Divorce & Marriage
Written By: Braiden Belnap
Date: 7/6/22
Summary: My Parents got a divorce when I was 12. It was a really traumatic time for me. That part of my life really shaped me and made me the person I am today even though it wasn’t ideal. Divorce is something that I believe affects everyone. Whether you have gotten a divorce, have parents that are divorced or know a friend or family member that has gotten one it affects you in some way. Divorces can be hard to cope with. Marriage is something that takes daily work to have a successful one. In this blog I talk about my personal experience regarding divorce and also show different perspectives on how to deal with divorce in a healthy way.
There are too many perspectives on divorce to count. Divorce is a topic that is not black and white. There are a lot of reasons that people get divorced. Children who come from divorced parents also have different memories and reactions of how they felt when they learned about the news. When my parents announced that they were getting a divorce it was a shock to me and my siblings. We didn’t see the bad side of our parents' marriage and thought everything was fine. We all dealt with it differently. My older brother was prepping for college, I was heading into middle school and my sister was going into 2nd grade. So we all had a different perspective of what life would be like with them getting a divorce. What we all had in common about the difvorce was that it was even happening. My wife’s parents are also divorced and her parents didn’t have a good relationship. They fought a lot and weren’t a good fit for each other. When her and her brother got the news that her parents were getting divorced it was like a weight was lifted off her shoulders. When her parents had disagreements she would take her brother outside so he wouldn’t have to listen to it. So her perspective of her parents was exciting but scary. She has alway told me that she likes her parents more than when they were divorced because she has a better relationship with them. Those are a few different examples of divorced families and perspectives. Now let’s talk about couples who are married. There are couples who stay married and have a healthy happy relationship. Then there are also relationships where it’s not healthy or happy but people stay together just for the sake of staying together. I have asked people who have been married for 30-50 years and asked them what advice they would give me and they said you just stay married and work through things together. Something that me and my wife have implemented in our marriage is that we have hard things come up. We look at that as the problem and try to come up with a solution together. There have been times where our marriage was rocky and we had to have a “make it or break it” conversation. We both listened to each other with open hearts and open minds. When you have those kinds of conversations the best thing to do is to put yourself in your partner's shoes. Try to see if the tables were turned, how would you feel being in their position. Something that helps too when a conversation gets heated is it’s okay to take a break. My wife asked her therapist how to handle her emotions when she felt too heated and her therapist said that in those moments we need to take a break from the conversation for 10 minutes. 10 minutes allows for emotions to cool down and logic to come back out. Another thing that helps with any relationship is to stay assertive and non emotional. When someone starts to get mad and frustrated and doesn't match their energy it can make things worse. If you stay calm and only speak facts while also sharing your emotions in a calm manner, if the other person gets defensive and mad they’re the ones in the wrong, not you. Using all those tools combined with my wife when we have those not very fun conversations makes it a lot easier because we are truly able to listen to each other and grow together while working as a team.
Another important part in relationships is communication. People have different ways of communicating so it’s important to ask questions and really try to see where someone is coming from. Most people don’t do things with a harmful intent so that is why it’s so important to ask questions instead of just assuming.
I hope you have learned something in this blog. If you want help or have questions about how to implement the tools I wrote about today reacho out I would love to give you more advice. My social media is linked below. You can shoot me a dm with your question and I am happy to answer it for you. I hope you were able to learn something from this blog that you can apply to your life.
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