California Divorce Info Blog

Making it through a divorce after an abusive marriage is definitely challenging, not just for the spouse but also for any children involved.  Even a healthy divorce is painful for all members of the family.  The trauma can sometimes take years to recover from.

Physically abusive marriages are extremely painful, both physically and emotionally.  Sometimes they even and in the death of one spouse.  In order to clarify exactly what the issues are let us be clear: arguments are not typically abuse, but severely hurting your spouse, either physically or mentally, is abuse.  Threats and name calling can sometimes rise to the level of abuse.  Often an abusive situation will result when a couple begins to argue and then it escalates in a harsh way.

Often the lost victims in these situations are the children of the divorced parents.  A child can be greatly affected emotionally by witnessing repetitive arguments between the parents.  It scares a child to see his or her parents so volatile towards one another.  This frequently results in a child feeling depressed.  Much research has been done indicating that the post-divorce behavior of the parents can be even more disturbing to the child band the volatility that occurred within the marriage.

Here are some key tips and pointers that will help you if you have been in an abusive marriage and are attempting to move past it and heal.

Abusive relationships are sometimes caused by one of the spouses having experienced child abuse themselves.  Insecure children tend to grow into insecure adults.

How you handle your own children while recovering from divorce and an abusive relationship is of utmost importance.  In most situations the child will feel insecure and will need and seek out both parents.

As much as possible you should allow your children to meet and visit with the other parent and have been see you deal with the other parent on a calm basis.  Also you should avoid speaking negatively about the other parent in the children’s presence.  Children want to feel loyal to both parents and this is difficult to do when one parent speaks harshly about the other in their presence.

It is common when one parent prohibits the child from seeing the other parent, that the child will feel stuck in the middle.  Other issues can arise when you try to use the child as a messenger to avoid communicating with the other parent.  This will simply confuse the child and cause problems.

Remember that you need to put the past in the past and work on building your own life.  Except that what has happened, has happened, except that you had a role in the situation at least in some small way, and be prepared to move on.  Harboring animosity and disappointment can cause you and your children many problems.  If you feel like you are having a very difficult time doing this then you should get a counselor or therapist to assist you in moving past your issues.  Use your past as a lesson that you can learn and grow from.  Another possible improvement could occur by going to a divorce recovery class.  They are much more common now than they used to be and many participants report a great deal of improvement after attending such classes.  Often times it helps simply to have a support group who understands which are going through and can offer their own experiences, wisdom and advice on how to handle the situation best.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 9:21 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.