8 Things You Need To Know About Overcoming Divorce Guilt

One strategy I use with clients who express guilt over the end of their marriage is to work with them on identifying how they could conduct themselves throughout the divorce process that would allow themselves to honor their values.

 

If you’re feeling guilty about the end of your marriage, you’re not alone. Few people are comfortable breaking their marriage vows, causing pain and hurt to the person they once loved and distress to their children. Even if it was your spouse’s decision to divorce, you could still be feeling guilty especially when it comes to your kids. While your guilt may fade with time, it likely won’t go away on its own. Understanding how to overcome the guilt from your divorce is another essential step to finding happiness.

Feeling Guilty Is Healthy

Feeling guilty is not a pleasant feeling; you feel mean, you feel rotten. It comes from treating someone else in a way that you would not wish to be treated. The fact that you are feeling that way though is healthy. It shows that you have compassion and empathy for others. What’s not healthy though is moving from thinking that what you did was bad to seeing yourself as bad. When you do that you cross the boundary from guilt to shame and that can quickly become destructive. If you’ve reached this point, then it’s time to seek professional help.

Are Your Values In Conflict?

One reason we experience guilt is because two or more of our values are in conflict. To know if this is the case for you, you will need to sit down and identify your core values. It helps to write these down.

We acquire our values throughout our childhood and often times people haven’t spent the time in adulthood to identify their values and to be able to clearly articulate what they mean. For example, you may value loyalty and family. Your spouse being unfaithful would compromise your value of loyalty but at the same time, you see ending your marriage as challenging your value of family. Identifying the conflict in values doesn’t make the guilt magically disappear but it does give you more to work on.

Where Do Your Values Came From?

As stated above, most people acquire their values as they are growing up. Typically, this happens subconsciously as we take in influences from our parents, our teachers, our religious leaders, our sports coaches and extended family, for example. Now’s a good opportunity to re-assess your values and to ask if, given your real-life experience, that value is still valid. Is it something to which you still feel bound?

Were Your Expectations Unrealistic?

Most people do make their wedding vows with the commitment and intention of keeping them but they’re made blind. None of us know what the future will hold and many of us marry at an age where we have had little exposure to the complexities of life. How could you possibly have known what living with someone who has untreated bipolar disorder would be like? Or the harm of living with an alcoholic who repeatedly chooses alcohol over your marriage? And who could know what parenting would be like with someone with a completely different parenting philosophy?

I often counsel my clients that our society will happily devote four years in high school to learning math skills that many of us never use and usually zero time to the communication and interpersonal skills we use on a daily basis for the rest of our lives. And then with this training or lack thereof, we are expected to select a mate to be with until death, come what may?

There are other unrealistic expectations…in business we hear that it’s OK to make mistakes. We learn from them and go on, having acquired the skills so we don’t make the same choices again. That approach applies to almost every other area of our lives.

Job not working out? Find a new job. Don’t like your neighborhood? Move. Friends who are toxic? Find new friends. But marriage … the overwhelming message is still that marriage is forever and these days, that’s just too simplistic. This is when you need to be kind to yourself. Recognize that your expectations were unrealistic, perhaps through no fault of your own, and forgive yourself.

How Can You Honor Your Values?

One strategy I use with clients who express guilt over the end of their marriage is to work with them on identifying how they could conduct themselves through the divorce process that would allow themselves to honor their values:

• How will you conduct yourself during negotiations?
• What sort of settlement would make you feel good?
• What sort of parent do you want to be?
• How will you work with your spouse on co-parenting?
• How will you talk to your children about what is going on?

The result of this is a long list of commitments that can be shared with the other spouse. These conscious commitments help guide people through the unfamiliar and turbulent divorce process and helps them avoid spur-of-the-moment actions that create further pain and hurt. It allows them to move forward experiencing less guilt.

Don’t Accept Guilt From Others

It’s common for the spouse who is being left to try to use guilt to get their partner to stay or as a negotiation strategy. It’s a tactic that other family members and friends may also use. There is no reason for you to accept the guilt they’re throwing at you. Now is the time to be true to yourself. Your best response is a simple, “Thank you, but that’s not how I feel. I don’t see it that way.” Engaging in a debate isn’t likely to productive – you’re not likely to make them change their mind.

Don’t Overcompensate

Overcompensating for guilt is one way of trying to handle it but it’s not healthy or productive. An example of overcompensating is accepting an inequitable financial settlement in the divorce process or agreeing to a parenting plan that heavily favors one parent without a solid reason other than guilt. While this may assuage immediate guilty feelings, it doesn’t help in the longer term when the consequences of the agreement start to be felt.

Financial hardships and less time with the children can easily start to build resentments and these can be just as damaging as guilt. Another common pattern of overcompensation is spoiling children most often through material possessions or extravagant indulgences when their basic essential need for unconditional love and support is not being met. Children often don’t need more stuff. What they really need is undivided attention and that’s something that money can’t buy.

Your Guilt Will Fade

I wish I could tell you that your guilt will go away. I can’t. But I can tell you that with time and a different perspective, will come acceptance and with that your guilt will fade. While you may still feel guilty for your actions, maybe wish you had handled things differently, you may have more compassion and you’ll understand that you were doing the best you could with the skills you had at the time.

FAQs About Divorce Guilt:

What kind of people find comfort in divorce?

Not many people find comfort in divorce. The very idea of separation and divorce gives people nightmares when they think about causing pain and hurt to the person they took their marriage vows with. Even if one hated their spouse while divorcing, children always make people sad and at times guilty about leaving marriage.

Why do I feel guilty even when my spouse initiated divorce?

You may be feeling guilty, even when your spouse initiated the divorce, because you think that you played a part in it too. 

How do I find happiness and get rid of divorce guilt?

You will only find happiness and get rid of divorce guilt by accepting that the life and status you once had is gone and that you need to make conscious efforts to put your life back on track. You also need to learn how to rid yourself of divorce guilt to live a happy life.

Do bad people get divorced?

You may think bad people get divorced as self-defeating thoughts surround many people after divorce. You may begin to look at yourself as a bad person if you think too much that you did a bad thing by getting divorce. Your guilt will turn into shame, which is unhealthy for you. Seek professional help to make things better if that’s how you feel.

Does conflict cause divorce guilt?

When our values are in conflict we feel divorce guilt. You need to identify your core values to see why conflict is persisting in your case. Sit down and write down what you value the most if you want to pinpoint the reason for your divorce guilt.

Why am I in two minds over my spouse’s affair?

You may be caught between your values if you are in two minds over your spouse’s affair. When you value loyalty and family, you will be in two minds about divorcing your cheating husband. Where you feel hurt because your husband compromised your value of loyalty, you will likely feel in two minds about ending your marriage.

Does divorce guilt influence divorce process?

Divorce guilt does affect the outcome of your divorce process. You should plan to conduct yourself through divorce in a way that allows you to honor and preserve your values. For example, think about conducting yourself during negotiations, the nature of the settlement, the sort of parent you would want to be, and how you will deal with your co-parent after divorce.

Will my spouse use guilt against me during the divorce process?

In many cases, spouses, who are being left, use guilt to gain advantage over you during negotiations or to make you stay. Your friends and family may also use this strategy to influence your thinking. In response, say ‘thank you very much but this is not how I feel’.

How do I compensate my spouse if I feel guilty over divorce?

Many spouses overcompensate their soon-to-be exes out of guilt over divorce. When this is the case, you may end up accepting a financial settlement that favors your soon-to-be ex unreasonably or a parenting plan that cuts your share of time. Don’t ever do that!

Does guilt over divorce fade over time?

Your guilt over divorce will fade with the passage of time, and when you start to see a different perspective of what happened between you and your ex.

This article originally appeared on SinceMyDivorce.com