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divorce

Forgiveness is the gift you give yourself.

Forgiveness is the gift you give yourself.
Forgiveness is the gift you give yourself. 1080 1080 Abbe Lang

Do you find yourself walking around angry all the time? Do you have an inner voice that always reminds you of all your partner’s wrongdoings and mistakes? Have you become the expert in your relationship in pointing out everything that your spouse is doing wrong in your relationship? If this sounds like you, it will greatly benefit you to take the advice about forgiveness you are about to read to heart.

When you choose not to forgive, it takes a toll on your physical and emotional health. It keeps you stuck in the deepest of relationship ruts. No matter how justified you are about being upset with something your partner has done, you are the one miserable by holding onto it. When you wake up each morning thinking about what s wrong, you will walk around with low-level depression. You cannot feel joy because you are too busy being angry or disappointed.

I have worked with many couples who say they want their relationship to heal. And yet, when they are given the tools to implement this healing, they just can’t move forward. Instead of finding effective ways to get beyond the blame game, these couples continue down the road of misery. They feel their partners “must pay” for their mistakes. How very sad. Even sadder are their children immersed in this tense household with parents who care more about being “right” than happy. What lessons are they learning about love?

If any of this sounds familiar, you need to realize that forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. Forgiveness isn’t a feeling; it’s a decision. Every day, you decide to view your partner with loving-kindness. To make peace. To make up. To make love. I can promise you that the benefits go far beyond anything you could ever imagine. Your decision to forgive will create a ripple effect of positive changes in your relationship and your life.

If you like this article, check out this one!

Happy Wife, Happy Life
Happy Wife, Happy Life 1080 1080 Abbe Lang

Did you know that over one million marriages will end in divorce this year, and two-thirds of these divorces will be filed for by women? What makes women so incredibly unhappy in their marriages?

In the earlier years of marriage, women are the primary relationship caretakers. They are the ones monitoring the relationships to make sure there are date nights, closeness, and connection.

Men, initially, are more concerned with the couple’s financial situation and make it their number one concern to provide for the new union. When a man is not responsive to a woman’s initiative to keep the romance alive in the relationship, they become extremely unhappy. This unhappiness leads them to complain about everything under the sun…things that need to be done around the house, responsibilities about the kids, how their free time is spent, and other things. However, when women nag and complain, men tend to turtle up and retreat into their shells. This retreating and lack of communication deteriorates a marriage even more.

After years of unsuccessfully trying to improve things, a woman eventually surrenders and convinces herself that changing her husband is impossible. She believes nothing that she can do will work, that she has tried everything. Or at least she thinks she has. No one has taught this couple how to communicate effectively. That’s when she begins to carefully plan and map out her only option, getting a divorce.

While planning her exit from the marriage, she stops trying altogether. She resigns herself to living a life of silence and no communication until she announces her desire to divorce. On the other hand, her husband now thinks his wife’s silence means everything is fine. Her shell-shocked partner thinks, “I had no idea you were unhappy.”

Then, even when her husband is willing to pay attention and undergo real and lasting changes, it’s often too late. The relationship is now in the danger zone. If you’re a woman who fits this description, please don’t give up. I have worked with so many men and seen them make amazing changes once they truly learned how to communicate and listen. I have worked with so many couples helping them strengthen their relationships. Give your husband another chance to get it right. Keep your family intact, together.

If you’re a man reading this and have a complaining and nagging wife, be happy! If she didn’t still care, she wouldn’t still nag.Listen before she goes on shut down mode. Spend time with her. Talk to her. Show her that she is the most important person in your life!

If you can show her that you can change and have a big and open heart, she might just give the marriage another try.

Divorce Survival Tips

8 Divorce Survival Tips
8 Divorce Survival Tips 800 533 Abbe Lang

Women need to be careful when they are hit with a divorce, because they can easily let themselves be taken advantage of without even realizing it. These 8 divorce survival tips can help you make it easier on yourself.

Make Copies

Be sure to have copies of everything, because if you don’t, they will probably be gone when you realize you need them. Put these things in a safe deposit box that only you can access.
Things you need copies of include:

  • Tax returns (last 3 years)
  • Account statements from banks and investment firms
  • Pay stubs
  • Insurance information
  • 401K information
  • Stocks
  • Receipts
  • Mortgage statements
  • Loan agreements
  • Credit applications (which typically lists assets that you may need to know as the divorce progresses)

Check Your Credit Report

Make sure you know what your credit report looks like and have any errors fixed. Then make a list of any debts that are joint accounts, because no matter what the divorce decree says, if both names are on the debt, both of you are responsible for it. If he decides not to pay it, it will affect your credit.

Open Accounts in Your Own Name

You will need to build credit independent of your husband (and his income). At the very least, you will want to open bank accounts in your name only. If you don’t have much of a credit history because thins are in his name, open a credit card or two in your name.

Know Your Social Security Benefits

Did you know that if you’ve been married for at least 10 years, you may be entitled to half of your spouse’s social security benefits? This can be the case even if he remarries. There are some conditions that need to be met, andyou can more by visiting the Social Security website.

Get a P.O. Box

If you are still living in the same home, or if there is any possibility that he can access your mail box, you will want to ensure your correspondence is safe. You will likely be getting mail from your attorney as well as other private things relating to your divorce. This is information he should not have access to, so get yourself a post office box, just to be safe.

Change Your Passwords

Even though experts warn against it, most of us use the same password over and over, or choose passwords based on things in our lives. Since you have been sharing your lives up to this point, your passwords may be very easy to figure out, allowing him access to your email, social media, shopping sites and anything else accessible via computer.

Secure Irreplaceable Items

Photos, jewelry and other special items that can’t be replaced should be moved to a secure place where they can’t disappear. Keep in mind, your memories are often memories shared by him. If possible, consider making copies so you both have the mementos that are important to you.

Join a Support Group

You might think this isn’t needed, but when your emotions get the best of you, you will need someone to talk to. Mutual friends may not always be the best choice, and it’s never a good idea to badmouth your spouse in front of your kids when you’re upset. A support group, or even a therapist, will allow you a safe place to express your feelings without causing problems for anyone else.
A group can also help keep you level-headed when you have important decisions to make that will affect your future. In addition to these 8 divorce survival tips, you may also be able to learn other strategies to help you during this difficult time in your life.

Why did I fall in love with Him???? Her ?????
Why did I fall in love with Him???? Her ????? 150 150 Abbe Lang

Why do we fall in love with the people we do?

The basic reason is what I call the images that are created from our past- they are a buried internal images created in childhood of one or both of our caretakers. This image serves two purposes: it helps the baby recognize and distinguish the parents from other adults so that nurturing can take place; and in adulthood, this unconscious image of the parents helps you to unconsciously select a person to fall in love with — a person who is similar to your parents. This image includes the positive and negative traits of both  of your parents, and also includes your parents’ limitations in nurturing, loving or supporting you. We are attracted to people like our parents in order to finish the business we didn’t finish with them. Unconsciously, we feel like we’re in a survival mode, and so when we meet someone who is similar to our parents — we go into a kind of euphoria because deep down inside we believe we’re now going to get what we didn’t get in childhood. That’s what triggers the impulse most commonly called “romantic love.” The definition of romantic love I like the best is that it is  looking forward toanticipated need satisfaction that will soon be disappointed.”

How long does romantic love last? I’ve been in a relationship for six years now, and it still feels very romantic.

After six years in a relationship, if there has been much time spent together, there has to have been some ruptures in the romantic illusion: something one of you is doing really irritates the other, and the energy of the response to that irritation is intense. When the illusion breaks down a bit, you see some reality in your partner. You don’t say, “Hey, that’s like my mother or my father,” but you nevertheless react.

In the romantic phase, we don’t do much analysis — we just try to repair the rupture when it occurs, saying, “Oh well, it was just a bad day,” or “We love each other; we’ll get over it.” Lovers make lots of excuses to sustain the illusion. The romantic impulse is built into us, so it’s a natural response.

Research indicates that the bonding seems to end in most people after about three years;  When the bonding is secure, there’s a growing shift in our perception towards irritability, disappointment, frustration, increasing conflict — “You’re not the person that I thought you were” kind of thing. Neurochemists say that there’s an amphetamine high when you fall in love, which reduces into an endorphin sense of well-being. And when the bonding is there, the endorphins begin to be replaced by adrenaline. Then you’ve moved into the “power struggle,” which is where most couples stay fixed for most of their marriages: they either function in a “hot marriage” — fighting — or a “parallel marriage” — living together but not interacting much. Or they get a divorce and end it all, or they do what I recommend: become conscious in their marriage, heal each other, and go on to live out their dreams.

Stay tuned for my continuing blog on Why we fall in love with the people that we do.

The Imperfect Marriage
The Imperfect Marriage 150 150 Abbe Lang

Coaching so many of my married clients who so desperately want to have a perfect marriage really got my wheels spinning to create this entry. Is there really a perfect relationship out there? Is there really a perfect marriage?

I would like to challenge you to accept and expect imperfection in your marriage. Expect that you will fight, and then make up, make love and maybe fight again. How could you possibly expect that two people, of different genders, some times opposite personalities, are going to live without clashes in one house forever. If you got married to get a ticket to happiness ever after you may be setting yourself up to be very unhappy or even divorce. Here are four things you can count on in your marriage:

-Marriage can be difficult
-the grass is not greener on the other side
-Enjoy the highs because the dips are always around the corner
-Nobody is perfect so love the one you are with

This last point I feel is particularly significant. It means if you are searching for perfect love elsewhere, I can save you a lot of heartache and tell you that perfect love doesn’t exist. People stray from their spouses to be with someone who is sexier, smarter , more fun only to find out the same tough relationship issues surface again. Reason being you took your same imperfect self with you and from that there is no escape.

I have coached countless number of people who are unhappy in their relationships that will try the hardest to point the finger outwards instead of doing the internal work to change themselves. The one most important thing that has to change in your relationships is believing someone else can make you happy. Happiness is self-generated. Look at marriage as a safe space to build the deepest of love, over time, through joy and sometimes sadness. Marriage may at times be difficult but a good marriage means a good life. So surrender the fantasy and embrace the reality.

DIVORCE -Should I STAY or Should I GO?
DIVORCE -Should I STAY or Should I GO? 150 150 Abbe Lang

Ladies, It seems that one of the most pressing questions I receive from my female clients who are unhappy in their marriage is “Should I stay and work on my marriage or should I divorce?”

Obviously this is a very personal question that needs to be handled based on your situation but there are some things to think about when making your decision. What led you to your unhappiness in your marriage to begin with? Was he unfaithful? Did he not nurture your needs as a woman? Was he unable to communicate? Does he have a problem with addiction?

Sometimes our unhappiness stems from ourselves and our interaction with our spouses. In these cases there are many things we can do for self improvement to change the dynamics of our relationship. Believe it or not one of you can implement major changes even without the other participating. Other times though we know the marriage needs to end but don’t have the intestinal fortitude to move forward. It can seem scary to be on our own after being with someone for so long. I tell my clients it’s like taking the first step on a staircase without seeing the whole set of stairs. And this is how it will feel in the beginning. Baby steps one at a time to re establish who you are and how you want to live the rest of your life.

A very powerful tool I also teach when making your decision is called the Pain/Gain model of action. Take out your journal and list at the top. Current Action=Stay Married, Future Action=Get Divorced. Then you ask yourself -What is missing from my current situation and why do I desire that or what is important about that to me. What is the pain of continuing in my present situation? Get All of your thoughts out. Now move on to your Future Situation(divorce) Ask yourself -What are the benefits for the desired change and why are those benefits important to me? What would I gain if I change, and get divorced? After doing those two entries you have to now be fair to yourself and evaluate all of the Gain from Staying in the marriage and all of the Pain if you should leave. Sometimes when our situations seem bleak we tend to paint a different picture then what is.  This tool is a great first step to sort out your thoughts, feelings and emotions on your relationship .

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