The Collaborative Law Institute of Texas is proud to be featuring Honorée Corder, author of If Divorce is a Game, These are the Rules Business Dating and Vision to Reality, as the featured speaker at the organization’s 10th Annual Luncheon at the Advanced Family Law Conference in San Antonio on August 4. Corder’s perspective on divorce (and, in particular, bouncing back from divorce) is refreshing and completely in line with what collaborative divorce advocates seek for their clients — reconciling divorce issues through a civil, respectful, creative and individualized process, in order to have the best post-divorce life possible.
In the following article, which originally appeared in the Huffington Post, Corder talks — somewhat surprisingly — that divorce can and often is the best thing to happen to a person, and as she pointed out to us, the ideas in the article relate directly to collaborative divorce. “In a divorce, you can choose to be mad and stay mad, and if you want to do that, a courtroom divorce allows you plenty of opportunity to do that. But by choosing a collaborative divorce, you’re immediately saying you want to seek a solution rather than extend an argument, that you’re ready to make courageous, life-changing decisions, and you’re ready to close one chapter of your life and enter another.”
—
I rarely meet anyone who regrets going through divorce. While to a divorced person they agree divorce is a miserable process that takes too long, hurts beyond description, and costs too much, the only thing they wish they could truly change was when it happened. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those who have gotten divorced and lived to tell the tale wish it would have actually happened sooner.
Even those whose spouses made the decision for them emphatically share their divorce was one of the best things that happened to them. If you’re not quite there in your mind, I’m sure you’re wondering how that can possibly be. I assure you “a divorce is a blessing in disguise” is what I continually hear, and what I’ve heard over and over again. I even heard that very sentence before my own divorce was final!
When going through a divorce, you’ve got options:
- You can be mad and stay mad. For years. Forever.
- You can make sure the divorce take years and years, drags on and on, and cost lots of money.
- You can be in denial. You were just relieved it was over, and other than that, “you’re good.”
- You can punish your ex, and yourself, by exacting revenge and causing as much hurt as possible.
- Or … you can change what you can change, accept what you cannot change, heal what needs healing, and have the courage to design the life you want.
The question on the table right now is: what are you going to do? Stay stuck, or let go and move on? The choice, indeed, is yours. All yours.
I’m going to make the assumption you want to use your divorce as the launch pad for your new life. Even if you’re still in the midst of it, you can start today making small and simple actions that will eventually result in the significant outcome and life you truly desire.
I truly hope you do!
