How Your Inner Child Impacts Your Divorce Recovery

One of the hardest things someone has to do when they hear their spouse or long-term partner say, "I want a divorce," is to listen to those words. Once these four words come out of someone's mouth, they need to be heard and taken seriously. The one exception to this rule is when your spouse or partner has a habit of saying these words as a way to get what they want from you, to get attention, or to cause a ruckus because they like to live on the edge. If your partner routinely throws out these words, this article is not going to help you know what to do because this is a different situation. Another article deals with this situation.

When these words are not being said to control and manipulate, you do need to listen to them and not just hear them. Hearing and listening are two different activities. When you hear words, your ear mechanisms are doing their job and making meaning of the sounds coming in. When you listen to words, you are doing a number of different things at the same time. You are watching the body language of the person talking to you and you are hearing their tone and inflection. You are reading in-between the lines as well. All of this information gives you the "real" meaning of what the speaker is saying.

There are a number of reasons why listening and accepting the reality of these words is difficult. One of them is that you are just plain in shock. Many people say they didn't know their spouse or partner was unhappy. When they are able to review their relationship in the light of time and healing, they then look back and see that distancing really had occurred slowly over time.

Often what the receiver of the message," I want a divorce", hears is that they are unlovable, unattractive, or unimportant. These assumed words hurt as much, and probably even more, than the original words. This is because these words touch a part of us that has always known, or suspected, that they were not lovable, pretty, or important. This part of us is called our inner-child and it is the part of humans that holds their childhood feelings and experiences.

If the experiences and feelings an adult holds over from their earliest years are happy and healthy, their response to those dreaded four words is generally less intense. If a person's experiences in childhood affirmed they are not lovable, they are unattractive, and they are a pain in the neck, they hear these four word in a very different way. Their inner-child hears (note-doesn't listen) the way a young child would and moves individuals to respond from the perspective of a young child instead of an adult.

When someone does not let go of their marriage, even when their spouse or partner has moved on, they more than likely would benefit from some kind of counseling or support. This author has written a book called When Divorce Hurts Too Long-Wallowing in Post Marital Stress Disorder (PMS). The premise of the book is that when someone does not get on with life after a divorce, and a reasonable amount of grieving, they may be suffering for PMS. The book includes a PMS Scale readers can use to see if they meet the criteria for the full-blown disorder. If readers discover they meet the criteria for PMS, the book provides a series of activities called STOP PMS. These activities guide readers toward understanding how their inner-child, low self-esteem and immature understanding of love affect their ability to move on with life. Dealing with the inner-child is a critical part of healing for individuals who do not get back to living a satisfying life following a divorce or broken relationship.