When you got married, you wanted a “happily ever after” sort of life, but it wasn’t meant to be. You and your spouse may both be good people, but you just aren’t very good together.
Now you’re going through a divorce, so you need to find your “happily even after” the marriage is over. A lot of people are taking their cues from a movement known as conscious uncoupling.
What is conscious uncoupling?
The phrase “conscious uncoupling” came into popular knowledge when a popular Hollywood couple used it to describe their breakup. While a lot of people thought they were just using some New Age terminology to describe an amicable split, it’s really more than that.
Conscious uncoupling is about:
- Recognizing that your spouse was a huge source of emotional stability and strength for you in your relationship, right up until they weren’t: You have to work through the negative emotions tied to the failure of your marriage so that you can move on without carrying the weight of all that disappointment and anger.
- Reclaiming your personal identity and power: You can’t be in a bad relationship without losing a little bit of your sense of self, so it’s time to get in touch with any feelings that you’ve been repressing.
- Breaking the patterns that led to a bad relationship: What made you accept poor treatment from your spouse? What made you stay in the relationship as long as you did? What do you not want in your next relationship? Turning the end of your marriage into a learning experience really helps give positive meaning to the split.
Finally, conscious uncoupling also means remembering that you once wanted nothing but the best for your spouse and using that feeling to inform your choices throughout your divorce. Mediation and collaborative divorce can make the process easier to complete.