Couple Therapy- Addressing Separation & Divorce.

Separation and divorce are very sensitive issues. For a couple seeking separation or divorce and even for therapist, it’s a delicate matter.

For a therapist divorce is a process and not an event. This is more true if the couple has children.

Therapist considers separation and divorce as a transition and so his/her first task is to ascertain whether this transition is avoidable or not.

Whatever the couple decides, to stay together or separate, the therapist’s first focus is on improving communication and increasing understanding between the partners. This process provides the opportunity of reconciliation between the partners for deciding to stay together but this also creates an environment for emotional and psychological healing should the partners separate.

Generally, the desire to separate is not mutual and so it has to be recognized that there is a ‘Leaver’ and a ‘Left’ partner and the therapist has to deal with an imbalance of emotions of the partners.  

In case the couple decides to separate, the goal of therapy becomes making partners realize the importance of developing a mutual relationship based on acceptance and forgiveness.

In a way, it is to make the couple understand that divorce does not mean an end of relationship, rather it means re-relating to each other but in a different way, especially so when children are involved.

Separation of parents is very stressful for children. But when partners separate in the above mentioned way, children adjust much faster and may agree that their parents have done the right thing.

In situations where partners lose all respect and love for each other, when there is verbal, physical and mental abuse and there is no hope to regain love and respect, divorce is justifiable. Such separations are rather beneficial for children.

It is a fact that therapeutic mediation helps couples to have a successful transition so that there are minimal psychological after-effects of separation.