9 Common Sense Divorce Advice for Men
Divorce isn’t easy for partners to go through and unfortunately, for men, they aren’t oftentimes focused on in terms of how to prepare for the process. Depending on the people involved, a divorce can be very overwhelming and complicated. For the process to be as simple, quick, peaceful, and effortless as possible, here’s some divorce advice for men to hang onto.
1. Communication
Communication is a fundamental piece of divorce advice for men (and women). Even if you are having major issues with your spouse, it’s much more constructive to work with them as opposed to against them. Open up lines of communication. Try to help each other amicably resolve things.
If necessary, discuss things like how you’ll move on with new partners should there be children involved, what’s expected in interacting with the children, and other concerns. If you can achieve a divorce with your soon-to-be ex-spouse without flinging mud, that’s a job well done for you both and will be much easier to get through for all parties involved.
2. What matters
In a divorce, decide on your objective and what’s most important to you. It may be to ensure your financial responsibility to your ex-spouse is reasonable enough to ensure you aren’t struggling in the years to come, it may be time with your kids, or it may be something else. Focus on that.
By knowing what you’re unwilling and willing to give up or negotiate on, this is a starting point to maximize the chance that you’ll get what you really care about.
3. Connect with a therapist
Divorce stirs up a lot of feelings. Just because you’re a man, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t receive support. Connect with a therapist and get to processing those emotions. Burying them can be like a poison. It’ll eat away at you. Sans support, a divorce will take its toll on one’s emotional and mental health. A therapist can help in getting your thoughts sorted out and prevent you from acting out or acting impulsively in proceedings.
4. Don’t be stupid
A sensible divorce advice for men involves keeping calm and rational during the whole process. Divorce can stir up a lot of emotions, including anger. When you’re full of emotion and want to retaliate, don’t. Acting out and being stupid could have negative consequences for you. You’ll get the other person fired up and make divorce proceedings all that more difficult to get through.
Don’t antagonize, don’t pursue ‘revenge’ in whatever context you believe it to be justifiable, don’t do anything you know you’ll be ashamed of, and always, always, always keep a level head.
5. Plan and participate
In a divorce, you have a lot of decisions to make. Be as fully informed as you can. Educate yourself on how the divorce process works, consider a meditator to make things easier, organize your finances, choose a lawyer to help you through the divorce process, and ensure you are active in negotiations.
Try to remove emotions from the mix and put on your ‘business hat’. Protect your interests and needs, and what it will take for you to be happy again.
6. Take care of your body, mind, and spirit
Men aren’t as encouraged to express their emotions, like women are. They may not have any support in going through a divorce sometimes resulting in trying to drown these feelings by overeating, alcohol, drugs, sex, or anything else to get the mind to zero in on something else.
As a man, you’ve got to take care of yourself. Focus on eating right, exercising, and sleeping. You’ll feel better and you’ll be thinking more clearly heading into any divorce proceedings.
7. Get organized
If you haven’t already, you’ve got to get organized on your life and your numbers. You’ll want a list of assets, a list of debts, copies of all financial records while together with your spouse, an understanding of what your monthly expenses are and what they were when living together, assemble any financial documentation so that they are readily available, and make copies of everything. The more support you have going into a divorce, the better. Paperwork counts for a lot.
8. Choose peace, calm, and balance
It could be difficult working through a divorce with someone who is intent on being hateful or spiteful but as a man, always choose peace. Choosing to be calm and balanced at all times means you won’t regret anything walking out of there, you won’t overreact or act in a mean-spirited way, and your former spouse won’t have anything to use against you.
Especially when there’s children involved, you’re going to have to carry on a relationship with the ex-spouse. Pursue actions that keep the peace as much as possible, to make it easier on you and them.
9. Know your finances
Divorce, rather quickly, can become all about getting the most money. Even if your numbers aren’t great, know your financial status. You’ll want to know how much you can potentially provide reasonably for support, rent, or any other expenses. It can cause a lot of anxiety not to know what you can afford. Put the worrying to bed by knowing exactly what you can make work for you, from a financial respective.
