Valentine’s Day isn’t an easy time when you’re not in a relationship. The holiday that honors romantic love can be particularly difficult if you’re getting divorced. It sells an image of love as an exclusive romantic pact that doesn’t survive change or adjustment. But times are changing. “Galentines” for gal pals and other Valentine traditions that go beyond romantic love are taking off. Even breakups are changing. For many people, especially millennials, the ’70s Kramer vs. Kramer idea of divorce is becoming antiquated. Younger people are more likely to think divorce is about working together to make the most of their assets and ensure their children are protected.
Love Letters from Exes
Anyone who has seen the Oscar-winning movie Marriage Story will recall the key motif that bookends the movie: two love letters written by the divorcing spouses to each other in mediation. The parties walk away from mediation and fall prey to the influence of hardball divorce lawyers who convince them they need to fight. However, the message is that it didn’t have to be that way.
Choosing a Process that Lets Your Heart Grow
While there’s no denying the pain of breakups, they can be thought of as either tragedies or opportunities. Some exes allow themselves to fall into conflict. Sometimes their spouses may be genuinely deserving of their anger. But conflict doesn’t make the aggrieved party feel better. It just prolongs the divorce process, keeping spouses tied together.
At Divorce Options San Diego, we combine professional expertise in mental health (psychoanalysis) with practical and financial expertise, giving you the opportunity to grow after your divorce. The key to allowing your heart to grow is choosing a process such as divorce mediation that lets you work through the split in an empowered and emotionally conscious way. You don’t have to deny the pain to have a good breakup. Your ex-spouse might not immediately become your best friend, but you can choose whether to react or learn from the experience.
Even if Valentine’s Day seems like a holiday designed exclusively for romance, a day that celebrates caring about people might not be such a bad thing in the world we live in. As someone who has chosen a caring divorce, you’re actually in a better position to understand and spread the message of what love really means. Perhaps getting there seems impossible, but with mediation, there’s a way to get past even situations such as these:
- You’re fighting over your children – Marriage Story is a master class in how not to handle a custody dispute. The problem is being unable to prioritize what really matters—the wellbeing of your children. What if, instead of feeling like an aggrieved spouse, you could reimagine yourself as a hero for your children? Divorce mediation helps you sort out your most important priorities and interests and thus reimagine the conflict. At Divorce Options San Diego, we allow you to detach from negative emotions by using tools such as game theory that clearly show where your mutual interests lie. We also help you focus on the practical issues of co-parenting and where you can find compromise in your schedules, locations, and finances.
- Your spouse was unfaithful – The relationship with your spouse can become tainted by acts of betrayal. The problem is that history is part of you, and attacking your spouse eventually causes damage to yourself. Some spouses also blame themselves for their breakups. At Divorce Options San Diego, we can help you get back in touch with the love you have for your spouse and yourself. We can help you with exercises in self-knowledge and self-care, better ways of relating to your spouse (especially if you have to work together to parent), listening, and conflict reduction skills to negotiate new family dynamics if your spouse is moving on with another partner. Finally, we’re a full-service firm that can help you with anything from career coaching to support for divorce-related logistics, such as selling your home.
It’s painful to face the prospect that the love you and your spouse had may die, but it doesn’t have to haunt you. In fact, it can transform into something better. In mediation, you can start to imagine a life for yourself that grows out of your divorce and forms into a new and more expansive love for yourself, your kids, and your support network.
Our Services and How We Can Help
At Divorce Options San Diego, we are highly qualified professional San Diego divorce mediators and certified financial planners with psychoanalytical expertise. Our mediators are caring, educated professionals who build divorce around conflict resolution, closure, and practical solutions for your future life even beyond divorce.
When considering divorce, many people assume they’re facing expensive battles, expecting “win-lose” outcomes and numerous court appearances. At Divorce Options San Diego, we reframe divorce as an opportunity to generate creative, optimized solutions for your future and your kids’ future. We never litigate. We don’t do adversarial work, and we never represent one spouse against another. We empower divorcing spouses to own their divorces and craft sustainable, effective mutual agreements that will last long after their divorces are finalized. We are a one-stop shop providing a bundle of essential divorce services, from paperwork, court documents, and financial analysis to divorce transition coaching, life coaching, and interior design. We cater to those with busy lives who want the best for themselves and their children. We can help you complete your divorce from beginning to end.
If you require help with your divorce transition, we offer divorce transition coaching, divorce coaching, life coaching, and business coaching. We can work with all aspects of your post-divorce life to make your transition as fruitful and empowering as possible. Our San Diego divorce mediation services include career coaching, retraining, working with financial wealth advisors and other professionals, arranging moving services, connecting you with realtors, and helping you with interior design for your new space.
Divorce Options San Diego puts a high premium on a peaceful, child-centered divorce. We use developmental psychology, attachment theory, psychology of grieving, and family systems psychology to help you and your children through a difficult emotional transition. At Divorce Options San Diego, we emphasize an efficient, caring process that leaves out no detail relevant to your emotional, financial, and legal situations, which leaves you free to get on with your life and care for your kids and yourself, both during and after your divorce. We have offices in Solana Beach, CA, but we can work with you remotely at your convenience via telephone, video-conferencing apps, and other forms of electronic communication. Please contact us at 858-281-2628 for a discreet and confidential consultation to see how we can help.
