I was consumed with frustration and anger. With accusations, disrespect, and disdain constantly coming at me from the ex, all I could think about was how unreasonable she was being and how she was making the entire situation much worse than it needed to be.
She refused to listen, was always angry at me, and constantly accusing me of something.
She didn't seem to know what compromise was much less how important it was to actually try to co-parent our young three-year old daughter.
She thought she was always right and that I was always wrong. I felt the same way about her!
I'd tried to express my concern for our daughter, but as usual the ex refused to listen. At one point she "mandated" that we go to an every other day schedule (which provided zero stability or consistency for a three-year old child. This was confirmed by two child psychologists I reached out to).
When I shared the opinions of the two child psychologists with the ex, she only dug her heels in more!
No matter what I said or did, it only made things worse. I was at my wits' end and had absolutely no idea what to do to try to change the abhorrent situation.
I'm pretty sure the ex felt the same way.
What the hell could I do to try to make things better??
It hit me like a ton of bricks... The more I reacted with intense anger, the worse things got.
As I reflected on anger, I started to understand that every time I got angry, I lost control of myself, of the interaction, and I rarely got what I wanted.
In other words, when I reacted with anger towards the ex, she would never agree with anything I wanted.
In other words, my anger only seemed to backfire when it came to the ex.
I knew I had to get Clarity for what I really wanted. Then I had to determine the person I needed to be to remain calm and to figure out how to communicate with the ex in ways that would be much more likely to have the outcome I wanted.
My WHY was my three-year old daughter. Alie needed me to be my best, especially to be the best father I could possibly be. This included my setting the best examples for her that I could and trying to figure out how to co-parent with her mother.
I committed to make my daughter the top priority and to strive to remain calm no matter what during any and all interactions with the ex.
Was I perfect? Heck no, but overall I did a great job of staying calm and not reacting.
Over the next few months, the overall situation with the ex started to become calmer, and we started to do a better job of co-parenting together for the sake of our daughter.
What can you do to try to create a positive change in the realm of your own challenging divorce situation?
There is a free tool to help you gain Clarity so you can determine how to shift to begin to create some positive underlying change.
It's called The Clarity Exercise and you can access it for free at:
http://www.theex-factor.com/clarityexercise
The password is "clarity1"
You will have access to a list of Intentional Ways of Being that will help you to understand WHO and HOW you need to intentionally BE to create what it is you want.
I highly suggest you begin the exercise by asking the best possible question, which needs to be centered around the greatest challenge you are having.
