Make Peace before Making Change
Albert Einstein famously stated that “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” This speaks to a core value that drove us to build Conscious Family: that the mindset you bring to any endeavor will largely determine its outcome. We believe this is particularly relevant to couples who are facing the possibility of a major transition like divorce.
Unsurprisingly, most people who are contemplating divorce are in a reactive posture. They are often hurt, angry, and apt to place blame on their spouse. From that place, structural changes to the marriage seem like a foregone conclusion. Furthermore, the posture couples bring to the divorce conversation inevitably drives how that conversation (and process) goes; and perhaps even more importantly, how the long game of co-parenting for years to come will play out.
In our experience, much of the reactivity we see in couples contemplating divorce is driven by fear and anxiety: about what divorce will do to their lives, to their children and to their financial futures. It is a well-established tenet of evolutionary psychology that fear and anger provoke the takeover of more primitive parts of our brains when facing a highly provocative threat. Our higher-reasoning brain functions, which are mediated by our cerebral cortex, can largely go offline, and a “takeover” of the more primitive parts of our brain (limbic, amygdala), can occur.
Psychology has also demonstrated that as adults, we do not shed the attachment needs and fears that evolution gave us as children. To a child, the prospect of losing a relationship with a parent, real or imagined, is a survival threat. As adults, a threat to major relationships like the ones we have with our spouses and children can provoke similar types of fear and anxiety, even if the basis of that fear is not fully conscious.
It’s no wonder people considering divorce are often on emotional tilt. We understand this, and we empathize.
More importantly, from our perspective as guides and facilitators, we acknowledge that these reactive patterns can make for very poor decision-making. They can drive behaviors that spouses later come to regret, as the consequences of the decisions they made while on emotional tilt unfold for years after the breakup. The worst outcome of a divorce, from our perspective, is one where spouses continue to carry resentments and anger that lead to conflict for years to come. This is disastrous not only for the parents’ mental health, but for their children.
That is why we believe when couples come to us for guidance, one of the most valuable things we can offer is to help them to operate from a mindset that will lead to good decisions. Decisions that they will not later come to deeply regret.
Getting to Peace First
All of this leads us to the following: Before diving into the mechanics of disentangling lives, finances, and parenting responsibilities, we slow people down to “make peace” before making any changes.
The benefits of starting from a place of peace are numerous:
- Nervous systems calm down;
- Sober, clear assessments can be made about what changes are needed;
- When the emotional issues are addressed first, the appropriate structural changes can be discerned more easily;
- Decisions are much more solid and resolved;
- True completion, acceptance, and closure can be achieved; and
- While the marriage vows didn’t “fulfill” in the marriage, a foundation can be laid for the couple’s vows to fulfill in a new structure (i.e., even if the path is separation, there is a promise of successfully being apart, particularly important for couples with children).
Note that making peace doesn’t necessarily mean solving all problems, eliminating all conflict, and getting along famously. It may look more like a peace “treaty,” where a couple makes basic commitments to coexist in a healthy way, and stop attacking each other.
And for those people who are truly willing to use the circumstances of their lives as a ladder to grow, making peace is a crucial step toward becoming the highest possible version of themselves.
So what does making peace look like, when contemplating divorce? What follows are some of the major pillars of “peace.”
The Major Pillars of Making Peace
- Peace means each person accepts and takes full accountability for his/her contributions to the conditions of the breakdown.
If you are primarily looking to the other person as the “reason” the marriage broke down, you are in a highly disempowered position. You cannot do anything about how your spouse thinks or behaves. The only place you have any power is over yourself. And the good news is, we have found that when both spouses make the decision to focus on their own contributions to dysfunction, and on their own opportunities for growth, relational problems tend to work themselves out. Often in unexpected ways. Furthermore, by focusing on their own responsibility and growth, divorcing spouses avoid taking the issues that led to relational breakdown into their subsequent relationships.
It really comes down to an age-old question that we have found is worth asking repeatedly throughout life: Do you want to be happy, or do you want to be right?
Another good orienting question is: How can I learn as much as possible from this breakdown? Being in a “learning” state of mind is very different from being in one of blaming.
A good facilitator can take you aside and help remind you to stand in full accountability for your own contributions to the drama of your life, without any shame.
- Peace means neither person acts from a place of anger or fear.
It’s usually pretty clear if you are feeling angry. So it is relatively easy to follow the simple guidance of any good facilitator: don’t take actions when you feel angry. Wait until you calm down. In the context of divorce, you may have a constantly running low grade anger, punctuated by flashes of fury. Breathe deeply in the hot moments, and the fury will subside. Then, taking accountability for what you contributed to the conditions of the breakdown (see above) is a good intervention in the story that fuels the constantly running low grade anger.
It’s harder to know if you are acting from a place of fear. Often, when fearful, we think we are acting with good discernment, because we are highly focused on the thing that is causing us anxiety or fear. But in truth we have no intelligence when fear is at the controls.
A good facilitator can help you recognize when you are fearful, and can help you see how the action that your fear-brain thinks is necessary is actually not the best move.
And the good news is that avoiding acting from a place of fear or anger can help you arrive at a place of “peace” where anger and fear are no longer popping up constantly.
- Peace means each person has arrived at sober clarity about next steps.
Arriving at true, sober clarity is not possible from a reactive place, or when you are mostly on either the offense or defense. Once parties make peace it’s easier to get clear on what the next positive move is, for the family as a whole and for each family member.
When people are seeking divorce services, often one party is pushing the issue and the other is being dragged along. A good facilitator or co-mediation team can help these parties make peace. A common scenario is that clarity will be reached together that the next positive move is to grow separately. For example, empty nesters may come to peace with the realization that they have fulfilled on a joint mission to raise children, but have divergent visions for the next chapter of life.
- Peace means each person can truly care for the other person.
Marriage vows typically include caring for each other, through sickness and health. Fulfilling on your vows means caring for each other, even through breakdown and transition out of marriage.
- Peace means each person has freedom of choice.
Peace relaxes the need to act in a certain way. If you need something to go a certain way, you are not truly free to choose one path or the other. A good facilitator can help people reach the freedom of not needing a particular outcome. In this context, one does not feel compelled, internally, to either divorce or to stay married. One is truly able to make a choice.
Freedom of choice also generally removes any pretenses that you are a victim of your circumstances. Even if your spouse is making a clear choice to proceed with divorce, and you don’t feel like you have a choice, the choice becomes to arrive at clarity that it’s a positive move to not continue forward together.
- Peace means each person is empowered to live according to his/her highest values.
The divorce conversation provides a special opportunity, during what is often a highly stressful and challenging time, to rise to the occasion and step into being the kind of person you want to be. To live according to your highest values, in the face of the unknown.
This is not easy, and requires courage. Making peace with your estranged spouse is the first courageous move, and it sets the foundation for yet more opportunities to lean into areas of discomfort for you.
A good facilitator will help you identify your highest values, and then the heroic moves you are being called to make, in alignment with those values. Living according to your highest values means not outsourcing decisions to any outside source: e.g., your spouse, parents, friends, your lawyer, or “what the law says” you have a right to.
In some cases, the process of making peace results in a couple deciding not to divorce at all (sometimes with the help of legal postnuptial agreement). Staying together is often referred to as “reconciliation.” But at Conscious Family, we consider reconciliation a term for making peace. To reconcile also means to balance or true up (“reconcile the books”). In intimate family matters, what is up to be reconciled may be a variety of emotional issues, communications that have been withheld, commitments that were violated, lies, or simple communication breakdowns. We believe reconciliation in this sense can and should occur in all cases, even if, from the place of having reconciled or made peace, the decision is made to separate. Because how you got here determines what structural changes are appropriate and how to go about them. Reconcile before restructuring. Make peace before making change.
John Hoelle and Peter Fabish are the Co-Founders of Conscious Family™ Law and Mediation, serving people in all forms of intimate relationships with mediation, legal advisement, and coaching.
