or the belief that you just can't be good with money like other people can, think again. These ideas develop from what you have learned-or from what you have never been taught, and it took years of programing and years of avoiding the money education you've needed to get you to your current beliefs. There are many steps you can take to stop this fear and activate your own success with money, and working with Helen Kim could be a first step.
What could your life be like if you had no limiting views about your ability to deal with money? Image yourself successfully handling money in an easy and uncomplicated way, and don't let scary ideas about money, or your past experiences with it, interfere with the new goals you have for yourself, personally or professionally. Staying stuck where you don't want to be is no longer the answer.
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Jenny Sanford~Staying True  | COLUMBIA, S.C. - As of March 18th, Jenny Sanford's divorce from Gov. Mark Sanford was finalized. This is South Carolina's first sitting governor to get divorced since the state of legalized divorce in 1949.
Praise goes to the strong woman we came to know Jenny
Sanford to be. When she stood up for herself by not standing by her man, she got some unwanted attention and a book deal thanks to the disgraceful behavior of her husband, Governor Mark Sanford who happily painted a picture of himself hiking the Appalachian Trail, when what he was really doing was canoodling with his lover in Argentina, repeatedly.
When wife Jenny, mother of their four young boys, found out, she told him to end it and gave him one more chance to be the stand up guy he pretended to be, but then, Gov. Sanford continued his seedy behavior and Jenny up and left him, filing for divorce in the blink of an eye. Wise woman-finally.
First reviews of her book, Staying True, claim she reveals her other side, however, her weaker side. She apparently offers many examples of things Mark did or said that could have made her realize years and years ago that Mark Sanford was all about himself. The details she reveals and some statements she has made in television interviews, give more than clues that he was not such a great catch, but she did what many women do, she pretended not to notice or simply didn't push the issues she saw with him that caused her to wonder about him.
One of Governor Sanford's red flags included him wanting "to omit the word faithful from the wedding vows." Jenny remembered discussing his view that "marriage vows already imply
faithfulness," so therefore, he felt justified to argue that there was no need to include them in the
vows separately. Somehow, she agreed to his wishes, and even saw his request as refreshingly "honest." This serves as a great example of how a high functioning, normalized pathological-type can use language in a different way than other people~as his interpreting one part of the vows to protect himself and his interest, and to get what he wants "honestly." This and other stories about Governor Sanford strongly suggest a pathology to me.
His interpretation of the vows was skewed, yet his argument must have been quite convincing in true politician/pathological form, no doubt. The interpretation debate he offered was so much more than a clue, however, it was not as strong as the clue Jenny Sanford gave him in her agreement...for that agreement showed him that she could be swayed, and that she would tolerate his antics then, and in the future. It suggested that she was empathetic to a fault, which he would need her to be throughout the course of their relationship. She showed her true colors in accepting his request, for she also interpreted his wanting to omit the word faithful from their wedding vows as him being an honest man-when, really, it was like a fog horn going off that he was going to cheat. He found just the woman he needed~for a while, and then her strength rose to the surface again, thankfully.
Jenny's courage to reveal such intimate details reveals her inner strength and an ability to confront her life and demand what she wants from it. When she realized her husband wasn't going to change, when she began to see the unbreakable patterns of her relationship, and that her husband was doing her wrong-she fixed it. What's even more inspiring and impressive than doing such a thing publicly and in spite of judgment, is that she is taking things inward, experiencing and sharing an honest look at herself and her role in creating the pretend connection. Her book is a reminder to act on the
clues we notice early on~act on them as if they are already true/real situations, because eventually,
that is what suggestions and hints from someone become, and it's much better to know before there are four little boys watching you clean up a mess and wondering why you picked such a man.
Watch this video: About Jenny Sanford |
Until next time~I leave you with this:
Quotes to consider
"For some reason, we see divorce as a signal of failure, despite the fact that each of us has a right, and an obligation, to rectify any other mistake we make in life."
~Joyce Brothers
"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?"
~Mary Manin Morrissey
Sincerely,
Teagin Maddox
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