Divorce Recovery Newsletter #61, 7/25/05

More on the B L O B.
To help understand the mental processes involved in recovering from divorce and moving on to a great new life we explain this comparing your mental processor to a computer and some other things going on in getting from what may be the worst time of your life to the best time of your life in less then a year.

Last issue we brought up the "blob" which we explain as a big blob of unprocessed trauma arriving in your big processing and central file room where you visualize 1000 file cabinets of information of your life experiences so far neatly filed away but now not readily available for daily use because this big unprocessed blob from your divorce is sitting there in the way.

You do dumb things and have more accidents and life is a mess with the blob in the way of getting on with and processing a normal or better life.

So we told you that to get the blob cleared away so you can get on with life, you need to "talk it out" and have your subconscious processor (the big one) hear your conscious mind talk about it. As you talk about it and it starts to make sense little bits get filed away...

You can also write your thoughts on your divorce in a journal and as your subconscious sees your conscious mind writing it or talking it out, starts to make sense of it, sort it out and file it away.

The longer the relationship lasted before splitting, the less advance notice you had and overall how traumatic it was for you will have determined the size of the "b l o b" to be cleared away.

The point of the Blob discussion is so that you understand you need to talk about your divorce even if you have to pay a counselor big bucks, or attend a divorce recovery group, talk to Aunt Lucy or anyone at all to get it talked about, processing it and have it filed away and the blob gone.

That was pretty much review on what the "blob' does to screw up your life operating normally.

Let us move on now to "fight or flight". You and all of your ancestors have built in an automatic processor that looks at what is happening and compares it with what you have from previous experience or education on the matter on file in your big file room.

If nothing similar is on file in life experience or education on the going on thing in front of you, a silent bodily alarm sounds that connects to your body and does the following in getting you ready for a fight or a flight....(run out of here)

Speeds up your heart rate, ups blood pressure, shuts down digestion process as unessential right now....cuts down amount of blood supplied to your brain saving it for "fight or flight" which may come up shortly, shuts off your immune system and other bodily functions as not near as important as this "fight or flight" that may be in the works.

Now days they call that a "stress situation" when your bodily fight or flight alarm is keyed up.

Think back now, you inherited this system because over time only your ancestors that had a good fight of flight alarm lasted long enough to have children which eventually got down to you.

Remember the alarm is turned on because your big computer found nothing on file on how to handle this, or the blob was in the way and could not get at the files.

When you are under constant alarm hours daily it takes a toll on your body and health and as far as thought processes you are not operating with a full deck..remember, diverting the life juices to your muscles. You inherited a mental computer program that gears you up for fight or flight and operates automatically.

Remember, this all new situation of your divorce and your surviving the divorce is all new and you have nothing on file from past experience to cover this so your bodily fight or flight alarm gets turned on a lot.

You can not or do not fight and you can not run (flight)

This Alarm ON a lot and not using it (not running) eventually causes some of the following.
1. Your immune system is shut down for long periods and you are much more likely to come down with a major illness.

2. Your thinking ability is short changed and you do dumb things.. (this is why we tell you to make no major life decisions during the recovery process.)

3. Your normal food digestion system now knotted up is gravely affected and you either stuff more food down to make it feel better, or stop sending food down because it feels bad like it is not working. You as a result normally either gain a lot of weight or lose a lot during this period..

4. Your heart rate and blood pressure rising put you in medical danger.

We have many articles on this divorce process that explain all this in greater length at our web site. http://divorcerecovery101.com click on site map.

Here I am just giving you some highlights on how this divorce process is handled by a normal person and trying to help you understand it. We also have many articles on how to get your body out of the divorce fight or flight alarm. We suggest you read up on it including "How your divorce can kill you". Many of these articles are part of the "Starting Over" and other series.

NEXT LET'S START ON THE AUTOMATED SYSTEM TO PUT YOUR NEW LIFE ON 'AUTO PILOT' WITH LITTLE OR NO STRESS. Let me explain the part of your mind that does things and controls your body without your thinking about it and does it very well automatically once trained.

First example: Learning to ride a bicycle. Initially you had to think when it goes that way I lean this way..turn this, this way, and you had a hard time keeping that bike upright. You manually had to make a lot of decisions. Once your subconscious learned how to do it...you thereafter rode your bike without thinking about it...balancing very well. Your bike riding was on automatic...handled by that part of your brain.

Next example: Learning to drive a car. It was a real strain, you had to remember to push this in while you shifted that and then you had to remember to give it some gas at the right time.

The first few times was very strenuous. Then your subconscious "automatic" section took over and now you can drive, talk to some one, listen to the radio and all be enjoyable as your automatic system drives you down the road.

Third example: Learning to play the piano. It was a real sweat, having to run up and down the scales and learn manually what to push when for how long etc etc. If you stuck with it long enough...your subconscious picked it up and soon you could make music on the piano automatically while you talked to someone even. Once automated, it just flowed and became fun.

If you were married for ten years you likely pretty much had married life on automatic.

You could do most of it without even thinking about it....

HERE YOU ARE SUDDENLY SINGLE....
All alone now, when you were well programmed for married. Everything you do now as a single "all alone person" is on manual and is a real sweat....

You hate it.. You naturally want to get back to what was "automatic" and just flowed.

NEXT ISSUE ...GETTING YOUR NEW LIFE ON "AUTOMATIC" TO WHERE IT JUST FLOWS WITHOUT A GREAT EFFORT AT ALL.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #60, 7/18/05

How long will it take you to recover from your divorce?
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE YOU TO CLEAR OUT THE B L O B?
The easiest way to understand one of the major things that keep you locked up with the divorce process ruining this portion of your life is to explain the BLOB.

Anything traumatic or very stressful, let's say, creates an unresolved blob in your big mental processor. Divorce is one of the most stressful and traumatic "my life is out of my control" things that will happen to you in your life time.

Visualize that your mental processor has 1000 file cabinets placed in a big circle. These file cabinets contain everything important or traumatic that has ever happened to you.

In every day life when you have something happen to you your big computer compares it to what you have on file similar, let's say in these 1000 file cabinets. When you have nothing similar or something that caused you a lot of problems in the past you try to avoid the new thing because you have nothing on file, or a bad experience with something similar so you have an alarm go off that says speed up my heart rate...shut down digestion, etc. We may need lots of energy to run.

Now comes divorce or some trauma that causes a large blob dumped right in the middle of your file room and it is not processed. It interferes with your life because you can not readily get to your life experience files. So you do crazy things or refuse to do normal things because you are "upset" (over blobbed) over your divorce etc.

This helps explain why your chances of having an accident after your divorce have tripled...why your chances of coming down with a major illness are much greater then normal etc. which we explain in other articles.

Because of the unprocessed divorce blob is screwing up normal processing action in your big mental file room.

To get your life back to normal..... you have to clear out this mental blob blocking normal processing in your big file room....

Some people clear out the divorce trauma caused blob in short order and divorce no longer affects their on going life processes.

Others take years and some few never get rid of the divorce "blob" in their big file room.

Now the formula to clear out the blob.

Your processor can not get this handled processed and cleared out until you talk it out...

Your subconscious needs to hear you talk about it....to make sense of it and figure out how to start scooping the BLOB out of here.

How long it takes to clear it out and process it and file it away with your other life experiences is mostly determined by how many times you talk about it.

Let's say you withdraw from the world and go live in a cave by yourself for a year after your divorce.

When you come out of the cave a year later you will still have almost the full blob still screwing up your life.

Back to the formula. I think in my case I had to talk about my traumatic loss of a relationship an estimated 700 times. Not sure what your figure is going to be but it will be determined in part by how traumatic the experience was.

At that time I would bring it up anytime I had any one that would stand still. They all eventually avoided me...they did not want to hear any more about it.

After a time I would only talk about it to someone who asked and eventually it was such old stuff I did not want to talk about it at all even when someone asked.. it was just no longer of any consequence, it was ancient history.

The blob was gone and filed away neatly in my 1000 file cabinets of life experiences.

I had surpassed my estimated 700 talk about it times and the blob was gone.

Who do you talk it out..with? that is the problem. You go to your mother and she cuts you off with, "I will have you know we have never had a divorce in this family".

You need to understand that it really does not matter who you talk it out with. However....a pro counselor knows how to listen and knows that is what you need to do.

So you go to a counselor and pay $50 bucks an hour and you do all the talking. The counselor says things like "I hear you saying that you feel this way about this" etc. and is not offering you advice, the counselor is just listening and keeping you talking about it..

When you get all done you say here is your $50 and you really helped a lot.

You go down to the local pub and talk to the bartender about your divorce. If he is busy he won't have time to listen.

Many cut you off, they do not want to hear about it...and who can blame them.

That is why I strongly keep suggesting you find a divorce support group. There you can talk about it and everybody listens and understands. In a good well run divorce group, the primary activity is talking about your divorce process...hearing yourself respond and talk to others about your version of divorce.

Every time you talk about it....another part of the blob starts to make sense and gets filed away.

Conclusion: Hiding out and hoping it will all go away does not work. If you have to pay for counselling to get it out and talk about it do so.

You may discover you have some old blobs left over from previous traumatic events that are also still in the way of getting a normal life.

Every bit of talking them out will contribute to your getting your life back and get the blobs worked down and filed harmlessly out of the way.

(in addition to talking it out...keeping a journal where you write down and enter your thoughts each day about your divorce, will also work well. Hearing yourself talking it out or seeing yourself writing out your thoughts on your divorce in a journal will work as well and doing both is a good plan to speed up the process.)

Good bye B L O B. Hello new second chance at life

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #59, 6/11/05

Why Divorce is Common and Why You Are So Upset By The End Of a Marriage.

Two sentences. Explain it.

Expectations exceed performance.

Your marriage programming is obsolete (left over from another time).

Erroneous Programming (beliefs) you have about Marriage that You expected your spouse to live up to.

1. Marriage vows are "forever".

Erroneous. 150 years ago life expectancy was below the forties.

One or both usually died before you had been married 15 years. Life expectancy now is if you were married at 20 "forever' is 65 years married.

Now if you were married ten years one or the other re-evaluates...do I really want to spend 55 more years with this person? Probably not, better check my options.

2. Erroneous belief and expectation that the person I married should and myself will stay the same and not grow and change as a person or that we will grow and maintain the same interests at the same rate and in the same direction.

The average person moves (changes homes) now every seven years. Their needs, interests, and life now grows at an accelerated rate and "what was" this home no longer fits.

In marriage odds are "what was" at the time of marriage no longer "is" seven years later and one or the other "graduates" from the starter marriage and like the home, is no longer comfortable there, and decides they need to move. When the opportunity presents itself, they move.

In fact we just checked and the latest figures show that the average marriage now ends after seven years. Just like moving because the house no longer fits your needs, one or both out grew the marriage and move on.

3. Erroneous belief that you need to be married to survive or to be happy and that if your spouse leaves without your permission they are cheating you and will take your chance at the good life with them.

She used to need him to support her and the inevitable children that resulted from sex -marriage, (before the pill). He needed someone to cook for him and mend his clothes, take care of the chickens and tend the garden etc

They overcame obstacles together, got through the winter and built strength in the relationship.

Now all they do together is watch tv.

Now she does not need him to support her. She often makes more money then he does.

He has plenty of ability and opportunity to obtain as good or better meals and does not "need her to survive" just fine thank you.

4. Erroneously believe the "leaving spouse" did not leave right, it was terrible the way they did it.

One or the other decides life would be better outside the marriage often after processing the idea for two years.

The "left" person is initially in shock but after two years (of their processing it) (after Divorce) eventually reaches the same conclusion.

The problem is they do not reach the same conclusion at the same time.

There is no "right way" to leave that the leavor knows about. Once decided by one spouse they normally do not immediately leave.

They often hang around indefinitely (sometimes for years or never leave) unless opportunity presents itself or they are able to test the market as to what the possibilities for improvement are (trade up) and to test their marketability.

They stay married in the meantime, because like "bad breath" is better than no breath at all.

5. Erroneously believe that whoever your ex and whoever the ex is involved with now is evil and that you are an innocent by-standing wounded angel.

That you are entitled and morally obligated to punish your ex for leaving your marriage, by using any method possible including using your children as "weapons" no matter what damage it does to you and the children.

This is all part of "they did not have my permission" or give me notice to "drop out or graduate from my marriage, they did not "leave right" therefore I will see that this evil person has to pay a "price".

This freezes the punisher in time (until they give up on the punishment project) (sometimes for years) and they shoot themselves in the foot.

This badly affects the children's view on their future marriage and/or relationships as well as damaging their normal life time relationship with one parent.

CONCLUSION:

It is therefore not what happened that has ruined your life, (divorce) it is your beliefs, faulty expectations and erroneous programming about your marriage that is causing the emotional turmoil and tying up your life in processing and dealing with what happened.

Deal with reality.

Over half of marriages now end in divorce and the average stay together now is under seven years.

People now grow and change very rapidly, and the change happens now in shorter and shorter time. What was a good fit, seldom stays that way.

Probably 99% of the people that leave a relationship do not "leave right" according to the person left.

Accept the idea that all relationships are temporary. Relationships are good while they last, fit and fill needs. All have an expiration date.

Staying in a relationship that has expired (no longer works for at least one) is not a happy time and is not a virtue.

Stop beating on "the dead horse" when a relationship dies.

,,,,,when it falls off the wall, ---
You can not put humpty dumpty back together again.....Let go, Move on...

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #58, 5/11/05

Yes, your newsletters are behind schedule because I am overwhelmed at the moment with business situations that have to be taken care of which will keep me behind schedule for another month or so. However, I do get a lot of email and continue to handle that in a timely manner. Therefore since I get a lot of them that are of mutual help and interest I am just sending you both sides of the back and forth so far on just this one. This is in regard to visitation and interaction with the kids of divorce. See what you think.

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Here is the important part on the subject from a recent email from Michele.

"Anyway, we both ended up in a divorce. My problem is now, letting my children go anywhere around them.

My 13 year old understands what his father did and he does not want any part of this new girl and baby, my 12 year old is angry, at her and the baby and the other son, however he misses his dad.

I don't have a problem with the boys seeing their dad, however it makes me sick to my stomach to think of my boys anywhere around the rest of them. I have asked him to spend time with them alone, which he has been doing once in a while. Basically he spends maybe 3 hours every 2 or 3 weeks with them, but he will not commit, will not give me a schedule, basically will come when he is free from his new responsibilities.

I feel I have moved on and I am ready for a new life, however this seems to be a sore spot. Any advice would be appreciated.

Regards, Michele

My response

Hello Michele,

This is a common problem and you are the one that has to deal with it and set an example for your children.

Your ex has a new life and new people in his life. What you had with him is over. However the relationship he has with his children should not be over.

Naturally they resent his screwing up or stopping the participating in your life and theirs that they were used to but they have to be taught to understand that this was "what was".

His new life and their new life is what is.

He would like to and is entitled to share the new people in his life with his kids and make them all one happy part of his life.

You will have new people in your life too.

However, you and the kids want him to shut out the new people in their fathers life to punish him or punish the new members or for allowing their coming into his life.

You are shutting them out (kids) from the benefits of having a full relationship with their father and participating in his new life with their new half brother and/or half sister.

Get over it...

Plan how to make the "gonna bes" better by forgetting "what was" and doing everything you can to make your ex's life with the kids as good as poss. both ways by encouraging their fully participating in his and his new family's life.

As long as you portray the new wife and her new children as some type of a villians, the kids feel they are betraying you if they enjoy or allow any enjoyment with them whatsoever. You are the key.

If you instead bite the bullet and portray this as "you are sure lucky", now you have two mothers to do all sorts of things and learn all sorts of new things.

Let me know if you can make the switch .
Regads,
Harlan

Here is Micheles response:

NO,
I can not actively encourage my children be to involved with a liar and a cheat. I am sorry, but there is no way I am going to encourage the relationship.

The boys were around her as a friend of their dad's and all of a sudden their whole life changes and she has produced a baby by their father.

I am sorry, what they have both done was wrong and a moral sin. I am not going to actively encourage my kids that this is a nice person and they should get along with her or that child.

That is fine if their father has a new life, however my kids are at the age where they know exactly what happened and it is unforgivable in our eyes.

I will encourage a relationship with thier father, however I can not encourage a relationship with a person who I have no respect for. It is hard enough encouraging a relationship with thier lying father much less a cheat and second lying girlfriend.

My kids are better than that and deserve to be put first, and if he can not do that then he just tells them they are not as important to him as his new family.

I am sorry, I love my kids with all of my heart, however I am not going to encourage a relationship with two unrespectable lying, cheating adults.

He will just have to choose and they can see who is more important. I am glad he is out of my life and want to move on and get him out of our lives.

Regards,
Michele

Hello again Michele,

Well now, it sounds to me that you have a real problem, that is affecting your childrens life, not only in their relationship with their father and their new half brother or sisiter and their fathers new life with a new family, but their future marriages and relationships in their coming adult life.

You are forcing their father to chose whether he has a new life and reponsabilitys or whether he has responsabliity to his previous children, he is not going to be allowed both...he has to chose according to you.

You say....

"My kids are better than that and deserve to be put first," well you are not putting your children's best interests first. You are forcing your children to accept your "sore loser" angry "never forgive any one from graduating from a relationship with you".

The loser, your children.......

Not only are they not going to see their father as much as they normally would, they are not going to be allowed to participate in his new life and with people that are important to him and should be to your children as well.

Your children are getting a distorted view of family relationships from a distorted ("still bent out of shape") mother that will affect their own marriage relationships in the future..

Here is what you said in your original e-mail

"I feel I have moved on and I am ready for a new life,................. however this seems to be a sore spot........... Any advice would be appreciated."

You absolutely have not moved on......or let go... you are severly hung up on what was.... you are not ready for a new life. You have your foot stuck on home plate and you can not run around the bases of a new life hanging on to what was that way. The worse thing is you have announced to your children that these are "evil immoral" people (their father's new family) and that your children should have nothing to do with them. (that is your "holier then thou attitude")

You are absolutely right it is a "sore spot" with you. "You should have been well past this by now".

You need some outside help with this.

Your children need to heal from what was a traumatic separation from their father and you make it worse pouring salf on old wounds and keep them from getting back to a normal relationship with their father.

The father is spending far less time with his children then he would if he could get the kids back to a normal life and relationship with him and his new life.

You are poisoning the water.. for your children getting back to a happy life with both parents.

Sounds to me from your attitude that the children badly need a "little" normal attitude from at least one parent and you are denying them full access to even that.

You are a real sore head, that is shooting yourself in the foot and short changing your kids' full life.

You asked for advice.... here it is..

Get over it.."Shape up-"

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #57, 3/9/05

How to Grow Your New Garden of Support People After Divorce.

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Have you ever grown any Garden Plants? Or flowers? If you have you know it takes time.

Maybe all you see right now as a result of your divorce is weeds. Weeds are plants growing where you do not want or expect them. Here you hoped for flowers or vegetables and since your divorce your life is overgrown with weeds.

To turn your garden around and grow tomatoes you have to go where you get seeds.

In your case you need to know where you can get the seeds to grow new friends in your garden and you need to figure out where to get the type of seeds and find it no matter where ever you live.. We suggest a divorce support group of some where that place other newly divorced get together. Of course you can find great seeds many other places.

Once you find some seeds that are what you are wanting to grow in your new garden,you need to plant them and get them started in your new friends garden.

You should not expect to plant these seeds in your new "single life" garden one day and then harvest a perfectly ripe tomato the next day. Or even in a few weeks.

Raising Tomatoes takes time. Growing a garden of new friends takes much time and effort. There is no "hurrying" it.

1. Find where to go to find the seeds of new relationships to grow a garden of new friends.

2. Weed out all of the no longer fit friends and negative friends who you can no longer afford to cultivate, water and keep in your new garden.
They are now weeds and have to go.

When you got divorced your garden of friends changes. All of the in-laws vanish or become weeds in your garden. The married friends no longer relate.

3. Decide what you are growing in your new friend garden, knowing what to expect - from the seeds you have found. You would plan your garden in advance. Starting with a decision as to what variety of tomatoes you'd like to grow. There are a large variety to choose from, the large and juicy ones, or the small berry types. Or many other types are now available in between.

4. Once you find seed and seedlings you would plant your tomatoes in a carefully chosen, sunny part of the garden and water generously. Weeks will pass and you'd see no red tomatoes. Should you give up? You now know you can not rush this, you would realize that this takes time. How would you know? Because you would learn from others that have grown tomatoes successfully.

5. To grow your tomatoes successfully You find out from them how often you would water, weed out, and fertilize.

6. You would support the new plants with stakes, or special tomato cages. You would be quite patient for two, three, maybe even four months before planning to get any benefits from your crop.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #56, 1/11/05

A New Year and a Start On a New Life...

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This new year and your new life after divorce are a good place to take inventory, so to speak, and then plan and head off in a new direction after realizing you have many new options, that you need not try to recreate what was.

We tell you that the closer you were to having your life totally destroyed by your divorce, the more likely you are to wind up in a year or two in a far better place then you had ever hoped for.

Some say "I was literally destroyed by my divorce and my ex was affected hardly at all."

......and of course they throw in.."it just isn't fair".

We followed up on many of these and almost all two years later were in a far better life then they had ever had before that divorce, while their ex's were just back bumbling along, making the repeated "life" mistakes of previous years and were not in any major improvement of "what was" before the divorce.

For those still continuing to mess with their ex and prove they were right and their ex was wrong etc. should get off that waste of time and energy and realize the "best revenge" so to speak (for those of you into that) is to really improve your life and overall happiness on your own, into a far better life then you ever had in that marriage.

Let's put it this way.... Let's say your ex was a house only slightly damaged by the divorce storm.. The ex just patches it up and it changes little.

Now let's say your life in contrast was a house that was totally blown away....by the divorce hurricane.

Your first reaction is that "I have to get my life rebuilt and get it back like it was."

Then you realize...that hey....I do not have to rebuild it like it was or even in the same place.

For the first time you have the freedom to rebuild your life the way you want it, not your parents plans or your ex's. Just totally the way you had always hoped it would be.

By now, (maturity) you have enough life experience and insights to know basically what really "works" for you, what is important to you and even what parts of life you enjoy the most. ......and you also know what you do not want in your new life.

You sit down to make new years resolutions of what you are going to do in the new year to make life better.

Here we tell you to take time to sit down and look at "what are my options or possibilities in my new second chance at life?"

List all the major changes and improvements in your life that you would like to happen in your new life, if there were no limitations..road blocks etc.

Do not forget to dream big with no limitations. (note: However, if you are 5.2, best you give up on your dream to be an NBA star.) You do not have to worry or wonder how you are going to accomplish all this. For now you only need to decide what it is you would like in your new life of unlimited possibilities.

Later here we will show you how to start to have them happen almost automatically.

Once you decide totally about what your new life will be like and where it is going, then we tell you that you are half way there. That is how important this step is to your new life.

No more bouncing off the wall and accepting what comes down whatever road you chance on.

Once you have this "what you want to happen and be part of your new life" written down and you can actually visualize this all happening, your life will be changed over night.

Now you will have direction in your life. You know exactly where you are going with it.

You are now enthusiastic about what's ahead and you can hardly wait to get started on the road to getting there.

"What was" is no longer of any consequence whatsoever. You just no longer have time to even mess with that.

The "gonna be's" is where it is at and you keep repeating....constantly...exactly where it is your new life is going. Keep this in front of you so there is no doubt about where your new life will soon be.

Let's call this next part....ordering the road maps of how to get there......and the shortest and to get the fastest route laid out......as and when you need it....

Your subconscious mind is tremendously smart (you likely have been using less then 5% of its capability) and it will know and/or get you to do what is necessary for it to figure out the where and how of getting all the road map information you will need in getting to this new life.

You just need to tell your subconscious "where you are going" and order the road maps of "how to get there". If ordered correctly they will be delivered by your subconscious and will arrive in many small maps just as you need them to get on down this road.

This "road map ordering" is called "setting goals.." When you deliver correctly (and repeatedly) this "how do I get there" map order, (to your subconscious mind) they will then arrive on time automatically just as you need them.

To read up on "Setting Goals" as a single person, start with this one...

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #55, 11/30/04

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New twist on the Legal Divorce
This newsletter portion may not be of interest to you if you have already filed for divorce but you might print it out for future reference of friends who may get divorced later.

Right now in Arizona, over 80% of divorces filed are filed without an attorney. Divorce is different in some states that do not have community property laws but the coming apart emotional process is the same, with more emotional trauma thrown in when the divorce process is difficult and one side or the other "wants to punish" the other for having the nerve to "leave" without their permission, and says to the attorney, "take the SOB for everything they have."

Getting attorneys involved almost always prolongs the agony and emotional exhaustion for both sides..and happens when one gets an attorney, because of the marriage betrayal so to speak, and they feel they can no longer "trust them" to make a fair and equitable settlement.

This is a huge mistake since both parties are "punished" not only financially, but emotionally in making the process longer and more severe.

What we are saying is work out between you what it takes to divide property and the kids etc. and get a mutual trusted friend to help settle disputes, a professional mediator, hire a mediator, etc. but settle this all without an attorney.

Once all the details are worked out, you can file it yourself, get a non-attorney firm, (there are many around that just help you do the paper work) a para-legal, or even hire an attorney together just to do the paper work.

Here is the big news that causes me to write on the subject today, that is that Arizona has now come up with E-Court method of printing out all the documents needed.

You fill out a questionnaire modeled after the turbo income tax filing system, that then prints out the legal documents filled in.

If the questions were not all answered and necessary information supplied the system will not advance.

This is reported to eliminate many of the errors of the usual do it yourself filings.

Half of the divorces filed in Arizona are reported to be uncontested or the spouses did not respond and consequentially defaulted.

Arizona has a 60 day "cooling off period" but after that instead of waiting weeks, you can now usually contact the court and schedule your hearing for the next day.

The questionnaire takes up property, children, taxes etc. which if any part is disputed can then require an attorney to help sort it out.

We write here for all over the world, but do have a lot of Arizona readers so for you here is the web site... http://ecourt.maricopa.gov

Alternative is to get it from http://superiorcourt.maricopa.gov

It seems to me that anyone anywhere could fill this thing out and use it to complete their local divorce wherever that may be since basically I am sure the same or similar questions need to be answered for the court to act on it.

It is suggested you contact your local governmental office that handles the divorce process in your area, and ask them what they have available for "do it yourself" divorcing.

You could then use the Arizona system to generate the answers by your filling out the Az questionaire. Transfer from the then filled out Arizona form to the same portions on your local form.

Even if you use an attorney, these filled out and information forms will likely save a lot of time for the attorney which means "money".

Many government offices offer complete sets of paper work for doing your own divorce and others will likely have a similar online set up for the process, now or soon.

My job here is to make you aware of options, and suggest your read through our site map for the legal articles that can do much to save you a lot of money but most importantly a lot of unnecessary emotional hassle that can prolong the pain for years.

Print this out for friends who may go through the process in the future, even if you have none in the process or planning stage at the moment.

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Maybe I can call this an advertisement or just Harlan News... One of my new businesses is renting out regular homes by the week that are furnished with all house wares etc, for tourists or commercial people in town (Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale) for short periods. This is just like moving in to someone else's home for a few weeks (which is what it is) with everything in place just like home.

Some of these can sleep up to eight people so if a group comes together can be far less costly then living out of motels resorts etc see http://arizonavacationhomerental.com

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #54, 11/21/04

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The Coming Unglued And why it is so difficult to come apart.
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You are divorced....(even if you have not completed the paperwork...) The paper work is merely a "legal" entanglement.

You can't fix or change or even move on from what you don't acknowledge.

Your long term relationship has died. Stop lying to yourself...deal with reality here.

We don't want to admit to others or to ourselves that we have a problem. That is why AA considers it so important for members to say the words: "I am an alcoholic".

We tell you it is very important that you admit to yourself...."I am DIVORCED. I am now a 'single' person."

Instead, you say to yourself...the divorce is not final...yet.. they may come to their senses and come back etc. etc. Every type of excuse you can come up with to justify your being "frozen" in time instead of moving on.

You must deal with reality here, in contrast a "live" marriage sort of flows... Sure, you can kid yourself and pretend you are in "crazy making" no man's land...half way between marriage and divorced. There is no half way house. There is no being put on "hold".

(the stage of paper work of divorce is not to be confused with or used to muddy up the emotional or factual end or death of a relationship.)

Our best method of explaining it is that your faithful long time horse, (marriage) died.

You need to acknowledge to yourself and the world, your horse has "died."

What you have been doing is "beating on this dead horse" of yours and trying to get it to come back to life.... You could always revive it before.....

How long are you going to keep beating on what you and everybody else now know is a dead horse.....??????

It is not just a little dead, it is fully dead. If is like being a little pregnant....there is no such thing.... Why did my horse have to die? This should not have happened to me....

We say, trying to figure out why your horse died won't help right now.....you just need to admit your horse is stone cold dead....and before your life starts to smell even worse....bury your dead horse... and move on down the road.

Whether it is fear, an addiction, or a bad habit, etc, the first step is to admit that there is a problem. To better understand the problem in the coming apart process read here...

Acknowledge what is not working in your life.

Pretending to yourself that you are still in a relationship that has in fact died keeps your life from working.

Visualize your having graduated from high school. Your very best and deepest friends all scatter in all directions to college, to the military, to new careers.

No matter how much you wanted to go on with what was, you soon realized your high school days were over and you had to move on.

No matter how you tried or wanted or desired to put it back like it was, the happiest time of your life was over and you too had to move on with your life.

Here you have graduated from your "starter" marriage. Again, you did not want it to end. You knew how to operate successfully in that environment.

Here you are again faced with an all new unfamiliar scary terrirtory, moving into the (scary and unfamiliar/uncomfortble) life as a single adult, with great fear of the unknown......... what becomes of me now?

You know you have to move on....

Start studying up on the subject, begin planning and get ready, and start to Move On.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #53, 10/25/04

Todays quotes:
As you think, so shall ye be.
Jesus

Another quote:
People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln

The above is old information but I remind you it applies to your divorce process...

You spend a lot of time...figuring out and visualizing what you want to do on your two week vacation.....

How much time have you spent thinking about how you'd like your "after divorce" future to unfold?

How much detail do you get into when you do plan and think about your future?

You buy travel books and view pictures of what you will be getting into on your two week vacation....

What research and investigation are you doing into "what are your options" on where you may want to go with "your all new rest of your life".

I am willing to bet you have done little or none...

Figuring that you do not have options...on what happens or where you go with your second chance for an all new life.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Planning your trip and exploring the possibilities for this year's two week vacation ....can often be as exciting and as much fun as the trip.

This second act of your life...you likely for the first time have complete control on what happens in your new life, your parents no longer control you, your spouse (we hope) no longer controls you.

For the first time...you have 100% control of your life plans...you get to write the script...of what you want to have happen.

and........ you get to cast the players in your new life....

You have to admit, this is starting to sound like it has exciting possibilities.....

but you say... I can not do what I want.. I have all of these responsibilities...etc etc. etc.

I am chained down...I have no possibilities...

Baloney.....other people have just as many responsibilities and they move on to big things in an all new life....

You can too....you are likely more capable, talented and smart than most of the others that succeeded in moving on to a great new life.

You DO NOT have to figure out "HOW" you are going to get there....right now... You only need to plan as if you could have all your druthers... where would you like your life to go....now?

Plan just as if I did not have all these responsibilities.

LATER, we will figure out the "how" to make your new life come true....despite all these hurdles you claim are holding you back.

and.....

We will show you how this is the first step to put it on "automatic" to almost happen by itself.....

Figuring out "How" is another part and you can set that up....to really almost happen automatically if you do this process right....

First figure out.......

How do you want to feel in your new life, act two?

Happy? Relaxed? Excited? Enthusiastic about life? Thrilled? Can hardly wait for tomorrow?

Once you decide how you want to feel you can begin to add in more details that will make you have these feelings automatically.

Having figured out and written down what feelings you want every day.... then we will start adding in...WHAT will it take to make you have these feelings every day in your new life?

Once you have these "WHATS" written down, then we can start working on goals to get there.

But remember, much of this is internal programming that needs to be updated.....keep your old programming that is holding you back, then even winning the lottery in six months will not have changed how you are feeling about life.

PLEASE.....Go to the top of the page and read the "quotes" one more time...

When you make your new goals list, mark down the physical part AND the feeling that goes with it and how this will result in your new feelings about life.

THIS IS IMPORTANT... for you to be able to move on from the divorce miseries....

Right now you are just bouncing off the wall... waiting and dreading what new life disaster lies around the corner....

Once you figure out what you want to happen in your new life, you will get enthused and start subconsciously (little effort required...it starts to happen automatically when you do this right) and making decisions about your new "divorced life" will suddenly become easy.

Now that you know where you are going with your life... every decision you make today will be much easier....whatever comes up.....if it helps advance you towards your new goal, (programmed into your subconscious) you automatically do it.. If it sets you back from accomplishing your new life goals...you do not do it...

Because...... If it moves you towards your new life goals... that are correctly programmed into your subconscious.... the correct choice or decision will just FEEL RIGHT and you will do the right thing automatically.

It becomes......

EASY.

Stress will be gone....you will be comfortable with your new life steps moving you towards your goals...

Previously, anything new was uncomfortable and life was stressful because you did not know if you were doing the right thing for your new life......

Or not.....

REVIEW.....THIS IS IMPORTANT...

Make no small plans. Arrange for "great feelings" ahead by taking the above seriously and sitting down and PLAN what you want to happen in act two.... how do you want to feel in your new life, and what would it take to get you there?

NOTHING you can do right now will change your life more for the better than sitting down and doing this... Right now.

Remember, describe on your "goals paper" what type of people you will have in your new life.....they are key...to your success..

REMEMBER....

You get to cast WHO you have as players in your ACT 2, for a great new life.

ONCE YOU HAVE THE BASIC PLAN FOR YOUR ACT TWO.......ON PAPER..... you are half way there.

That's right.......it will not be as hard to accomplish as it was to get you to sit down, concentrate and do this....first half of the trip.

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DO NOT put this down without making these plans for a great Act two... right now...

If you can not take control of your self and get this done right now.....

Some of you may not be ready to move on and need to wallow a while longer in the "what was". This is understandable for newly divorced working through early stages of divorce recovery.

However, do not complain to me that it is.

Grab yourself by the back of the neck and drag yourself up to a table and chair with a pen and paper.

Okay, so just call 'em "wishes" then, whatever makes it easier to get you on this...just start getting these down on paper. Shape it up in your final copy.

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Here are two articles on the subject...

Setting Goals for singles....


Write your own script.....


We have many more but this will get you started.

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TALKING ABOUT YOUR DIVORCE HELPS

Chat with others on how they are handling what you are going thru..... at SINGLES TALK SHOP It is real...and is....Easy to use...

We sponsor it as a 24 hour....talk it out therapy.

No appointment needed...no charge...always open.

Create a singles community on the web...a safe place where newly singled and well adjusted long term singles can both ask questions, offer advice, share concerns and experiences, laugh, cry, and learn, go here...


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If you have been forwarded this free newsletter and would like to subscribe, send a blank email here

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #52, 10/16/04

HOW 'FEARS' HOLD YOU BACK

What is getting in the way of your moving on from "what was" to the new and second chance for a better life with the "gonna bes'?

1.  Fear. Fear is one of the worst enemies keeping you from working through and moving on from your divorce.

When fear controls you, you will never be able to open a new door and move on from "what was".

You must confront head on these divorce induced fears, and see them for what they are.

Conquering fear and moving on is one giant step in the road to recovery from the "shock" of divorce imposed life changes.

What are you afraid of today?

What fears generated by your divorce situation must you conquer to be able to move on to achieve a dream of a second chance for a better life?

When you realize what your major fears are you take an action to overcome these fears.that have you frozen in your present state.

This recognizing these fears will confront and conquer the fear by giving you the ability to take the first step in the right direction.

We start out here listing a few of the major fears that generally go with the divorce process.

A.  Fear of not surviving this, how can I make all of these life decisions all alone?

B.  Fear of the unknown. Uncharted Jungle. What catastrophe is next?

C. Afraid that I alone will not be able to pay all the bills?

D.  Afraid that I will not be able to raise the kids, or that my relationship with the kids will be ruined?

E.  Afraid that my normal relationship life is essentially over, I will never have a significant romantic or sexual relationship ever again.

F.  Afraid that whatever I do, I will be wrong and things will be made even worse because I do something dumb.

H.  Afraid this pain and anticipation of continued disasters will never end or get better.

Let us take up whatever steps are necessary for those caught up in the process to get these fears under control, get past them and put them away as history and just another part of "what was".

It is perfectly normal for you to dislike and fear the unknown, anything you do not know how to handle, because of no previous experience with it or knowledge on how others have dealt with it.

The key to overcoming your divorce acquired "Fears" may be in the dictionary's definition of fear.

My dictionary defines fear as "a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger."

It adds, "a reason for dread or apprehension."

So, basically you have decided your divorce has put you (and your kids) in danger and your very well being and even survival may be at stake in "what you do or what happens next".

You have fears that the "good life" as you knew it has gone down the tubes for good.

A. IS YOUR VERY SURVIVAL AT RISK?

Your humpty dumpty has fallen off the wall and all the kings horses and all the kings men can never put him back together again.

You need to look at divorce as pretty much normal goings on in the life process, that over half of your friends and neighbors have either gone through and survived a divorce (or two) or will in the future.

Almost everyone of these folks also had a lot of fears, anxiety and apprehension, just like you have now, about what they had moved into and what was happening to them in this divorce process.

They all survived, got past the divorce process by figuring out how to handle it as another hurdle to get over and moved on to a new and very often much better life then before the divorce.

One of the most scary parts for many people is the feeling of being "abandoned" and put all on their own, often for the first time in their life.

The feeling is "I have always had a baby sitter", someone that looked out for me and my welfare and made sure I did the right thing. You just lost your baby sitter.....and this being left on your own for the first time is indeed scary and it is a fear of "can I survive on my own".

Someone always made the decisions and told me what to do next. I have no experience in being 100% in charge of and totally responsible for my own life.

These folks are often in "an abandoned panic". They rush out to find a new "someone" to take over their life and tell them what to do next.

They have no experience in living life for themselves, they always had someone to "please", it is the only thing they know and they lost that "someone to please".

They have the programming, it is not okay to please yourself. They erroneously concluded that to be happy you have to "please others".

First it was pleasing the parents, then the spouse,..... and now there is no one to please but themselves.

The way you get over the fear of whether you can be 100% in charge of your own life successfully and make decisions that lead to a better life, is to recognize what it is, fully accept the job and responsibility and get on with it.

FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN

It is perfectly normal to fear the unknown. Here you have an anxiety and fears in the divorce process because what you are getting into next is a jungle of unknowns and "surprises".

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY.

You are not the first one to go through the wilderness of the divorce process...

Millions have gone through this before you and you can quickly and easily learn all about it and gain an understanding from their experiences..

When you know all about it, what others have done and what works, you are no longer afraid of it.

There are many books, seminars, groups, therapy sessions, and road maps left by others who have gone through the divorce recovery jungle and you can learn from their experience how to handle it in a short time.

We think we have put together the easiest to understand and the best and most complete road map through the divorce recovery jungle.

If we left any stones unturned, and/or turns in the road not mapped, drop us a line and we will find an answer for you.

Once you are knowledgeable about the subject, and know how to handle these important life changes, you are no longer afraid of it.

AFRAID YOU WILL NOT ON YOUR OWN BE ABLE TO PAY THE BILLS

Often you had trouble paying all the bills before the divorce and often this was one of the reasons for the divorce.

Now you have a more serious problem. What income was not adequately covering the costs of one home, now this same income has to spread to somehow support two homes.

This means there is going to have to be a large drop in the standard of living somewhere and the divorce is often a contest to see who is going to be forced to lower their standard of living the most.

When it comes to money, we come to the part many become very bitter about. They spent all these years working very hard to get their standard of living to a respectable place and this divorce is setting them back decades.

So to be able to pay the bills you will need to lower your expenses, (often lowering your standard of living) whether you want to or not.

The other alternative is to up your income from new and better sources, and often you will need to do both.

Once you get your expenses budgeted to your income, your bills will be handled in a normal manner.

This reality is often depressing to deal with, but when you get your new life together and you "all on your own" get your standard of living back to what it was or better then it was before the divorce you will have great satisfaction in having done it all on your own.

AFRAID THAT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RAISE THE KIDS IN A NORMAL MANNER.

We tell you that if handled in a knowledgeable manner the kids can come through relatively unscathed.

Your relationship to the children will be changed by the divorce, it just comes with the territory.

You will need to learn techniques and methods that work, understanding there will be many changes in the relationship with your children that will be better than before the divorce and many that will be drastically different as a result of that the divorce that you and the kids will have to adjust to whether you want to or not.

Probably half their friends in school parents have gone through a divorce so they will not feel alone.

There are many sources of help in making the transition.

We have some in our web site with links to many more.

AFRAID THAT MY ROMANTIC AND SEXUAL LIFE JUST ENDED FOREVER, THAT NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE ME AGAIN.

This fear is so profound that we have observed many are so afraid this was the end of their romantic and sexual life, that they rush out to prove they are still desirable.

They wind up in bed with everyone that says "Hi there" primarily to prove to themselves they are able to resume a romantic life any time they desire.

Once that is proven to themselves...they often stop totally because they now know they can resume anytime they are ready.

We assure you that there is no hurry, you can resume that whenever you are ready, that it really is not that big a problem to overcome when you arrive at that point.

We have a web site devoted to dating again and a newsletter on the subject.

The batting average is very good. Almost all that work at it.... do develop relationships that are often far better then anything they ever had in a marriage.

Just relax and work on other parts of your life. We will help you ease back into relationships when you are fully ready.

AFRAID THAT I WILL DO SOMETHING DUMB AND MAKE MATTERS WORSE.

Being totally responsible for what happens in your new life is initially overwhelming. Every life decision is made with a dread of catastrophe.

This need not be .......What you need to do is set down and figure out where you want to go with your new life. What do you want to have happen in act two of your life?

This is called setting goals and we suggest you read some of our articles on the importance of setting new life goals and the importance of wording these goals correctly.

Until you do set new goals, your life is like a ship just drifting on the ocean, no idea where it will wind up and with great fears it will run aground somewhere.

When you have goals, it is easy to make correct decisions in your new life.

If the choice helps move you toward your new goal, you do it... if it does not help move you towards your goal...or interferes or delays it, you do not do it.

Thereafter you will have little fear of making the wrong decision, because you will have a yard stick to measure your choices with.

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HOW THIS CAME TO BE

Every now and then I get an e-mail asking how putting all of these web sites on single life adjustment came to be.

The answer to this question took a little time to answer these inquiries, so I sat down and wrote the answer out on a web page so that when I get the question, I can just refer them to this page. (time saver)

In case you were curious too, I hereby include the page, click here

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If someone has forwarded this free newsletter to you and you would like to subscribe, send a blank email here

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #51, 09/14/04


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1. A short course, "Divorce Recovery in a nutshell"
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Every issue we have new readers, many just newly divorced and in great pain so we need to go back often to square one for those in this stage.

IN DIVORCE questions a lady marked it private and her situation was very similar to thousands of others.

This is the answer I sent her but since it was marked private it was not posted on the the question and answer board, I thought we might post it here and refer people that post a similar situation could get information promptly on the subject by simply going here.

She was just getting divorced from an alcoholic husband who beat her etc., was not a father to her kids who did not want to see him.

She had no relatives or friends around and she was crying herself to sleep.

Dear Beaten,
Your situation is very common, but telling you misery has company does not help. Almost everyone finding themselves in this situation feels they are very alone.

All this that you are going through is made worse now days in a big part like yourself, by relatives and the normal support group of people your folks and grand parents had, now days either this support group of relatives either move away or you do or both so they are not around when and where you really need them.

You often lose all or most of your married friends, you lose all the in-law relatives on the STBX (soon to be ex) side and you are about as close to zero in support system and friends as you can get when you are at the very most stressful event in your life, when you most need a little help to get through it.

Now, hearing that or knowing that has not helped you a bit I know, but it does help to understand where you are and why you feel so alone and helpless at this stage of your divorce. So what do you do to make things turn around?

1. Develop a network of single friends in your locality and on the web; we are here and you will find others on the web who have been through this and that will help.

When you have worked through this, you too can come back and help others going through this traumatic time in their life.

2. Join a support group such as a local divorce recovery group (we can help you find one.) and singles organized clubs.

3. Study up on what has worked for others and realize what seems now like the worse time of your life may well be looked back in a year from now as the best thing that ever happened to you. (hard to believe now but true)

4. Realize that working through this and getting on to a better life takes some study, motivation and a little time. That this is almost solely a "do it yourself project".

5. Recognize you need to talk about what you are going through . People that have been through this themselves are willing to talk about it.

Getting advice from them is not the important part. Being able to talk about what you are going through with someone that will listen and understand is.

6. You will discover that you have an option, you can take years to work through your divorce, or you can learn that it is a process, there are no magic pills, and that you can learn what works and apply these to your situation.

7. Learn what has worked for others, understand that you are okay, you are not a defective reject, it is something that happens in life to over half of those married, learn where the adjustment traps and tar pits are, where many get hung up. Understand you are not born with a built in ability to handle this. You need to study up and understand what you are going through and why you feel the way you do.

8. Cry it out.... (this takes time, grieve over your losses, get into it and get it over with....) fast forward here...when done with that...

9. Give up on what was. Concentrate now on the gonna-bes. By working on the gonna-bes...you will discover "great nows" start arriving automatically..

10. Get out the Divorce Recovery adjustment maps and find the on-ramp to the "moving on freeway" to an all new bigger and better second chance at an all new you and a new life.

11. No one can do it for you. This turning point in your life is now up to you. (scary huh?)

12. Get new life goals...and head out.... remember, the best part is not the arriving, it is the trip.

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2. For those past the crying stage and still really mad..stage... now what...?
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One of the reasons we tell you that you will come back one year from now and tell us this divorce, the worse thing, the most painful thing that ever happened to you, you somehow have had it turn out to be the "best thing that ever happened to you".

Yup, same divorce... ...the turn around will come because if divorce was a really earth shaking traumatic time, you will stop, take inventory of your life and decide where you want to go from here.

You will make changes and improvements in your life plan you never would have made otherwise.

So we tell you the more painful and upsetting and traumatic your divorce is or was.......

The more likely you will make these changes and self improvement steps that you never would have done without the divorce.

You will grow more as a person in the one year after your divorce, than you did in twenty years of marriage.

One year from now we want you to be able to honestly say.....

My divorce was the "best thing" that ever happened to me....

That's called...."when life gives you lemons .......make lemonade."

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3. Harlans 80% Success Rate...Rule.....
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The reason I call it Harlan's rule...is I have not seen it put forth anywhere else so I will claim title to it....

My observation has been that when people try new things and they do not work out they are crushed, disappointed, depressed, discouraged to the point they say why try, angry at all the people involved in the failure and the whole world did not act right and that let them down etc.

So my formula is expect and shoot for 80% successes in new things in your life.

When 20% of new adventures, people and events fail to live up to your hopes and expectations...no big deal.... just comes with the territory so to speak.

If 100% or anything near that is your expectation...you are going to be unhappy a good part of the time, and when and if you are succeeding at that rate......close to perfection, then you are short-changing yourself by not expanding your life and trying enough risky new things.

If you have greater then 20% failure rate...you may want to cut back on risky new adventures a little.

In other words... we are changing our "expectations and demands".

We no longer demand 100% success of our kids, our job, our relationships, new things and places we try etc. etc.

We expect...20% to not work out like we would prefer, (no demands, we gave up on that remember) so we just work these in with the mix.

l expect to do 20% of what turns out to be looking back, probably some really "dumb things".. Looking back I will see I should have done 20% differently or at least better..

Once again.. the formula... more then 20% or your life actions not working out... cut back on risky not sure things...

less than 20%, your not doing and trying new and better things and actions... life is boring.. no enthusiasm to get out with lets try this...that we have never done before.. as you get older you do more and more for the last time and less and less for the first time...

When you are not having 20% failures... you are ready for the rest home...

When things do not work out... my day, (week or month) is not ruined.. as long as it fits in my 20% overall failure rate with 80% successes.

Sure, I expect and hope for and work to have some big successes, real wows, some just barely successes and a lot of so-so successes. ........and 20% disappointments with some real clinkers.

If your life is a roller coaster series of emotional ups and downs...smooth it out... adopt my 80% expectations formula....... and you will find...... now life works...

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4. "Visit Our Newsletter Archives"
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Our newsletter archives contain every article, including every adjustment tip, trick, and technique, that we have revealed to our subscribers since we started the newsletter in April of 02. Over 50 newsletters so far.

Now obviously, our more recent articles contain our latest, most recently tested, most cutting-edge "moving on from divorce" strategies.

However, this wealth of "adjusting to becoming suddenly single" knowledge and expertise is still highly recommended reading!

All the concepts, "work through this in a shorter time with less pain" techniques, and step-by-step instructions you'll find make reading these back issues a simple, but extremely powerful way to give yourself an education in moving on, growing as a single person, and exploding your potential as a happy successful single person and doing it all on your very own, fast track.



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4. Send this newsletter to a friend
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Now you can help others that are going through the process. Feel free to forward a copy of this newsletter or any of our web site articles you think might help them in their current stage of the process. Many may not have web access or their ex took the only computer with them, so just print them out a copy.

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5. Tell Us What You Think!
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We would love to hear what you think of this newsletter, any of our web sites and this issue. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you'd like to share with us, please send those, too!
Just e-mail the editor at: Harlanjacobsen@webtv.net Please put the word "Divorce" in the subject line.

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6. Content for Your website or E-zine
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Need some fresh, zero cost, content for your website or e-zine? You now have permission to reprint any of the articles from http://divorcerecovery101.com and/or from this newsletter on your website or in your e-zine as long as:
a) Each article is printed in its full form with no changes.
b) You send a quick e-mail to HarlanJacobsen@webtv.net to tell us exactly where you'll be publishing them.
c) You include the following byline at the end of each article:

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Harlan Jacobsen is a leading author, publisher and expert on the subject of transition to single life, for those newly divorced and widowed.. He has helped many with classes, seminars, 32 year newspaper on the subject as well as on the web, helped thousands of suddenly single to move on to a new and better life in a shorter time. His website http://divorcerecovery101.com and his six other web sites of interest to singles as well as free adjustment courses and newsletters have been the key for many in their moving on from this major life change.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #50, 08/29/04

Quote:
To be happy, drop the words "if only" and substitute instead with "NEXT TIME".

Smiley Blanton, MD

YOU ARE CONSTANTLY PROGRAMMING YOURSELF.

It is done by what you hear yourself saying or in what might be called "self talk".

We noticed that people in our divorce classes that were having trouble working through their divorce were referring to their former spouses as "husband" or guess what my "wife" is doing now.

These folks were all still having a hard time adjusting or moving on from their divorce.

Those that had or were rapidly working through their divorce used the words... Guess what my "EX" (or soon to be "EX" also known as STBX) is doing now?

The folks still using "guess what my husband is doing now..." were hearing themselves, programming themselves that they were still married.

Their subconscious could not let them process and move on from their marriage because it was being told they were still "married". Your subconscious accepts that as your progamming. You are a "married" person and you need to act like it.

Your subconscious determines and "generates" your feelings. When you start to do something that does not line up with your programming, you feel very uncomfortable.

You therefore tend to not do what you should be doing because you "feel" very uncomfortable doing so.

When your subconscious gets the right programming or instructions, then your subconscious allows you to do it, because now it "feels okay".

The "EX" users were programming themselves that they were no longer married or "attached" to the former spouse.

When you go to a divorce support group and you all discuss and share what is happening in your adjustment etc. it is not "advice" that helps you near as much as hearing yourself talk about your divorce and how you think about it now.

We tell you that when you have traumatic experiences, you may have to talk about the incident as much as twenty times before you start to make sense out of it and get past it.

It does not matter much whether you pay a therapist big bucks while you talk it out or you talk it out in a support group, your minister or Aunt Becky.

It is what you are telling your subconscious as you talk about it, and hearing yourself say where you are now that makes the difference.

When you talk it out, many times... it starts to make sense and you sort out "what happened" and your subconscious hears you talk about where you go from here etc.

It is not so much what you hear yourself saying to yourself, it is what you hear yourself saying to others that restricts or programs yourself.

The more you talk about your divorce, it seems the sooner it starts to get filed away and stops getting in the way of processing the planning the script for act two and for your getting on with a new life.

Newly divorced are like a ship without a destination. They are just floundering around going nowhere, or whereever the wind is blowing them. They are scared to death they may wind up on the rocks.

When you work through the divorce, talk it out and it starts to make sense, then you need to get a set of "new goals".

A new goal is like getting a new destination for your floundering ship on the high seas of life.

Many say to themselves, I hate this single life, married was comfortable. My goal now is to get back there, to get married again.

You tend to dislike and be uncomfortable with anything or action you have no experience with or no information about.

Your fight or flight system...(all have it) that tells you to get ready to run or fight, because you have nothing on file on this...experience you are having right now, it shuts down your digestion and knots up your stomach. It ups your blood pressure, and cuts off blood supply to the brain, you will need it all for "fight or flight" (this among other things causes you to send down more food to ease the pain, gain weight, and as a result of diminished brain food supply you do dumb things). That is why we tell you not to make any major decisions during this time.

You have no experience on file for being "alone" as a single person, so you have all these very up tight uncomfortable feelings that tell you that you want to get away from this.

You react to feelings generated by your subconscious master system that is trying to get you to "survive" what it perceives as grave danger. It wants you to get back to "comfortable known situations".

This severe fight or flight caused feelings you are getting because your subconscious has nothing on file, leads you to erroneously conclude that this leaves three options to get away from these terrible feelings of fight or flight. ( it is often referred to as divorce "pain")

1. Deny to yourself that you are alone....that you are single.
2. Try desperately to get back with your ex.
3. Conduct an emergency search for a replacement spouse or lover.

The correct option is number 4. and is the only one that has a high chance of succeeding over the long pull.

4. Accept you are now a "single person' and learn how to operate comfortably in this new territory- the dangers, traps and pitfalls to avoid. Practice, practice, practice.

When you study up on it, practice and experience it and are informed about the new state, ( that is what we try to help you with) your subconscious shuts off the "survival alarm".

Your divorce pain goes away.

Your new goal is... "I am learning and becoming a happy successful single person."

When your subconscious accepts through spaced repetition that this is where you are going... it gets right with it...

Once it is programmed, (gotten through to and accepted by your subconscious) every time you do something or wind up somewhere that does not fit this or assist you at arriving at this new goal, your subconscious will be making you uncomfortable and you will tend to get right back with your new program.

Because now it "feels right".

We discuss and go into this in great detail so that you understand it is you and your present programming ( belief system) that are acting as your own jailer and keeping you from the good life. You have the ability to let yourself out to a new-found freedom any time.

Note:
We did not say you could not "graduate" from a happy successful single life and get married again. We are saying this time when and if you do it will not be an "escape" from single life. It will have to look pretty darn good this time and be the frosting on the cake, before you you decide to "graduate".

Until Next Issue.
Harlan
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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #49, 08/11/04

GET A NEW BIGGER AND BETTER DREAM

Yes, you lost a relationship, but the biggest loss of all was that you lost a dream.

Many mistakenly think the solution is that they need to rush out and find a replacement relationship. We tell you that this is the frosting on the cake that comes later, instead we will show you that...the key... to getting on with a great new life is to right now develop and get a great new dream.

First, you have to let go of the "what was" dream. Admit it has died. Bury it.

Put your attention and focus now on a new dream, all in the areas that capture your imagination of possibilities.

What can you see happening in your new life that will create a wave of excitement that will power you towards your new dream?

What is it you love to do and what would you really like to have happen in Act 2? (the curtain came down on act one, remember)

You can not go back and repeat act one.

Even though that would be more comfortable, familiar (not so scary) and much simpler.

The curtain is about to go up....on act two, as soon as you as you have it planned and are ready.

Intermission has lasted long enough....let's get on with the play.....

Act two is not going to be happenstance.

Act two is going to be exciting...... because this time you have figured out what you really want to happen in this act.

Most people spend more time planning what they want to happen on their two week vacation than they do on planning the "rest of their life."

This time you have figured out what you love and are going to have happen and as you do so, you get under way with a huge amount of new energy, enthusiasm and zest for living.

This new creativity springs forth and adds a vibrancy to your being that is now part of you and it goes with you wherever you go and into whatever you will be doing.

Your new life in act two focuses on ideas and areas that capture your newly freed imagination.

This will generate that new energy that we are telling you will carry you along on a wave of excitement that will power you towards making this new dream happen.

Doing and planning for what you love is very important here and is the key to your new enthusiasm for life.

You will tend to be so caught up in the pressures and stresses of adjusting to the loss of the old dream, that you probably rarely think about what you'd much prefer to be doing with your time and energy.

Until you realize you and you alone must take charge.....

your new dreams will become only a fleeting thought before those new dreams become buried beneath a mountain of must do's, have to's, obligations and responsibilities.

Keep bringing your new dreams to the top of your thought and energy pile....for 21 days...

Concentrate every minute you can spare and the new found energy on your new dream for 21 days, it will then have become part of you and will carry you forward automatically after that..

Harlan

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #48, 07/25/04

Moving on with life..... Part two...

This "moving on from your divorce" decsion will require you to mature (grow up) and perhaps for the first time take complete control and total responsability for your own life...

Up until now, your parents had a lot of control over the "life decisions" you made, and your spouse had major influence over decisions that you made or agreed to that put you where you are now.

They were, however, your decisions, whether you took responsablitity or not. You decided to drop out of college, marry this person you hardly knew, move away to a new area, decided to bring children into your life, these decisions all led to where you are now....

Let's face reality,.....these were all decisions you made or went along with, but you have never thought of them that way... until now....

....you need to face up to how decisions you made got you here.....and....that this time you take full responsibility for what happens now in your new life.

There will be no blaming your parents, if one year from now your life is a mess and not working.

No blaming your ex.

There will be only yourself to blame. That's scary......Taking total responsablity for your life.

Once you finally realize and decide that now no one controls you, that life now is entirely up to you will be the most important turning point of your life.

Up until now it may have never occurred to you, that all along the way you had made life changing choices ...

You will in addition now need to give up on the idea that someone special is going to ride up on their white horse and rescue you.

.....and if they did you would probably have to clean up after their horse.....anyway.

Now you say the only thing you have left from that "what was" life are my children and they mean everything to me.

So in additon, then also for your childrens' sake, you need to seriously look at your life and where it goes now..

Once you realize everything that happens from here on to yourself and and indeed your children, from here forward will be the direct result of all of these personal decisions and choices you make now..

Once you realize the importance of this decision to take charge of your life now, then you will have taken one giant step for a new you, a new life, and as you began to understand that you can be and become in total charge of your new life..

Your new motto..."If it is to be...it is up to me"...
....... and as you learn how to take total responsibility to change your new life and the lives of your children for far better than they have ever been before..... you will start to see there is a bright light at the end of the divorce tunnel.

In this moving forward you will now understand that along the way of your previous life you had given up to others much of your freedom to choose.

In your new life you realize you will make good and bad choices. But they will be all yours and you will continue to look forwad to the challenge and opportunity to make great choices every day.

You are now closing and locking doors behind you and throwing away the key....realizing they are never to be opened again.

That now you are only opening these new doors every day.....

Every day you will become more enthused about your new possablities and capabilities.

You will be eliminating all your doubts about your capability to let the sun shine on a new happiness and light up your day as you become more and more capable of controlling your own life in every way.

Each day will get easier, as you practice and become in total control and a master of your own life.

Laughter and joy will start to flow in regularly.

You will discover you are no longer a victim of divorce......

You will soon be able to say, "my divorce was the turning point, it gave me this opportunity for a new life and was, it turns out, to be the best thing that ever happened to me."

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #47, 06/29/04
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The Turning Point
You had a relationship that was an important part of your life and it suddenly ended. You play the memory of "what was" over and over.

You even go to therapy and spend hours talking with others about your "what was", your ended relationship and the life you had with the ex and the way that made you feel.

You can and will, like most of us, spend months trying to make sense of and trying to understand why it ended.

After a while, all your former friends avoid you and do not want to hear this broken record again.

They will likely describe you as hopeless, you are never going to get over it. That you have become a real "loser".

You are totally on the defensive, your life is out of control.

Those in a split are put in a "war" total full alert battle situation with great fear of even further damage to their disintegrating life.

It is for you, the number one "crisis" of a lifetime. How bad can it get?

You had all these dreams and years invested in this marriage and now it is gone, like it never was, taken from you. You say, it just isn't fair...why should this happen to me?

You try everything...you give and give and get nothing, you bargain and get nothing, your life is out of control, nothing you try works.

Eventually you realize what was....is over.

There is now "no one" in your life, "Just You".

You become the new priority, if there is to be a worthwhile new life, you are the priority.

There is no fairy tale, there is no "happy talk". What was keeps ruminating around in your mind and it is killing you.

It has been constantly going down down in a self destructive spiral which has wiped out your life.

Why does it continue? Because "what was" hangs on in your mind.

You have had a hard time letting go and it still controls you.

You find in this process you are no longer master or in control of yourself and your life any more. What is happening in your life and what happens now seems to be under other's and the system's control.

You are like the alcoholic. You know you are not going to get out of this and get a new life, until you decide to take total control and responsibility for your new life.

What you want is a new mindset. The old mindset of the victim or looser is killing you. You want to defend your life, your territory. How to do that? You radically shift the way you stand in it. Wake up your survival instinct and get over it.

When you are not over it, you are under its control and going nowhere.

Being under its control, means carrying a useless weight which exhausts you and takes away all your energy for life..

Why is this continuing to happen? You find you have no power. You have given it all to the divorce and to your ex.

You have given them control.

Once you realize this you can decide to get back the power to control your life.

Here are some key mental changes you will need to firmly make to get back the power to run your new life on your own.

These are mental changes you will need to make and are not optional.

You have the key here to let the all new life out and if you don't apply these mind set changes, your new getting on with life stays jailed.

You until now have been a victim, you have been a real "loser."

Now you are going to become a "winner."

One year from now you will be able to say this divorce was the best thing which ever happened to me.

You realize for the first time in your life: you are free!

Your ex and that life is gone and gone forever.

You finally realize you will never get back together. It is dead, gone and buried. What was, "was".

You don't need your ex or a sudden replacement. You have been sold a bill of goods. You are perfectly fine without them.

Sure you will meet and have new significant people in your life.

Right now, you realize you can make a new life on your own.

You finally realize alcohol or even prescription drugs do not help.

Getting drunk is not drowning your problems, it is irrigating them; the worst thing you can do.

Prescription drugs, are zombie pills that put your life on "hold". They freeze you from doing the processing, taking control and getting on with life.

What your ex does or does not do now, is none of your business!

You no longer have any control over them....you gave that up... you have discovered it was a chain that kept you from getting on with your new life..

You have now simply cut that chain.

You have a new mind set that gives you complete freedom. You do not in any way control them and they in no way control you.

If they can make you mad or ruin your day...you still have allowed and given them control of your life.

Get real! Why they left is of no further concern or value. What they did and are doing is to serve their own needs.

Again, in any divorce situation, you need to wake up your power in the inner you and realize that this has been a battle for survival.

Your life is made up of time... very precious time.

You have been wasting it, hung up in the divorce controlling your life.

Like the alcoholic, you have to make a very firm decision, you are taking back control of your life.

Nobody can make that decision for you, this is a 100% do it yourself project. Advise, yes.. but you have to make the firm decision that you are taking back control of your life. Again, like the alcoholic gives up an addiction with great pain, you as a relationship addict go through the same thing...... but until you both do... it controls you.

Making this decision gives you freedom, space and instant recovery.

Sure, you will have to give up the "poor me" negative attention, but in a matter of days you will be filled with enthusiasm over your options on where you go from here and you will not want to wait in sharing your new possibilities.

More on moving on from divorce in next issue,

Harlan

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #46, 05/26/04

Please send a copy or feel free to print out a copy for a single friend whose ex got the pc.

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Today we start with a quote.....

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"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." -- Helen Keller

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This says better than I can..... LET GO of what was..... Until you do you can not even see the new door that has opened for you...

Divorce is the ending of something that was a great part of your life...

We all have difficulty letting go of that, admitting that is over and stop mucking with it... We think it is a life catastrophe.....that your life has all but ended...we want to put it back like it was...we were familiar with and could deal with that...

Here we are in no mans land... we do not have our old life and we cannot yet visualize our all new life.... This place we are in now is scary... it is the unknown. Once we accept we no longer are going to live the "old life", then we can start to figure out what we want in our new life (start to open new doors)

Yes, it is something you plan...you set goals, you visualize what you want to happen in act two...you plan how to get there.....

You do not sit around now waiting for the next shoe to drop....the next catastrophe.... that is what you have been doing....and you are past that.

We say make no small plans.... this new part of your life.....YOU are in control....(often for the first time).

We have many articles on goals and moving on to an all new life.... see the "site map" top right at Divorce Recovery 101

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On reprogramming ....(dumping erroneous beliefs) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You probably are aware that your actions are a direct relationship to your beliefs...

When you come out the far side of divorce you have some erroneous beliefs you picked up.

One of those is that you are a defective undesirable person that no one could ever want and love again.

(your ex had to sell you on that one before they could give themselves permission to leave you)

You may not be aware that you can wear away an old belief that does not serve you by changing your actions.

Act as if...
I'm pretty sure most of us have heard "fake it til you make it".

In our dating classes, for example, we tell you if you go to singles events acting like you were weaned on a pickle you won't attract many prospects.

We say when you go, act like an enthused happy successful single person. They say, well how can I act happy when I feel miserable even being here...?

We say fake it.... all you have to do is fake it for 5 minutes.... then the feeling catches up.

That is right...you can not fake (act) it more then five minutes... You start feeling like a happy successful single person.

Here I am telling you that if you act (fake it) as if you've already succeeded at something you dream of being, having, or doing, you've taken the first steps to actually achieving it.

Each time you act as if you are already there,, you gently wear away the old belief and start replacing it with the new belief, that hey, I am a happy successful desirable single person that has a great future with many wonderful friends and relationships.

Each time you act as if, it gets just a little bit easier...you encounter less and less resistance to what you are doing.

Before long, you are no longer acting as if ( pretending and faking it.) but you really are!

Stop here and take a minute to think about one of your dreams that your current beliefs keep getting in the way of.

Visualize what would you do or how would you act if you had already achieved that and arrived?

Once you figured that out and visualized it, go out and do it.

Sure you are going to run into hurdles and feel resistance when you do it. That comes with the territory.

You're challenging the very belief you're wanting to replace in order to achieve your goal of a happy successful new start in life..

Acting as if (pretending) is a way of visualizing that you are putting into real life motion.

How can you apply this right now in your life?

Try walking around with the confidence you would have if you already had reached (for example) your new "I am a desirable, wanted successful happy single person" goal...as if you are already there.

Remember today's...lesson... Your beliefs are restricting your actions. If you want things to be different....you need to revise your programming (your beliefs) and you do that by .......going outside your beliefs...(faking it) and gradually wearing down these old beliefs that have been and are restricting getting on with your second chance for an all new and better life.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #45, 05/02/04

You Have The Key, on The Inside, and You Can Let Yourself Out of The Divorce Miseries Anytime You Want.

Many emails arrive in my mailbox seeking help and advice around the clock, telling me all the details of how badly and unfairly they were and are treated by their STB ex and life in general, and how devastated and hopelessly bogged down they are in processing all that has happened to them. They seem to want to know will this ever get better, should they try to put thngs back together with their STBX because they just can not handle much more of this turmoil and emotional roller coaster.

Without a direction you are like a ship without a destination, it is likely this will not wind up good so you have all types of apprehension, and fears about "what catastrophe happens next".

Once you can let go of "what was"...admit to yourself that it is over, that it is nothng more then history, you burn your bridges behind you so that there can be no going back, firmly decide, that under no circumstances are you ever going back to "what was".

Once you make that decision, only then can you take charge of your life and start to make plans.

You have heard it here before but the easiest way to explain this is grasping the idea that you have three places to concentrate your energy and efforts.

The "what was" is where your head has been, with a little dabbling in the "now". You were so programmed for the "what was" you do not even see the "now" as reality.

Finally you start to see this is it...this is where I am going to have to exist.....

but... grasp this...the three places start with the "what was" and "right nows".

Those are not where you need to concentrate your thoughts and efforts now.

Your new life, and what's ahead is the third choice....move there and concentrate now on the "gonna be's".

If you concentrate and plan and work every day for making great "gonna be's," soon those great gonna be's start arriving, and before you know it, the "nows" are transformed. When the GONNA BES steadily arrive, you then have great NOWS, and with great NOWS, you will soon have great WAS-ES.

You have been locked into and trying to make sense of and recoup in some manner, the what was, to make sense of and/or to learn to live in the "depressing" now.

You have the key, you can close and lock the door to what was. Only then can you use that key to open the door and let yourself out to move on to the great "gonna be's".

You decide....where are you living...? The "what was", the now, or the "gonna be's".

Once you let yourself out (you have the only key, and are the only one to do it) and on to the gonna be's, then the "nows" keep getting better and take care of themselves with your looking forward to and seeing the "gonna be's" arriving.

Like the alcoholic, you have been addicted to a relationship, and like any other addiction, YOU have to make the decision and the extreme effort to end it COLD TURKEY..

Neiher we nor anyone else can do it for you.....

We can encourage you, we can sympathize, but it is you that has to do it...

You graduated from high school, it was one of the best times of your life, and you did not want it to end. But it did.... and they wouldn't let you go back..... all your friends went off somewhere and no matter what you did......that part of your life was all over...

Now you have graduated from your "starter" marriage, it is history, it is all over, and you have to move on.

You totally "give up" on the "what was" and you only expend energy and concentration on the "gonna be's".

This time you are "in charge" of your life, not your parents, not your "stbx" not some new romance.

If your life is a bomb six months from now...you wont be able to blame your ex, your mother, the government, or anyone else....... You are now in full charge of you and your future, and you call the shots this time (maybe for the first time)....make and accept no "small" plans.

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Heard on Dr. Phil......children are better off and prefer being "from" a broken home rather then being "in one".

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Quote attrbuted to Martha Stewart:
If you want happiness for a year, get married.
If you want happiness for 15 years, get a dog.
if you want happiness for a lifetime, get a garden.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #44, 04/11/04

The legal hassle tied up in the getting a divorce is a main contributor to the emotional trauma involved in working through the process.

It is my sincere belief that if you do the legal part right, you can cut the rest of the process in half. Do the legal part wrong and you can double the length and severity of the process.

No, this does mean hiring a super duper or the very best attorney. It means understanding the process and the hazards of turning your divorce over to a stranger (even though he has a law degree and comes with references). It is the legal process and its many traps.

Please go to our site map and read everything you find on the legal process and understanding what decisions you need to make: click here

The legal articles are not seperated out like they should be so you will have to look through it. There may be an easier way to find them from our front page.

Here is an article to start with that has other links on the bottom of the article to many more, click here

We connect you with many outside links with many good articles by attorneys.

You are afraid of anything you are unfamiliar or not knowledgeable about.

To lose your fear and anxiety, learn all about it. Understand the legal process and you will be greatly helped in your emotional process.

Nothing I or anyone can write on working through the emotional divorce will help you as much as this simple advice to get you reading up on the legal process and hazards to avoid and decisions to make.

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Now days they tell me the average person stays and lives at one house or address about seven years.

Apparently things change, there are opportunities in other states or parts of town and a zillion reasons for moving. This includes moving on to a better neighborhood that better fits your current situation and advances in life.

It still amazes me that many people take a long time to understand the end of a long term relationship but have no trouble understanding that a house was a perfect place for your needs when you moved into it but all that has changed. It no longer does. So you move on.

Marriage relationships now last about seven years on average and are in the same area right around the same seven years figure as the seven year moving from a house to a new location figure.

When you changed houses you had to make the decision together.

When one of you moved from the relationship the other one often had absolutely no say in it and may have been perfectly happy as it was.

They are very upset they had no say in this move and it comes as a surprise much of the time. One partner "moves on" and the one left, tries to hang on to what was.

Another comparison is that you loved high school, it was the best time of your life.

You had this network of great friends like you may have never equaled again.

Yet you graduated and were told you had to "move on," you could not go back. Your high school friends often went off to college, to the service or just in general scattered everywhere.

Your network of friends evaporated, you could not go back to a life you were comfortable with and had a great time. You had to move on.

It was scary..... Did you know that one of the highest likelihood times of committing suicide is the day you graduate from college?

You are forced to move away from what you knew and loved, your friends are leaving, what happens now?? You absolutely do not want to move on.

You would think the college graduate would be delighted to move on with great joy to a great NEW life, that they had worked all these years to get to.

Moving on from a relationship that one graduated from can be just as traumatic when you realize your new life is unknown, it is going to be scary.

Graduating from a relationship is now happening in a shorter time then ever for many reasons.

One of those reasons is it used to be you had to be married to survive. To support the children that were certainly going to appear.

The pill changed that, and in addition now both men and women can now be self supporting and one does not need the other to survive.

Life expectancy has increased dramatically. If your life expectancy at the turn of the century was around 35....if you got married at 25 marriage til death do you part was only ten years.

Now your life expectancy is up around 85. If you stayed together it was going to be for 60 years. If you have been married ten years you now days re-evaluate... do I really want to be married to this person for another 50 years?

Do I really want to live in this house or neighborhood for another 50 years?

One partner decides they do not want to stay in the relationship. So they move on. The left partner is forced to " move on " too, though it may take months to accept the idea.

This is something like moving on from a "starter house". You outgrow a house and you outgrow relationships. You change, they change, and you move on down the road.

Nobody failed. You grew and changed at different rates. Neither you nor the partner are the person you used to be. Needs changed.

The house was adequate and worked out well for a time. The relationship was adequate and worked out well for some time.

The fact that things, needs and people change does not diminish the okayness of what was.

It just no longer is....so you move on down the road.

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This getting old is a real bear. ......Here is an article we just posted that might give you some idea of how this works...... go here

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #43, 03/15/04

This newsletter is all about working through the divorce process and is sent only to people who subscribe. If you need to unsubscribe or subscribe, see below.

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Last issue we talked about what for an elephant, is "broke" meaning to being under man's control by being made to believe (by chaining to huge trees when a baby) that as long as he has a chain around his foot and it is fastened to something he can not get away. He grows to be a huge strong beast that can pull out that tiny stake he is chained to in a minute. He was and is still convinced that he can get never get away because he is chained. That outlook is mentally programmed and his will to escape is "broke".

Like the elephant, you are still "broke" into believing some things that are no longer true but they still are able to control your life just as if they were true, because your big computer has accepted them as true (it is part of your programming).

The big thing we are stressing here is to get you to recognize, that now at the bottom of the pits of divorce is the very time to inventory and see how much of this programming that used to be true, no longer is but is still running (and ruining) your life.

The reason now is the time, is because unless life is not working in a disastrous way, (divorce calamity) you continue to just keep on doing what you have been doing or what programming your life has been running on no matter whether it works for or against you. You tend to just keep bumbling along...this is good as it gets...etc.

The key sentence in all of my divorce material is...."How to get from the worst time of your life to the best time of your life in six months."

Most readers initially at least think that is hype. It is not, I assure you. What I am trying to tell you here is why people in the pits of divorce make changes in their life they never would have made otherwise, and how it can change your life like nothing ever has before or will likely ever do again.

Well, you heard the old saying, when life gives you lemons-- make lemonade. That is exactly what we are doing here.....

If life had not given us lemons....we would never have gotten on to turning things around and making this great new lemonade.....

We take much of this up in my articles and we will do more in future newsletters.

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What I really set out to write about is something I have never written specifically before. I want to call this...
HARLAN'S 80% RULE....
This concept may change things for you.....

Previously, I have done articles on..."Expectations and Demands Exceed Performance" as an example.

That concept is that you "expect and demand" that people or certain things go or turn out a certain way or you are demoralized, crushed, or depressed because the "world out there" always disappoints you or nearly always fails to meet your demands or expectations.

The point is, it is not what the world out there is doing or not doing, that is making your life miserable, it is your unrealistic demands and expectations. You can not control the world but you can change or give up on your expectations and demands.

If YOU give up on making the world out there shape up, by merely just getting rid of your expectations and demands...

RESULT......
No more unhappiness or disappointments.

That is certainly an oversimplification, but that is the general idea.

Harlan's 80% rule is merely an extension of that...

Whenever I do new business things or ideas or investments etc. I have a percentage of those that do not work out and in hind sight, I say that was dumb, why did I ever try that?

Seemed I was always upset or my day was ruined because there was always something that did not work out as hoped or planned.

I spent $1,000 dollars on an advertising program and I only got back $100. Really upset. How could I be so dumb.... to have tried that. ??????

So in short here is HOW and where I bring out and apply my "80% rule"...

20% of new things in life that I try to make work, just do not work out.

This latest failure is just part of that 20% group and comes with the territory.

This is the rain that falls in every life.... (20%) 80% is sunshine.

If I am doing so good that I have less then a 20% failure rate (things I try that really bomb) then my life or business are not growing, because I am not keeping up by trying or doing enough new things.

If, however, I am having bigger then a 20% failure rate, then I have to scale back and not take as many risks on new things than I have.

Looking back, many of the reasons my businesses have lasted when all around in the same field have failed is because I am currently trying out and doing new things (risky) that may not be part of the business now but may well keep it going as the main stay next year or five years from now.

No need to be upset or distraught because everything does not go as hoped or planned.

Therefore I am passing that formula on to you and you may want to consider adopting it...

Try going out to that new place to see if it might work for you in meeting and developing new friends, if you just keep going only to the proven places you know work... then sooner or later it will all dry up on you.

Constantly try out new things all the time so you are having about a 20% failure rate and an 80% success rate on new risks.

Sure, I lose my shirt and my time and effort on a lot of things I have tried, but it is within my 20% rule. It is those very new and risky things that expand your life and keep you going, and you are not depressed or down because you do NOT EXPECT OR DEMAND all winners.

80% winners will do just fine, thank you..

If all you are doing in life and every thing is working 100%, you are totally unaware of it but you are actually in a "slow death" spiral.

The 20% failures are only the part of risky new things, new adventures and new people you try that do not work out.

They are evidence to yourself that you are participating and are being exposed to the other part of the new and risky things, adventures and people that do succeed that make life work and your future exciting.

Your new motto can be..... I do not expect to and do not have "all winners." (20% targeted failure at best estimates.)

No need for finding excuses, no need to find someone to blame, it is just part of and comes with growing and expanding your life.

Now you are dealing with life........

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #42, 02/28/04

You Are Your Own Jailer.......
and....You Can Let Yourself Out..
You likely know what it means when they take a wild horse and they "break"him.

A horse that has been "broke" is one that no longer does what he wants to do. It is a horse who has decided (been convinced) he must do what a person (people) want him to do.

Here are two more examples, and all three of these also apply to you. We tell you over and over that this is your big chance, to change these "broke" portions of your life, that were previously decided as true and became part of your programming. You can "undecide" these controlling life decisions, and if there was ever a chance to do it, it is when you hit bottom after a divorce.

They take an elephant baby when he still weighs only about 200 pounds and they chain him to a big tree. He lunges and fights and fights and after days of this decides that when he has this thing around his leg he absolutely can not get free.

The elephant grows up, and gets to several thousand pounds. They take his leg shackle and drive a little stake in the ground, and chain him to it. He will stand there all day and not be able to move, though he can pull that stake out in an instant. He is convinced from his prior programming decision he can not get away.

Story two. They take a huge Pike (fish) and put him in a big tank. They put a glass window down the middle of the tank and they put him on one side of the window. On the other side of the window they put hundreds of minnows. The dining delight Pike love to eat.

The Pike gets hungry and sees a minnow so he makes a strike at that minnow and bangs his head on the glass. After several days of this the Pike has a very banged up head, and then decides striking at minnows is very painful and gives up on minnows deciding this does not work.

Once he decides that, (he is broke) they remove the glass and the Pike will then starve to death, in a sea of minnows swimming right past his face.

What was, NO LONGER IS. The programming (decision) was made when it was true, but is now controlling and ruining their life even though it is no longer true and has changed.

What we have been trying to tell you, is that you have some of this "broke" programming controlling your life that was once true but has changed.

We tell you this "no longer true" programming decision that is controlling your life can be changed. It can be "Undecided." Not easily but it can be undecided.

This is why we tell you that you are your own jailer, just like the elephant, the horse and the pike, jailing themselves, you now have the key because you are now aware of it, and....YOU CAN LET YOURSELF OUT....of your self imposed prison.

This is why we have helped many people make some profound changes in their life, at the pits of divorce miseries, because they will now take a serious look at their life.

You Are Your Own Worst Enemy, and ....You Do Not Need Anyone To Do Bad ....Things Against You, You Do More ...Than Enough Against Yourself.

Pogo the comic strip character says, we have searched every where for the enemy, and we have found him. He is us........

You have made some decisions about yourself and your life that are self imposing. Your ex and the world are not keeping you from moving on to a great new life. It is decisions you made in that past (broke) about yourself that are no longer true, but you nevertheless allow them to still control your life.

Like the huge elephant tied down and going nowhere because of a little stake, your life is tied down and going nowhere because of you being "broke" by firm decisions made under circumstances you found yourself in, in your past.

These circumstances and life controlling decisions made that are no longer true nevertheless, are now your "programming" and are still controlling (erroneously limiting) your life.

Example, if your ex told you for years that you were highly inadequate, a junk person, and you made the decision they were right, you now allow yourself only to do those things a "junk person" would do.

If you started doing things a highly successful person would do, you will be very uncomfortable because that is not you or what my type of (junk person) does. You tend to sabotage the good because that does not fit because you are chained, totally restricted by the small stake.

Since this is a newsletter and not a book, I will need to end the subject for now, you can pick up much of this "now is the time" to reprogram and change your life articles in our archives and site map listing of over 300 articles.

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Good quote but I lost the author....
PROPENSITY TO CHANGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.

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Share this newsletter with a newly divorced friend. Forward it or if their ex got the computer, print them out a copy.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #41, 02/16/04

Help For Getting On the Other Side of Divorce and Moving on To The Best Time Of Your Life.

Of all the axioms we asked people in our divorce classes to remember and make a part of their recovery and new life....... the most important one is...

Pain Shared is Halved....
Joy shared is doubled......

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose next-door neighbour was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked him what he had said to the neighbour, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

When you have a beautiful sunset happening and you really enjoy and you turn to say "isn't that beautiful" ......and there is no one there.

No one to enjoy it with, it just is not as good as a beautiful sunset you share.

You had a mate that was the primary "sharing and halving your pain" with and you "shared and doubled all your joys" with.

Your long term mate rode off into the sunset never to return..... and now there is no one..... and it all feels very hollow.

You know that your mate is gone, but you desperately miss that part of your life that you know worked, you know you need and want that part of your "shared" life back......

Now you decide....... that if you are going to get this glaringly important part of your "shared" life back, you have to get right with it and get out there and find a new "replacement" mate.

Find someone (anyone) that will ride up on a white horse and fill this important role.... and rescue you from all this aloneness....

You start a crash program to find someone, read up on everything you can access on "finding a mate." You search the web for someone of the opposite sex on the same quest.

WHOA ! This is the wrong solution, at the wrong time.

What we have here is a need that is aching to be filled and finding a new mate will temporarily solve the need and the problem..... however..

Experience and statistics show this merely adds to the accumulating problems of "aloneness" when this first "replacement" trial crashes and burns (and the first one almost certainly does).

When you are newly divorced and an emotionally needy person, you tend to run right out and try to get one person the job of filling all these needs.

The job becomes so overwhelming, they resign.

This additional emotional trauma of another loss becomes overwhelming. If you think the divorce loss was bad..... this sequel is even worse.

The correct solution is to build a foundation of "single friends" (start at a divorce support group for example) to fill many of your needs.

What you need to work on right now is developing new "single buddies" and pals of both sexes, single people whose company you can enjoy and are fun uplifting to spend time with.

Out of that will come a few close people you can share your dreams with - and who will support you in anything you do to fulfill them?

You lost nearly all of your married friends who believe you have something that might be catching, and avoid you.

You will also develop what we call a "singles family." This is another complete subject we take up elsewhere.

These are people you need in your life and to develop as soon as you can a few of these people close enough to share your fears with, knowing they will give you strength and not judge you.

These will be people you can safely call in the middle of the night and say "I need to talk." You need to have a few of these single family of people you can ask for help when you need it most.

The best way to have a friend is to be a friend.

This is something that is learned and practiced. You have been out of practice for years.

Start by getting closer, by sharing part of yourself with someone you know is likely to be supportive.

This network of single friends will continue to fill some of your needs so that later when you are ready and get into developing one on one relationships you will not be a desperately needy person.

Just be aware that when you have your new life together built on this solid foundation of sharing and support friends network, you will not have any difficulty getting someone "special" to share and bask in your sunshine.

You will then be in a position to and will only be interested in an "up person" and actually select and develop relationships that will further add to the quality of your new life, not be a drain on it.

You will have many friends to share pain with, to share your joys, the many friends will introduce you to other friends, invite you to parties were they will have people that are your type.

Please make a note that you can expect 80% of your new life successes to come from and be as a result of your "friend" and singles community network and the support of your new "singles family."

We are never telling you to avoid the opposite sex until you have been divorced a certain time or you pass certain tests etc.

Develop a big network of friends of both sexes, but please avoid emotional entanglements until you have completely sorted out the emotions of untangling from your long term relationship involved in your divorce.

MY WARNING: CAUTION: Do not run an all out search for one member of the opposite sex to fill all your needs at this time or to rescue you from the miserables.

You will likely get applicants and those that will play your chimes, for temporary highs, but remember, the emotional crash that is coming when they split, (and they will ) will be devastating.

Hang in there, we will get you tuned up and ready for the fast track soon enough.

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Here is a new divorce site getting a lot of publicity, and with some great graphics...etc...take a look...

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That's it for this issue friend. Thank you for reading. We'll chat again in a couple of weeks. If you would like to chat with other folks in the process and some that have already been there and done that, try our Singles Talk Shop

Until next time, remember, one year from now when your new life is humming along far above your expectations, keep in mind it will be because of decisions you make now.... Remember also, you will be able to take all the credit, for this is likely the first time "only you" have really been responsible for YOU.

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Pass this Divorce 101 newsletter on...... If you have friends who could use a little help and would enjoy receiving this update, please feel free to forward it to them. Suggest they subscribe.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #40, 01/25/04

DIVORCE AND YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY

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You can qualify for Social Security benefits based on your ex-spouse's earnings when you both reach age 62, as long as you have been married for at least 10 years, it does not matter even if they have not remarried or havn't retired nor have begun to receive benefits themselves.

You must be divorced for two years or more to make a claim. If you make a claim on their benefits, they need not even know and it won't reduce or affect their payout at all so you need not be concerned about opening up old emotional wounds by filing a claim on their social security.

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THE BIG MONSTER IN A DIVORCE: MONEY.......

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One of the huge contributors to divorce process trauma is the matter of money. We will not attempt to be your finnancial advisor here but will help you get the money and emotions sorted out.

Money is often a big part of the reason for divorce, is often a big emotional issue during and after marriage, and it does not get better necessarily because you divorced.

If money was tight and in short supply during marriage, it is likely to become worse with divorce making it necessary to support two homes with the same incomes that were stretched maintaining even one home.

Supporting a couple of attornies in addition does add more salt to the finnancial wounds.

This almost certainly means a painful lowering of the standard of living, often of both parties.

Each will blame the other for causing their standard of living to take a nose dive. Actually it is a normal part of the divorce pain, but it adds to the blame game, with each participant trying to have their standard of living maintained and not succeeding, and then concluding it is because of foul play by their STBX.(soon to be ex)

Now the war escalates with high emotions.

Today, we will deal with the reality of dealing with the necessity to lower your standard of living and lay off temporarily on the associated emotional monster associated with money traumas and uncertain financial futures.

The sooner you deal with reality, the better off you will be. Many just go ahead and blindly continue to live like they were, but very quickly the reality of the finances involved "too soon" catch up.

We suggest you hang on to and continue to live in the house by whatever means available at least until the divorce is settled. Find another divorced same sex person to move in, even with kids to help support the house that is too much for you alone.

Use your head...figure something out...

There is another alternative, namely increase your income by taking a second job, retraining, going back to college etc. We will not take that up here but note that the combination of lowering your out go, and increasing and adding to the income is often the best method.

Researching the subject, I ran across the following article that I thought helpful and I reprint it here with permission of the author.

Living Below Your Means (what a novel idea) by fabman

"A Penny Saved Is A Penny Earned." � Benjamin Franklin

Remember the old adage, "A Penny Saved is A Penny Earned" by Ben Franklin? Right, of course you do. Over the years, there has been much written about how you should forget about watching the pennies and focus on building your business, increasing your means and all that other nonsense.

Okay, maybe it's not nonsense, but for the 95% of people who are LAZY and are NOT going to build a business, invest in investment real estate properties or strike it rich with the next Microsoft, I offer a simpler solution � one that's been around for decades. Try living below your means.

Andrew Tobias in his book "The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need" wrote about living below your means and saving money.

The title of his chapter was "A Penny Saved Is Two Pennies Earned" seems contrary to what Franklin was talking about, but it's really not. What Tobias was getting at was that if you save a penny or dollar and don't spend it, it's like earning two pennies or dollars. How? Simple.

While the book has some good insights into investing (it was written 25 years ago and some things have changed), the subject of saving money is one of the best I've seen because of it's clarity and ability to get straight to the point. His lesson about 50% money is really critical to changing your mindset.

You heard me right, 50% money, which is what Kiyosaki writes about.

Tobias shows you in a couple of paragraphs how the last few dollars you earn are worth only 50 cents after you pay federal, state, local, social security and Medicare taxes. So if you make $10 bucks an hour, you're only taking home $5 at the end of the week. It's just that you can't see the 50% tax because when you look at your paycheck and the amount you paid in taxes, you'll see what percent you paid on average.

We're on a graduated tax schedule, which means that you pay 10% on the first $12,000 you earn, 15% on the next dollars to $46,700, while you pay 27.5% on the next dollars you earn after that (I'm not up on the tax changes, but some of this might have changed slightly).

Slap on the state and local, Social Security and Medicare taxes and you're quickly up to close to 50%, so yes, you keep roughly 50 cents of every dollar and those last few dollars you earn.

The best return you can get on an investment is one that gives you passive savings from reducing your expenses. So a penny saved IS two pennies earned.

That's why Tobias' titled the chapter that way. I guess Benjamin Franklin was right. A penny saved IS a penny earned.

The point Tobias was making is that each dollar is worth something and every dollar saved through smart spending, the more you'll have to invest.

Yeah, but I've tried living below my means, but��. No buts about it. Take a look at some of the following (in random order because that's the way I think ) and see if you can't cut that budget of yours!

Tips for Living Below Your Means

- Don't drink alcohol, don't smoke. You'll save a ton of money, live longer and feel better. (Okay, go ahead and smoke. I'll invest the money in Philip Morris stock and let's see who comes out ahead).

- Learn to cook. It's cheaper to eat in than dine out.

- Dine out less often.

- Bring your lunch to work. Say no to sodas and other junk food and vending machines.

- Pay your highest interest rate cards first to save money on interest charges.

- If you carry a balance on your cards, pay your bill as soon as it arrives. You'll pay less in interest.

- Pay off your credit cards in full every month.

- Save for your vacations in advance. Don't pay with a credit card and carry a balance.

- Kill Your TV. Well, not really, just turn it off and invest in yourself by reading books, listening to tapes or calling on investment properties.

- Borrow books from the Library.

- Buy books from http://half.ebay.com/index.jsp.

- Go to matinee movies and save money.

- Carpool to work. Might be a hassle for some, but it works for others.

- Don't order wine with your dinner. Drink water. This saved me literally close to a $1,000 dollars one year. You read that right, $1,000 and I only have a glass or two with dinner. Of course that year I didn't follow the rule of dining out less often, hey..I was single at the time!

- Skip dessert and coffee when dining out, eat it at home.

- Eat "OUT" at friends houses instead of going out to a restaurant. It's worth the extra effort.

- Don't lease, buy your USED car.

- Do you need caller-id or call waiting? A friend of mine got rid of call waiting. If we NEED to get to him, we call him on his cell phone.

- If you can deal with the ad box, go with netzero instead of AOL.

- E-mail your friends instead of calling long distance. I know it's not the same thing, but if you must have instant replies, check out instant messaging on AOL or other service providers.

- Use coupons and shop on double or triple coupon days. Most people don't use coupons, only 1.5%

- Try figuring out the cost per ounce. Usually the smaller the bottle, the more you're paying per ounce. That's why warehouse clubs have great deals � bigger sizes

- I'm in marketing, so this one hurts - Buy store brands. If you don't like the store brand's taste/quality, switch back.

- Find the place around you that has the cheapest gas.

- If you're not using your membership at the local gym, quit.

- Return your videos on time to Blockbuster. Late fees are killers.

- Say NO to the ATM. Take out cash in advance and put it in a drawer at home. Take out money when you need it. If that's too much work, then ONLY use your bank's ATM.

- Shop for groceries on a full stomach, you'll buy less.

- Cancel subscriptions to magazines you don't read.

- Buy your clothes out of season. J. Paul Getty was quoted as saying he bought his straw hats in the winter and he had MILLIONS of dollars and yet was concerned with saving a few pennies.

- Movies? Go to matinees or go to the library and take them out for free! If you go to the movies, bring your own snacks. Do you really need to spend $3.00 for a dollar bag of Skittles?

VALUE YOUR MONEY

- Pay Yourself First � Set Up an Automatic withdrawal from your account/paycheck every time you get paid. Aim to save 10% of your net pay.

- Before you spend every dollar, ask yourself if the purchase is a good use of your money. After all, you worked hard for that money. You might as well get a good return (fun is a return as well) from it.

- On purchases over $100, wait two weeks before buying. IF you still want the item, purchase it.

- Establish a debt-repayment plan to get you out of debt. Pay off High Interest debt first, then when a balance is paid off, attack the next highest interest loan/balance. The Richest Man in Babylon suggested allocating 20% of your pay toward debt repayment. Why make the credit card company or banker rich, why not make yourself rich instead? Interest you're paying is working AGAINST YOU. The whole Idea is to have money work FOR you, not the other way around.

- Create a Cash Can � Put all your loose change in it at the end of every day. Never pay with 'coins' always pay with dollars. Deposit the change in your account each month

- Create a Mad Money Fund � Sure all this stuff sounds fine and dandy, but it seems like you'd be cutting out EVERYTHING and living in a shack. Fine, create what I call a Mad Money Fund. Set aside a couple of bucks a week into a separate bank account or another Cash Can and this money is yours�to SPEND�on whatever you want!!!!! Seriously.

Okay, I'm almost done. Essentially what I'm saying is that there are 1,001 different ways to save more money in your budget every month. Only YOU can DECIDE where you're going to cut back. I suggest that you make those choices that will not leave you feeling deprived as in, "I'm not enjoying this thing called life anymore because I'm trying to free up some cash to invest." Life is about making choices. You can choose to have instant gratification, but that often burdens you under a mountain of debt. Live too frugally and you'll never make it because your psyche will revolt.

For the skeptics, critics or the just plain uneducated, before you flame me with responses, check out The Millionaire Next Door and once you've read it, you'll realize that the majority of millionaires in this country LIVE BELOW THEIR MEANS.

Just learn to manage and control your spending habits. Make those tough choices. Pay yourself first, set aside 20% or more for debt repayment, give something back in the form of money, time or service to charity and prosper. It's a simple path, but not an easy one to follow. I suggest you Concentrate first on learning to live below your means Take control of your cash flow by managing your expenses

Increase your knowledge by reading up on ways to increase your means Decide how you're going to "GET RICH" Create your plan of action Take action�duh!

By the time you're ready to put your "GET RICH" plan in motion, you should have some extra money every month thanks to managing your expenses that can be put toward building your empire. So what are you waiting for? TAKE ACTION!!!!

All the Best! fabman

� 2003 fabmansecrets.com

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fabman is the editor of fabman secrets newsletter an Ezine dedicated to helping teach people how to invest, plan for the future and retire early. His ultimate goal is to teach people how to become Financially FREE. Subscribe to his newsletter for more tips, tricks and secrets monthly! joinus@fabmansecrets.com Live the life you've imagined at http://www.fabmansecrets.com

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That's it for now....
Catch you next issue....

Harlan

P.S. Join the group discussion at http://singlestalkshop.com and let's talk about this becoming "suddenly single" .

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #39, 01/19/04

In each issue, you'll learn the proven recovery strategies and methods used by thousands of other people that have successfully worked through the same thing you are currently going through.

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This issue includes...

1) Starting Over, Means making decisions.

2) YOUR ZEST FOR LIFE BATTERY HAS BEEN DRAINED....

3) Are you making the most of your life?

4) BECOMING SINGLE CAN KILL YOU AND THE PROCESS IS EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.

Please forward or print out this newsletter to or for anyone that you know that can use a little help with the process.

They can also subscribe to receive their own copy, of this newsletter, by going to the bottom of this page.

Starting Over, Means Making Decisions....

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Last issue we discussed that moving on required some basic decisions and you taking charge of and total responsibility for your new life.... If your life is not working great six months from now, you won't be able to blame your ex...

Only yourself........

Here is more.....

Decide....
It is time to give up on being angry, it is not affecting your ex, and it ties up your mental computer, so it is not fully available to be able to change your life and get on with bigger and better...

Decide.....
(we repeat) that you have given up on what was a long term relationship by cutting off 100% all contact with the ex, any dealings, go through some third party for now....

Decide......
All the crying is over......get over fear of more hurt more or FEAR of getting hurt again if you move on with life.

Decide......
You are indeed an okay person, until now you have been sold on you must be defective often by your ex, yourself, and society for not making your marriage last forever.

Decide ......
You are now developing a network of single friends and an all new basic singles family. That you are not now looking for a relationship or someone "special" to rescue you.

Decide........
You are going to stop and give up on what doesn't work, and concentrate now on what works. Give up on old habits and ideas, and decide to start over with all new programming.

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YOUR ZEST FOR LIFE BATTERY HAS BEEN DRAINED....

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This divorce process is one of the most emotional draining things you will ever go through in your entire life.

You think your old zip is gone because your ex took it with them.....

Not true.... Understand where it goes (or where it went) with this article I wrote years ago, and just found on Country Singles pages, that explains why your old spark has gone, and how you recharge it and make your new life work..... back to brightly again.

Go here and get ideas on getting the life back .......in what has been your emotional run down battery...

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Are you making the most of your life?

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Each of us is born. Sooner or later, each of us dies. What makes the difference is what we do with the time between those two points.

Life is short. Life is made up of days, you only get so many.

Do not waste a single day more then necessary working through the trauma of divorce or the loss of a relationship by death or desertion.

Your very life expectancy is affected by how long your life is hung up in what is often the most traumatic and stressful period of your lifetime...
read....

BECOMING SINGLE CAN KILL YOU AND THE PROCESS IS EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.

The above is part five of our STARTING OVER series. We suggest you read, study and digest one part per day for the next 44 days which it will take to complete the series.

Every day, without fail, you feed your stomach. Make it a point, every day without fail, to remember you too need to feed your mind - to give you the information, motivation and strength to move through this quickly.

You will learn how to handle, lessen the stress, and move on to a great new life in a much shorter time.

Start here and today read part one...

DIVORCE - BOTH AN END TO SOMETHING AND A GREAT NEW BEGINNING.

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Quote

"It's not that some people have willpower and some don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not."
James Gordon
Medical Doctor

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #38, 01/06/04

NOW THAT I HAVE STOPPED CRYING WHAT DO I DO NOW ?

Moving on from divorce pain and getting on with a new life can require a lot more time, or it can be handled in short order by making these basic decisions right now.

Make each a firm irrevocable decision:

Decide.....What was ( your marriage ) is history.

Decide.....There is nothing to learn from rehashing it.

Decide..... To switch your mental processor's time to being concentrated 100% on your new life ahead.

Decide......That you are an A-okay desirable person that just graduated from your "starter" marriage.

Decide...... What your ex is doing or not doing with their life is now none of your concern.

Decide......That you are not looking to rerun or repeat act one, you have moved on to act two which will be nothing like act one and have an all new cast of your choice.

Decide.....That you have closed a door to what was, and can now open the door to an all new life (act two) with an all new you, and this all new you is now 100% in your control.

Decide.....To set firm goals as to where you are headed and what you plan to have happen in act two, the "how to's" will appear magically along the way.

Decide.....Make no small plans, you are thinking big and getting right on with the program.

HOW LONG IT TAKES YOU TO MAKE AND ACT ON THESE DECISIONS WILL DETERMINE
HOW LONG BEFORE YOU CAN GET ON WITH A GREAT NEW LIFE.

Life is made up of time..... You can muck around with "what was" as long as you like and avoid making these decisions, it is your life you are eating up and you DECIDE how much you want to waste.

You may want to print these decisions out, paste them on the fridge and review them often.

We have spent years putting together the http://divorcerecovery101.com site and it consists of articles we have written to help you to be able to make these decisions and move on to a great new life, in a short time.

Here, for example, is a medium length beginning article on the importance of goals, click here With two extensive articles on setting goals for your new life, linked at the bottom of the above article.

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Quote:
People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile. Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a project. Always have something ahead of you to look forward to...to work for and hope for."
Dr. Maxwell Maltz
Author of "Psycho-Cybernetics"

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Quote:
Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it, it's only good for wallowing in."
Katherine Mansfield
1888-1923, Author

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HOW TO EXPLAIN DIVORCE TO YOUR CHILDREN........
If you are just starting the process, here is a new article on how to handle the divorce with your children. click here

DAD, DO YOU DIVORCE THE KIDS?
Article by guest author, just posted, on what he believes is the hardest part of divorce for many men, click here

IF YOU NEED HELP........
New article on getting help when you need it. click here

SEARCH THRU OVER 300 HELPFUL ARTICLES.......
We now have a search engine right on our site to make it easier to find an article on whatever you are having a problem with today. Bottom right hand column. Enter key words, click here

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New Baby Food... (humor), click here

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Got a friend going through or considering divorce? Forward this newsletter and suggest they subscribe (below)

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If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to subscribe (free), send a blank email to divorce_recovery-subscribe@topica.com

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #37, 12/23/03

RECOVERING FROM DIVORCE

Information is the key to success in business, recovering from divorce, and even getting back into dating again (and even sex again).

The internet can be an extremely valuable resource in learning what you need to know to succeed at almost anything ...and avoid falling into pitfalls, traps as well as expensive and time consuming detours.

Years ago, I created a formula I call H.O.P.E. which simply means Harnessing Other Peoples'Experience. It is basically what I use as background material for what all I write about.

If you went out and spent months interviewing and questioning, let's say, one thousand recently singled, and you did one thousand a year for ten years, (which is basically what I did) and you found out what worked from them and learned what wasted a lot of time and energy...

Throw in your own experience in using and personally trying out in that same ten years, what you learned, you would have a lot to write about....

After writing about what you found from Harnessing Other Peoples' Experience, and personally living and trying out and recommending and then watching hundreds of other newly singled trying out with great success what you learned, the resulting articles then appeared a few times in print... and then it was gone........

Often found lining the bottom of a bird cage or wrapping a fish.......

What a waste.... all the years of your concentrated work you put into this, that could be helping the new crop of freshly singled... ...instead.......gone forever....

.........then one day...the interned appeared...

A...ha.......

Here is a chance to be able to use and share all of this accumulated knowledge, and maybe even for the next 100 years continue to do and get some good out of all that research, testing and just plain work.......
......a chance to world wide, help the steady
stream .....of hundreds of thousands of newly singled, whether by divorce, separation, or widowed, to help folks that are wondering through the dense jungle of adjusting to the loss of a long term relationship, and moving into single life each year..
.....often dazed by it all,
.........often needlessly making the same mistakes others ahead of them had made, totally uninformed with little or no way of learning about what works and what does not.

So...... in my case....

We got to work, posted much of this material on the web, and after four years of work (so far posted less then half of the accumulated material) spent tens of thousands of dollars on web expense and help and are still at it.......a long ...........way to go....

Meanwhile carrying a heavy load of keeping several businesses in the black to accumulate enough money to keep this all on the web for at least another ten years after I am gone.

Several members of my family have contributed much to this effort and continue to do so.

We have never asked anyone for a dime on the web sites. The only thing we have asked is that each reader in turn expend a little of their energy, to send and simply refer others to these web sites, and print out and share information, for those newly singled friends not on the web.

We do get a few thousand people who accidentally bump into our web sites, but it would make it far more rewarding if you would help us get those numbers to tens or even hundreds of thousands that became aware of and obtained help here.

Since we do not have additional money to advertise or promote this information availability here, we have to totally rely on each reader to help spread the word.

Here are some of our web sites where we are posting each month, not only our accumulated material but new articles monthly, like this one.

Once more in case you may have missed some of our web sites........designed to help and of interest to singles...

Here they are:
http://divorcerecovery101.com
http://datingagain101.com
http://sexagain101.com
http://singlelifecoach.com
http://singlestalkshop.com
http://countrysingles.com
http://azsinglescene.com
http://18wheelsingles.com


In addition we have already added some free courses written recently just for the net, and our several newsletters which are all basically fresh writing. You will find links to subscribe on the sites.

We have researched the web and put together over 1200 links to sites we think will be of interest, fun and of help. Click here and go to our switchboards on these sites

We have spent thousands of hours of work to find, read, evaluate, sort out and make these sites and links as helpful as possible.

We now ask our readers to e-mail us comments on what works, and what helps and what does not work for you; harlanjacobsen@webtv.net

Put the words "Divorce" in the subject line to get past spam filters.

To read some of our emails to the editor on the divorce site so far, go here...


We are looking forward to hearing from you, telling us your experience and your success using H.O.P.E. Harnessing Other Peoples' Experience.

We are waiting and looking forward to adding your feedback.....

Indeed, all of us who work on these sites all look forward to receiving these e-mails, as they tell us people are using these sites.

These e-mails are our only reward and help encourage us to work on.

We ask for comments positive or negative.

Yes, believe me, they do really help make our day...

We hope we have helped make all of your days better in 2003 and you allow us to help in 2004.

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Woman's Divorce Newsletter

Most newsletters get paid for suggesting other newsletters and getting their readers to go there, sign up etc.

We have never accepted payment to do so, therefore when you see links or suggested places to go for help and information, such as at our switchboards, it is not because we are getting paid to refer you there.

It is strictly because we have reviewed these sites (rejected hundreds of others) and believe these are exceptionally good places to go for information you need and may give you additional and or better information on some subjects than we provide.

Here is a good newsletter, we have reviewed and it is for women of divorce. Just go here to sign up,

It is free and if you do not agree it is helpful just unsubscribe. It is written for women and you will see discussions about preparing for your divorce, dividing assets and debts, dealing with children's issues, and sound tips on starting over.

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Happy Holidays from All of Us
Here is a Christmas card I received that I thought you might enjoy, so I share it with you.
http://www.yahoo.americangreetings.com/view.pd?i=9420635&m=1761&rr=y&source=yahoo999

Note: These are slow loading but worth the wait.

Here is the Christmas Lighter Side for you.


Here is an Inspiring Christmas Story, we posted to share with you.


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CHRISTMAS DAY OFTEN GETS LONELY Lets try an experiment and lets all get together on our Singles Talk Shop at 5pm eastern time on Christmas day and let's all share and chat about what you have done that has worked for you and what has gotten a lot better for you in 2003. Then we will move on and let's chat about what you want to have happen in 2004 and/or we can chat about any thing at all that you like...... that was just a suggestion.

Remember, talkshop is open 24 - 7 so just join in at any time. But...especially let's try Christmas day to get together at the same time and let's see how that works out...might be fun..

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #36, 12/13/03

In this Issue:
+ Getting Past two major steps in your divorce.
+ You and the kids surviving the Holidays.
+ You have just been dumped off....
+ Todays Quote
+ Kids' best answers

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Two Major Steps In Recovery

Last issue we had just posted and referred you to our new article on getting over resentment.

How to get over tying yourself up in knots with anger about your ex. and others, go here.

This issue we are referring you to the matching (just posted) article on how to get over your fears about divorce and your new life. Go here.

In Alcoholic Anonymous 12 step recovery program, these two are a couple of the (hardest) major steps in getting past alcohol controlling your life.

Likewise, in the divorce process it is just as important for you to be working through these two and in getting past them to stop your divorce from ruining and controlling your life.

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+GETTING THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS+

Here is an article we just posted by a guest author on getting yourself and the kids through the holidays, go here

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+ You Have Just Been Dumped Off +

Divorce and separation are just like being dumped off and abandoned in a foreign country with no way to get back.

You hardly know anyone here, and you are not even familiar with the language, they speak "single" and you are only comfortable with and good at speaking "married."

You are right off under a lot of stress... You do not know how to tell who is "okay" to trust here and who is a danger to your survival.

So initially getting to know or developing any friends and acquaintances here at all is kind of scary. Result: sort of lonely here.

Also stressful is not being able to do and live like you have done for years. This is all different and you have to get used to the unfamiliar and all new-to-you ways of everyday living.

Everything in every day living is new, and as a result uncomfortable. You have to be careful and "work at it" all the time. Exhausting.

Eventually, perhaps after about three months, you develop a few friends, get to know what and how the natives live and what works here. You get your new life down to a routine.

You are no longer desperately trying and figuring out how to escape this place, to go back where you came from.

Turns out, it is not all that bad here....sort of a challenging opportunity to do some things you have always wanted to do.....

You now have a lot of great new friends in your life here, do a lot of exciting new things and have gotten comfortable and familiar with living here.

And then you say,........

"It's not at all like I was afraid it was going to be, and....hey, ...this is turning out to be a pretty good life experience after all."

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+Todays Quote.......+

Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.

Victoria Holt

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......was just reading some kids' answers to several questions... here are a few of the best ones.

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.
Derrick, age 8

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?
Both don't want any more kids.
Lori, age 8

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck.
Ricky, age 9

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Do you know anyone getting a divorce?
If these newsletters and our web site help you get to the other side of divorce, why not send a copy of this newsletter to them and suggest they subscribe, (its free) (see below) and help make their 2004 a better year.

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We are constantly posting new divorce articles (in addition to the over 300 already posted) at Divorce Recovery 101, click here See the new article section for the latest.

You may not know we have a free five day course on "Moving On To A Great New Life" from your divorce that arrives for five days in your e-mail box.

To start lesson one tomorrow send a blank email here

If you would like to see what others are saying about their divorce and single life, and might even want to throw in your thoughts, go to our online single life support folks at Singles Talk Shop, click here and see what's up.

Think you might be ready to try that dating thing soon? Read up on it a bit first at Dating Again 101, click here and consider subscribing to our free dating again newsletter Simply send a blank email here... It will show up in your E-mail box every two or three weeks or so...

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copyright 2003 by Harlan L. Jacobsen

Top of Page

Divorce Recovery Newsletter #35, 12/5/03

This newsletter is sent free to help anyone going through a relationship loss, whether by divorce, death or desertion. Subscribe or unsubscribe below.

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Last issue we gave you a link to the part one, http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/moving_on.html on correcting 38 erroneous beliefs you picked up and were in general screwing up your life.

This issue we planned to link you to part two.

How to uninstall this screwed up programming. Well,we did not finish that article in time, instead concentrating on "Resentments" which you should read if you are still angry with your ex and the rest of the world.

How long are you planing to be angry anyway?
Go here

Getting rid of resentment is step four in Alcoholics Anonymous, a support group which finds it necessary to give up all your resentments (grudges) before you will be able to move away from booze.

Alcoholics Anonymous uses "sponsors," sort of mentors who has been through the stop drinking process to tell you when you are ready to move and take action on step four.

In our classes we had a lot of people who had worked through the divorce process who continued to attend and to pay back for the help they had received, who then sort of acted as "sponsors" or mentors for people in the classes who were in the middle of the process.

This was an important part of the help obtained in our classes, (now called support groups). We have not been able to duplicate mentors on the web.

When the statistics first came out on Alcoholics Anonymous my recollection is that the professional psychiatrists etc. were having about a 6% stop-them-drinking success rate and AA had something like 70% success, which as I recall sort of blew everyone out of the water.

Anyway, whatever the figures were, for the first time everyone had to recognize that self help support groups could and do work.

They are far, far better than all the professional help had ever worked.

Old joke...I am not an alcoholic, I am a drunk, alcoholics have to attend meetings.

Perhaps, the success of support groups and individual counseling is that you do it on a regular schedule, and it gives you a place to unload whatever is bugging you this week and recharge with a new enthusiasm to work toward a better life.

Our http://www.divorcerecovery101.com web site offers information and help but does not do that, and we are working on how to add that.

We added http://singlestalkshop.com to our sites and that fills some of the gap and we are also working on expanding that sort of thing. It would seem that a combination of reading up and gaining much information from our sites on a regular basis, going to an individual counselor once a week and joining a local weekly support group would be one heck of a combination to speed you through your divorce process.

Getting back to resentment;
Alcoholic Anonymous call it the Dreaded Fourth Step and your sponsor has to tell you when you are ready to tackle this important step of getting rid of your resentments.

We hope now is the right time for you and that you are indeed ready to give up on past resentments and those generated from your divorce.

This will allow you to now move on from your divorce miseries and get on with a new life.

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Here is an Inspirational article by a guest author, Margo, who writes great stories from personal experiences; go here She was divorced for two years and has happily remarried, and we have asked her to consider writing an article on her experience in getting from the worst time of her life to the best.

She is a great writer, and we hope she does so. We look forward to sharing it with you.

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ARE YOU READY TO RECOVER?
Maybe not....

Recovery from divorce is about going through mind shifts, evolutions of new consciousness, getting out of the box, off the sidelines, in the game, playing offense rather than defense, learning life skills so that you can get on with developing a new second chance for a great new life.

Is it time for you to make that change?

Or, are you needing to wallow in the "divorce hell" pits a while longer?

Maybe you need to have the most miserable day of your life and get it over with.......

Instead of being just a little miserable for a long time, you can get into being really, really miserable for a short time and get it over with.....

Go here.."The Most Miserable Day of Your Life" (from our previous July 15th html newsletter)

It is your divorce, you deserve the right to get to decide how miserable or how long you need to be miserable.

Want or need to hang on to resentment, etc. for a while yet?

or....

Tired of being miserable? Decided yet that this is not working?

What is happening to you now is not about what someone did to you.....it is now about what you are doing to yourself by continuing to muck around with it, ..........and/or now realizing finally that it is indeed you, and only you......... that can let yourself out of this dungeon,..... you alone have the ONLY key.

That key is you, merely deciding,

.....make the decision that it is over, that it is time for you to let go of it...

Call it experience, call it personal history.

That decision is the key that will let you out.....

You Decide.....????

.........Ready, or not ready to let go of "what was" and move on?

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In case you missed it...here from our archives is a reminder of the perfect Christmas Present. His and Her Remote Controls, Go here

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We occasionally ended our Divorce Recovery class session with this powerful prayer. Today we end our newsletter with it.

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Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi
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Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace!
That where there is hatred, I may bring love.
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness.
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony.
That where there is error, I may bring truth.
That where there is despair, I may bring hope.
That where there are shadows, I may bring light.
That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted.
To understand, than to be understood.
To love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #34, 11/22/03

We are supplying a divorce recovery map so you can not only survive this catastrophe, you can come out on the other side, to what will well turn out to be the best time of your life.

If you can use help in speeding your recovery, subscribe for a free copy delivered to your email box, see below.

However, if you want to stay miserable, this newsletter is not for you, see below, and unsubscribe.

We have over the last six months put together a lot of information on our site plus outside links to help cut out over half of the trauma which originates from the legal coming apart process.

To ELIMINATE this factor, you need to be very well informed, hopefully before you get too far into it.

If you know anyone starting the divorce process, do them a favor and send them this site's legal resources.

Here is what we have added in the last month, of importance for you to get information on the coming apart legal process that is tied together with the emotional trauma.

We suggest you read (just posted) 93 Articles by Judge Anne Kass, an Albuquerque court system Judge, now retired, who has written and is sharing insights on our pages; valueable information you need to know about divorce and child custody. It is all based on what she has noted and put together in an 18 year period. go here

A good part of your emotional trauma comes from "being afraid" of the unknown. What is happening here is all a huge threat to your well being, with you entering unknown horror story territory.

When you get in the middle of an adversarial divorce with an "attorney taking your case" life and your future seems to go completely out of your control.

We have an article that is a good start in understanding your options with good outside links at the bottom of a series of articles on the legal process... Start here.

IN A NUTSHELL....

Agree to Avoid an adversarial "contested" divorce.

Identify the issues between you, meet many times to negotiate them all, horse trade and both make concessions.

If any issues are left unresolved, use mediation or arbitration to settle the rest and stay out of court.

You can along the way consult attorneys for advice, but both agree not to turn your case over to an attorney and avoid adversarial divorce.

This will cut the trauma of your divorce in half (and save you both a fortune in attorney fees).

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Now that we saved, prevented or cut out half of the usual divorce trauma, let's talk about what is left.

GETTING PAST THE EMOTIONAL HELL
A big part of the emotional turmoil is a result of some erroneous decisions (become beliefs) you have made about your divorce situation.

Using the understandable computer analogy, you have heard the GIGO problem. Which means "garbage in is garbage out."

What we are saying is that you have arrived at a divorce belief system that often consists of the following erroneous beliefs.

Your life is running on this operating system and what you are getting is a "garbage out."

INCORRECT BELIEFS YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT FROM THE EX AFFECT WHAT IS HAPPENING THAT NOW ACTS AS YOUR BASIC OPERATING SYSTEM.

1. I was rejected.
2. I was betrayed
3. I am no longer desirable
4. My life is totally out of my control
6. I will never be able to find anyone again
7. I was lied to, about what was going on.
8. Cruel unfair way to End the marriage.
9. Why me? this is just not fair.
10. Angry and shocked, no warning.
11. Our marriage vows were ignored....
12. I "Failed" to make my "marriage" last.
13. The ex spouse is right, I am defective
15. Everyone thinks I am damaged goods
16. GOD has abandoned me.
17. Terrified of handling my future alone.
18. Friends think my spouse made a fool of me
19. My whole marriage must have been a lie
20. Cheated, this is not "til death do us apart"
21. Afraid to make all these decisions alone
22. Is it worth it to even try to survive alone?
23. My family sees me as a failure.
24. I will always be alone on holidays.
25. Divorce means my Kids lives will be ruined
26. I've wasted the best years of my life.
27. I can never ever be truly happy again.
28. I will "never have a Sex life again."
29. There is no light at the end of this tunnel
30. I will never trust the opposite sex again
31. No one else will ever be interested in me
32. No one to take care of me when i am sick
33. I am not complete without a partner
34. I'm no good.
35. No one will ever love me again.
36. It's all my fault.
37. He/She was the only person for me.
38. Overwhelmed....Just too big a hill.


This is all garbage, and how long it takes you to correct this programming will have a great bearing on how long the hold up in getting on with your new second chance for an all new great life.

A divorced person that has moved on to a new life, past the divorce trauma has "uninstalled the ex effect" of all of these erroneous divorce caused beliefs and gotten well beyond them.

You can too......

You can read the first half of our new article on this and part two next issue. go here

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A reader sent us this Quote:

"If you follow your heart, you're a romantic; if you follow your mind, you're an intellectual; if you follow your ex partner, you're a stalker." Rhonda Breed

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PRINT THIS OUT TO PASS AROUND ON THANKSGIVING DAY...or email to a friend. Blessed? go here

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If your kids raise a fuss when you try to go out... New article...

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If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to subscribe, send a blank email to divorce_recovery-subscribe@topica.com

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #33, 11/04/03

What is Divorce Recovery 101 Newsletter?
This newsletter provides information, articles ideas and what works in working thru divorce, getting past an end and on to a second chance for a great new life. Success on your own with happiness, and how we attract that into our lives. To subscribe or unsubscribe see bottom of page.

This Divorce subject is something I learned about in 32 years of writing on the subject, plus my personal experience with two divorces.

Learning from over 10,000 attendees that attended 3 classes a week I conducted for over ten years.

This specialized information could continue to help thousands of others on the web and I decided it should not go to waste.

This is why I decided I had to share it and regularly put together this newsletter and our several associated web sites.

So sit back, enjoy these little tidbits we send you and before long you just might see some Welcome Changes in your life!

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As you know, we make no charge for anything and have nothing to sell you. As a result we have no income to promote or buy advertising or even pay for listings on search engines. (did you know they charge for getting your listing near the top and for each person that clicks on your site?) Therefore most of our new readers have to come thru our present readers referring our newsletters and sites to their friends that are getting divorced etc. That is the only thing we ask of you.......Tell your friends and acquaintances about these resources.

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A couple of issues back we reproduced an email from Ian of San Diego who had been in the divorce process for one year. He shared how it had gone for him and offered to help wherever he could for those still in the process.

I asked him to write on the subject of how he had retained his friends, which I thought was unusual and would be helpful. We made a web page for his article and you can read it by clicking here...

He has promised to write more articles on "what worked" for him, and we look forward to sharing them with you.

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MOVING ON TO A BIGGER AND BETTER LIFE AFTER DIVORCE

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One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled "The Greatest Secret in the World." The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice."

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1. You are now in full charge of your new power of Choice.

Accept Your New Responsibility.

Up until now your parents and your ex had some control of your choices. No longer.

Your new life Success will come now from strictly you and the life choices you make.

Your second chance for a great new life will come from your pre-meditated use of choice and decision.

Choosewith certainty what it is you want in your great new life and set goals.

2. Respect the Reality of your Divorce Face the Facts

Do not deny what is True and accurate.

Recognizing what is true information is essential to success with your second chance at a new life.

Your new Reality is based on your dealing with the truth about "what Is."

3. Take total Responsibility For You, Make No Excuses

Excuses are "self permission slips" for screw ups and failure to act.

Dreams for a new and better life go flat when you let the air out of your "great new life" balloon with excuses.

Make it part of your new life plan, to eliminate "excuses."

4. Character as a separate and distinct person Counts!

Everything you say and do now complements or compromises your new character as a single person.

Always do the right thing.

5. Make Everything Count

Every thought, every decision you make, and every action you take now moves you closer to or further from your goals.

Choose wisely.

6. Practice Self-Discipline

Learn how to be "totally responsible" for yourself, perhaps for the very=

first time. To effectively and quickly move towards your new life goals requires discipline.

Every exception takes you off course and delays your great new life.

7. Continue and accelerate Your Education

To do better, Know Better.

Grow and expand your knowledge and abilities and you grow and expand your income and your life.

8. Make a Commitment to a new Excellence

Become the best you can be. Maximize your potential.

Head for true wealth. No more mediocrity, here on, choose excellence!

9. Learn From Failure and what Flops.

Nope, youre not going to win them all. Failure gives you feedback on how to correct your course.

It provides information for you to learn from, apply and move on. If you have an 80% or better win rate, and 20% failure rate, you are doing fine.

Only by testing "what works" fully and having failures, can you grow your life to the max.

10. Enjoy Your Independent New Life, Have Fun.

Fun is essential to make your new life work. Allow yourself and plan pleasures to enjoy. A week without laughter, fun and joy is a week wasted.

Life is short, and this is your one trip thru, so personally plan now to enjoy it to the max while you can.

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You may know we publish and maintain many different web sites. Here is one you might use to take a look around your state. These are all live looks. Click on your state for Webcams in your area and a live look around. http://webcambiglook.com/
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A SENIOR PERSONAL

WINNING SMILE: Active grandmother with original teeth seeking a dedicated flosser to share rare steaks, corn on the cob and caramel candy.

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DIVORCE QUOTATIONS
Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass. Mary Kay Blakely U.S. journalist, essayist

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #32, 10/21/03

This is a free newsletter sent only to those interested and take the time to subscribe.
If you need to get your own subscription, or cancel one you have, see instructions at bottom of this issue.

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Last issue we talked about letting go and you can tell by reading on the chat discussions at http://singlestalkshop.com and other single chat, just who has not yet let go and is still mucking around with the past and the ex.

Success in getting on with your new life is timed by how soon you can stop what you have been doing and actually start working on an all new and better life...

You have three places to live, concentrating your thoughts, time and energy on what was, where ever you are right now and on/or "Gonna Be's."

1. What Was.......
2. What is.....
3. What's Gonna be...

Newly divorced and some not so newly divorced talk about, think about (ex is part of "what was" and spend humongous amounts of effort and energy mucking with it and just refuse to give up on it.

We know you need to talk about it, (what was) over and over for you to process and put it behind you..

This divorce really does not make sense to your big computer to process and you have a blob of unanswered happenings here that you have no on-file programming for.

For you to let go, to get it behind you. to let go of what has happened, is you have to either talk it out, or write it out with a journal, or both....

It is like hanging on to a large amount of past garbage that is spoiling and rotting and then complaining....to everybody.... expecting understanding and sympathy.... when you say ........"my life stinks."

Those trying to help say oh yes, this is really bad garbage and so sad, and you are certainly right and it does really stink and we can certainly understand this just isn't fair that your ex left you with all this garbage.

We really understand, really sorry about what you are having to live with.

In Contrast.....

We are told we are hard hearted, not kind nor understanding, totally un-sympathetic when we are the only one saying, get real.... .....you are the one totally responsible for your continuing your camping on top of this heap.

It is you that has to decide.......
.....Move away from, let go of this leftover unprocessed garbage left over from life with your ex, quit stirring it up and mucking with it....

We say,........
........Move away from it, let it go....
...........true, there may be some great parts of your life in there spoiled and just rotting away.

It is history...it is "what was."

So that's done with....your former relationship with your ex, it is like rotting food in your refrigerator..... .......It once was great stuff...

Not now...... it has expired and is spoiling.
......let go of it, you can say "what a waste" throw it out, dispose of it and move on.

Let go of this "what was."

Now, we need to switch and concentrate our thoughts and efforts, not only on the "right now".......
.........but chiefly on the "gonna be's."

Over the years I have stolen ideas, concepts and techniques from great authors, lectures, seminars, and even singles conventions, all sorts of ordinary single people, and just about anywhere we could find anything to try that might be adopted and in some way help people trapped in the process.

Help them move out and on from divorce in a shortened time.

Much of this accumulated material we used over and over in a ten year period with new attendees, modifying it as we got feedback from those using it and testing it.

We have long since forgotten where the original idea or concept for most that we modified for divorce use, came from, so we no longer even try and of course totally fail to credit those who likely deserve credit.

Not because we do not want to, but only because we have totally long since "forgotten" where we originally got many of these ideas and concepts, parables or examples that help, etc.

Many of course we put together after studying x and y....we combined them and came up with z, something totally new that turned out would work with divorce.

This time WE REMEMBER where this concept came from. Comedian Sid Cesar, ( remember black and white TV, the show of shows with Sid Ceasar and Imogene Coco.)

Sorry, maybe you just are not that old.

Not too long ago, Sid was on Larry King talking about the old days and he brought up this "Gonna Be's" as one of his keys.

We have latched on to it and modified it to fit divorce.

So.... When in the divorce process
CONCENTRATE ON THE GONNA BE'S
What Was, what is, and the Gonna be's....
What was, perhaps was bad, (betrayal etc.)
What is, today is not so hot either, all kinds of problems....

What's Gonna be, is what we carefully plan, look forward to bringing into being,.....it is going to be much, much better....if you think about and concentrate on making great gonna be's...your "what is's" catch up...and turn great.....too....

You foolishly refuse to let go and wasted effort and energy on all this continuing mucking and wallowing with the what was's.

The "getting on with life" secret turns out to be very simple.....

Forget the what was's.

Live in the what is, but concentrate your efforts on the "Gonna be's."

You automatically can not fail to soon start having great what is's.

We noticed that as soon as those in our classes got something good to look forward to, (a Gonna Be) a trip to Hawaii, going back to school, anything exciting, they were no longer depressed and down....

This literally turned things around for them overnight..

This concentrating full time on great "gonna be's" really gets you out of this continued ruminating over the "what was's."

Then you get into visualization, affirmations, goals, all those techniques you can learn elsewhere, that can be used to "make things come true stuff" when you concentrate on the "gonna be's."

We have a lot of good articles on techniques and how to make these highlighted great
Gonna be's......
...... turn into great what is's.

The magic phrase for today...is "Gonna be's"

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A DIVORCE PARABLE
By Harlan L. Jacobsen

I am happy, not that my long term love, loved one, and that part of my life has gone,
........but recognizing that the world we both laughed, loved and lived on together was "our earth," too for a time.

Not shedding tears now, over their departure from our "together world,"
......but remembering and smiling broadly over all the "good" we were priviliged to share together for.... a little while.

Like two ships on the vast high seas of life, our paths crossed... we met and sailed on together headed in the same direction at that time, our journeys headed for and winding up together for some time tied up together in the same port.

Our cargos have now been unloaded and delivered.

Our fellow ships purpose and cargo has been reassessed, new cargo loaded and charting direction to new destinations has begun.

Though my ship was not yet prepared to move on out of this port.

They already have a new purpose, cargo and destination.

We acknowledge and appreciate the valued time we were able to spend tied together at this port, ........ and wish them "godspeed" as they untie, and head out to sea on a charted journey to a new port.

We will miss them bobbing alongside, knowing that we too, soon will have found new cargo and we will again be heading out to sea enroute also cruising enthusiastically full steam to an all new port.

We will certainly encounter many other great ships while enroute to this all new destination, and happily cruise with some of them for a good part of the journey.

We will eventually encounter on the great sea of life, and sail alongside with another great ship headed for the same new port at the same time.

We will look forward to being tied up together at this new destination,...... ..... this too will be cherished and great for however long we can be together.

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Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. (William James)

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Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

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If someone forwarded this newsletter to you and you would like to subscribe, send a blank email to divorce_recovery-subscribe@topica.com copyright 2003 by Harlan L. Jacobsen

Top of Page

Divorce Recovery Newsletter #31, 10/13/03

This free newsletter is sent only to those who subscribe, it talks about divorce and how to handle the can of worms that goes with it. If you would like to cancel or subscribe to this newsletter see bottom of column.

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We Often Run Out of Time........
Sometimes I get behind on newsletters, and I am sure I am probably behind right now even though we recently sent one out.... So here is a catch up one that includes a good part that some one else wrote.

One of the great sources of inspiration and confirmation of what worked in our ten years of over 500 divorce classes was the people that had been in the classes for many sessions, and then came back a year or so later and shared with the new class, how it went for them and what "worked."

With online participants, we get very little feed back and though we ask folks to come back online with us and share with our newly divorced folks, how it went for them over the next year or so....up until now none had.

This week we received the following e-mail letter from "Ian" in California. I requested permission and he has okayed my sharing it with you. I think you will get more from it than anything I could write.
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Harlan

I wanted to let you know that your site was the biggest help to me last year when I was going through my divorce and I'm sure it is for many people.

I remember the day I met with the lawyer for the first time and I went out for a walk/run afterwards.

At that point for the first time in my life I understood how someone could kill themselves, I was wishing for a heart attack because I knew I didn't have the guts to do it myself.

*BTW - I was never seriously contemplating it. I read everything I could get on divorce (legal and emotional) and dating again and it helped a little bit.

When I discovered your web site it was like a breath of fresh air.

You emphasized getting on with your life and burying the past which appealed to my left brain.

I threw myself into a rigorous program of self-improvement.

I made a concerted effort to keep in contact with all of my friends and to share what was happening in my life and to talk about any concerns or uncomfortableness that they might feel.

As a result of that effort I have been able to keep most of my friends.

I started dating a month or two later and this was the single toughest thing which I have ever done as an adult man.

Never has so many feelings of insecurity come up but I worked through that.

Fast forward a year, my life is totally different.

My finances worked out okay, I don't have as much free cash flow as when I was married but I am running positive and I decide what I spend my money on.

My 17 yo son has adapted to the divorce because my ex and I put him first. I have reinvented my spirituality rather than conforming to my ex's idea of the proper way. I have learned how to dance, I am taking ethnic cooking classes.

I have joined 3 singles groups which I'm not using for dating prospect but to make sure I don't have weekend evenings home alone unless I want them.

I am involved with restarting a single volunteer group here in San Diego.

I have studied dating theories extensively, learned how to write an online profile, attended a couple of speed dating events.

I have dated about 15 women and got into 3 short lived but fun relationships.

I have learned something from each of these women and they will always have a place in my heart.

I am now dating a woman who I love spending time with and who is much closer in sych. with the adult me than my ex ever was.

I don't know if it will last, if it doesn't I know that I will be okay and will find someone else.

I couldn't have said a year ago when my biggest fear was "that I would never find anyone else."

Most important of all, I am happy.

Anyway the real purpose of this email in addition to giving you some fuzzies which you deserve is to offer my help with the web site, articles, or anything else that you need.

*BTW -
In the last few weeks someone I work with started going through the divorce and re-dating process and hopefully I have been able to be of some help.

We went out for a beer and he talked for 1 1/2 hours straight, at the end he shyly said "I think I might have done most of the talking."

I reassured him that I just wanted to listen and be a friend as people had been to me a year ago.

Thanks again

Ian
*BTW=by the way

-----Thank you Ian-----for your help------

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Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. - Oscar Wilde

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Good Question, an interesting story about Child Custody...

A couple wound up in divorce court where the big issue was child custody.

The husband was asking for custody.

The mother protested to the court that since she had brought the children into the world, she should be awarded custody.

The judge asked the husband if he had any good reason why he should be awarded custody.

Being caught, unprepared, after some delay, the husband finally said, "Your honor, I often put a dollar in the pop machine down on the corner, and a can of pop comes out."

"Your honor, .....does that can of pop then belong to me or to the machine?"

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Have You Been Rejected? Are You Afraid of Being Rejected Again?

We have a 9 part series on the subject of Rejection and I guarantee you it will change your outlook or fear about rejection.

This series involved a great deal of thought, long term research and effort and is probably one of the best things I have ever written.

We have never decided for sure if it belongs over on the http://datingagain101.com on the http://www.divorcerecovery101.com or even on http://singlelifecoach.com
Undecided we just put this series on all three sites since it can change things for you, no matter where you are in the single life process.

Direct link to the Rejection Part One, page...
http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/rejection1.html

Top of Page

Divorce Recovery Newsletter #30, 10/06/03

DROP EX- CONCERN AND CONTACTS, LIKE A HOT POTATO

Looking over all the chat, the emails I get and other input, it seems that the biggest hold up in getting on with life after divorce is still "letting go".

We noted in conducting the divorce classes that the people who were not getting on with life seemed to refer to their former spouse as "guess what my wife (or husband) is doing now?"

Those who were moving on had unhooked and no longer really cared what their former spouse was doing and when necessary to talk about them, in referring to them used the term ex...

Updated improvement of that for those in initial stages is STBX, soon to be ex....

The test is if your stbx or ex can still upset you, make you angry or ruin your day, then you have "not let go."

You are like their puppet, they still control you, they can still pull your strings and watch you jump.

Only you can cut those strings.

Your ex is part of "what was."

That part of your life is over, stop being concerned with and stop mucking around with the ex, they are the "past."

You have been put at a place that makes for you a great opportunity for a terrific new life even though you were comfortable with what was, you have been painfully evicted, move out of the past.

You need all of your thoughts and energy to make wise choices and get on with what will be your opportunity for a new and better life.

Someone sent me what is supposedly an...old chinese saying,

"When your horse dies, get off".

This seems to be one of the major hang ups is admitting to yourself that your "horse" (marriage) has really died.

They often beat on this dead horse for months trying and hoping to get it up and running again.

It just "isn't fair" that your horse died. Many did not even know their horse was sick.

How can this happen to me now, and leave me here in the middle of nowhere?

Our "tough love" short course ...eight words,
"BURY IT and Move On Down The Road."

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WHERE IS THE SUPPORT SYSTEM?

All this that you are going through is made worse now days in a big part, by relatives and the normal support group of people that your folks and grand parents relied on, nowadays either this support group of relatives etc. either move away or you do, or both, so they are not around when and where you really need them.

You lose with your divorce, nearly all your married friends, you lose all the in-law relatives on the ex side and you are about as close to zero in support system and friends as you can get.

This at a time when you are at the very most stressful event in your life, when you most need a little help to get through it.

Now, hearing that, or knowing that, has not helped you a bit I know, but it does help to understand where you are and why you feel so alone and helpless at this stage of your divorce. So what do you do to make things turn around?

1. Develop a network of single friends in your locality and on the web. We are here and you will find others on the web who have been through this and that will help. Try our http://singlestalkshop.com See section with more on "friends", below.

2. Join a support group such as a local divorce recovery group etc. and local singles organized clubs.

Also see article, How to find a support group. http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/support_group.htm

3. Study up on and research what has worked for others specifically in your locality, and realize what seems now like the worse time of your life may well be looked back in a year from now as the best thing that ever happened to you (hard to believe now but true).

4. Realize that working through this and getting on to a better life takes some study, motivation and a little time. Rome was not built in a day.

5. Recognize you need to talk about what you are going through. People that have been through this or going through this themselves are willing to talk about it without cutting you off.

Getting advice from them is not the important part.

Being able to talk about what you are going through with someone that will listen and understand, is. Again, our http://singlestalkshop.com may be helpful, lots of newly divorced on there all hours of the day and night.

For you to process this trauma and put it behind you, we tell you that you may have to talk about each part as much as fifty times. When you have talked it all out, you will have processed it and then it all falls in place and is no longer an unprocessed blob interfering with normal life functions.

Whether you pay a counselor who knows how to listen or you talk it out in a support group or friends or on the web etc., it basically has to be talked out to get it out of the way of normal life.

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MORE ON 'FRIENDS' SUPPORT SYSTEM

You can not have too many friends of all kinds.
The problem is that the non-single friends usually can not relate to where you are and you can not maintain all that you would like to because of this.

Many singles feel betrayed by married friends who just do not maintain the relationship like you used to have with them (someone said, like rats deserting a sinking ship).

But certainly build a network of single people that we call a "singles family." People who are there for you. People that care about you and your welfare.

Now you may have some that are not single and that's fine.

I always suggest you build at least one "security blanket friend" that you can call anytime night or day and they know they can do the same with you.

Now building a singles community is developing single friends that you "do things" with.

So I guess you have several categories.
1. At least one "security" blanket friend.
2. A singles family of people that "care" about you.
3. A singles community of single people you "do things with."
4. All the friends you can maintain, married, single or whatever.

Harlan

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Proverb
Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of travelling.

Top of Page

Divorce Recovery Newsletter #29, 9/23/03

This newsletter is sent to only those who subscribe and request it. If you were sent a copy by a friend and would like to receive your own free issue every couple weeks or so, see how to subscribe at bottom of page.


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When we are deep in the divorce process we are angry and blame the ex for putting us in this "bad place" and position and we are at a great loss because no matter how hard we try to find a solution, where your life goes from here suddenly seems to be totally out of your control.

We suggest you divide these things in your life that you are now trying to control into two categories.

What you can actually control or really able do something about, list as under your control.

The big mistake is thinking that you should be able to control your ex, your situation and on and on all those things which you have no actual control, you list these under "concerns."

Go here to read more on the subject. http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/concerns.html

You may feel you are caught and locked in an emotional "divorce hell jail" and there is no one that can let you out.

Many newly divorced are out there urgently searching for someone to "rescue them" and get them out of this.

If you recall the comic strip, "pogo" in one strip they were looking to discover who was the "enemy."

Pogo said, we have searched and searched and finally have found that the "enemy is us".

You do not need to have your ex or anyone or the world to do bad things to you.....you do far more to yourself.

Let's just say to help you understand this; you need to recognize that "you are your own jailer" and you alone have the key to let yourself out any time you are ready.

How long you are imprisoned in your "divorce hell jail," is entirely up to you. Only you can let yourself out and how long it takes you to figure that out is how long you will be in the divorce disaster stage.

It is not what is happening to you.....it is how you look at and handle what is happening to you.

We call it "your programming" to help you understand it.

One of the programming mistakes is your "faulty expectations and demands."

Your erroneous expectation was that your marriage was supposed to be "forever."

You demand that your stbx (soon to be ex spouse) live up to that expectation and you expend lots of energy trying to get your ex and your marriage to "shape back up".

The result is you are furious at yourself and your ex that you "failed" to make it last like it was supposed to.

The reality is 50% of marriages end in divorce, and nearly half of those remaining one or the other is "unhappy" in the marriage.

Yet your faulty belief here is that there is something "wrong" with you or your ex or both if the marriage did not last forever.

You live in a house for a period of time and you move on to something that better fits your situation and most people do that many times in a normal life time......

Moving out and on to a different house....usually bigger and better or a better fit...is no big deal....

Most people have or have already had many relationships in their life time and they move on to something as a better fit as a part of the natural "growing in life" experience.

Yet when you or your spouse or both outgrow a marriage relationship, one or the other refuses to accept it and deal with as normal and one goes into shock.

It is not the happening, the split, it is how your programming allows you to handle it.

People at one time not too long ago had a life expectancy of less then 40 years. Being married 25 years was a big thing.

Now being married 20 years, one considers, after all the changes in my life, do I, with a life expectancy of 80, can I really see myself living with this person another 40 years?

Result: one opts out, that ends it for both and one is caught by surprise.

Our programming, our expectations and demands have not kept up with what is reality these days..

You eventually learn you cannot control others nor the outside world, you can however control your programming, how you look at it, and react to and deal with what happens in your life.

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If you would like to read up more on updating your "expectations and demands" "programming" to make your life "work" go here...... http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/happiness.html

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Live as you were to die tomorrow,, Learn as if you were to live forever.

Gandhi

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Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink. --Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it. - A conversation between Lady Astor and Winston Churchill

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Note: We have had huge virus and spam attacks and if you have sent us an email and got no response please send again. Also our http://singlestalkshop.com chat divorce support site has been under attack recently by hackers trying to destroy this automated system. We are working hard to overcome both of these and have gotten behind in newsletters and new article postings as a result. We hope to be back to normal schedule soon.

Harlan Jacobsen

Top of Page

Divorce Recovery Newsletter #28, 8/31/03

We have been fighting virus and hacker attacks for weeks. If you have sent us an email and received no response or your email was returned as "box full" please send again. We have been receiving over 50 spam per hour and have repositioned our form system etc...to compensate.

When you email us, please put the word "divorce" in the subject line so your message does not get accidentally deleted by spam filtering. If box full please try again in the evening.

Also http://singlestalkshop.com was attacked by some obnoxious hackers and were finally run off only by deleting the entire board every time they reappeared.

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If you have been reading some of our articles you may be getting a conflicting message.

We tell you that the closer to being wiped out by divorce you are the more likely you will make major life changes that will lead to a far better life then you ever dreamed of before the divorce.

However, we do also tell you that in the first six months after the initial trauma that you should make no major life changes.

To explain that, let's just say that you have just gone through a major surgery and have just had a 100 pound, 200 pound or maybe even a 300 growth removed from your life.

Now that is major surgery, and when you look at it that way you realize that you need to treat yourself far better then usual and expect to take some time to heal and get back to your normal self.

If you look at stress charts that show what is stressful you will find this major surgery as the second most stressful thing that can happen to you. Usually, one or the other has change of location, financial crisis, change of habits, and if you were a housewife, you even lost your job.

So there are many things happening all at once that add to the stress, and when under a lot of stress you are much more likely to come down with a major illness, have accidents, screw up at your job, and a long list of other bad things that will also add more to this piling on of bad.

In addition, when you are going through divorce shock, your mental processing is not playing with a full deck. Therefore we warn you should not do any major life changes (like selling your house or changing jobs etc.,) initially because you will tend to do "dumb things" that you will regret later.

Therefore, for six months, delay major changes and hold off (delay) on doing anything that adds to your stress of healing from this major life surgery.

You can, during this time however set new goals and make big plans for your new life and act two, but hold off the actual changes until you have basically healed from this surgery.

We tell you that your parents always advised to save for a rainy day.....well this is your rainy day and we suggest, while recovering from this earth shaking major surgery, you spend a little money on yourself, do something you always wanted to do.

Anything you can do to make life better during your recovery from this major surgery, do it.

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Initially, after the shock of your divorce hits you, putting your life back together may seem overwhelming, like more then you can handle.

Look at it like dropping a thousand piece jig saw puzzle on the floor. It looks like you will never be able to get it back together, absolutely overwhelming.

But when you get down to it, you see one piece that fits with another, then that leads to seeing something else, and it all just gets back together one piece at a time rather easily as something else becomes obvious from the last action.......

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We have newsletter readers in all stages of divorce and we try to help move you along no matter what stage you are in. There are many parts of your life in for major change and taking care of and remaking your physical body should be one of your major concerns and projects.

Those in the initial stage of trauma should remember to stave off depression etc. you need to deliberately plan daily 30 minutes or more of exercise (such as bicycling, walking, jogging etc.) that uses the long leg muscle. Along with this be sure you get at least 30 minutes of sunshine daily. There are scientific reasons for both of these.

Also you will find dropping the shower and soaking in the tub with a little bubble bath is great therapy.

Remember, healing from major surgery takes time no matter how capable you are, this treating yourself well...... speeds the process.

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I broke up with my girlfriend. She moved in with another guy, and I draw the line at that. -- Garry Shandling

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #27, 8/06/03

This newsletter is sent only to those who subscribe, if you wish to unsubscribe at any time see how to unsubscribe at the bottom of this page. If a good friend sent you a copy of this newsletter and you would like to get your own free copy on a regular basis, see how to subscribe at the bottom of the page also.
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You have been searching the web for help with your divorce, and well, you have arrived at a site that CAN NOT solve all your problems, nor can this associated newsletter .........but... you ...can... find help and a guide to solve most of them in a relatively short time.

For example: Our http://www.divorcerecovery101.com web site, our short courses and our newsletter just can not eliminate all your problems, but what if it could help you conquer 95% percent of them in a relatively short time?

How much better would you feel?

With our http://www.divorcerecovery101.com web site, this newsletter and associated resources you will find we do not make nor will we be making any requests for your credit card nor making any of those traditional unbelievable claims that go with requests for your money..

You will find we have nothing to sell, never ask you for a dime, and when you get into working on your divorce with us and life starts to get noticeably better fast, you will know for sure we have absolutely no reason to ever be lying to you. It will increase the credibility of our material and assistance, every day you study and work on your divorce with us....you will soon be confident enough to really make this http://www.divorcerecovery101.com site your daily home page (set it so when your computer comes on, this is the page that comes up) and this will make for faster progress.

This learning and help with healing process is affective primarily with "spaced repetition".

One stop just won't do it.

In other words, the big help comes with devoting a little time each day to "moving on" with a daily nudge from what we have put together with "what works."

You have likely been thinking initially that you are always going to be feeling this bad, you have had strong negative things happen and you are probably thinking about the possibility of your being alone and miserable for the rest of your life.

Often you even get into a downward spiral of negative effects of this thinking negative about your ever moving on.

For example:

You're probably thinking this "do it yourself" move on from divorce in a short time pitch is like all the rest of the "helps" you've wasted your hard earned money and a lot of time on. That you'll just go on with your crying in your beer until someone rides up on their white horse and rescues you.

We want you to know that since your divorce life now is a series of important choices and you will to your dismay discover you have to make and be solely responsible for every one of them yourself (scary huh?).

Visualize coming to a fork in the road, with two distinct different paths that you can take; one if you study and get help here, really make full use of our help or........ the other trail, potentially winding up with you wallowing in your divorce pain for months or even years. if you go on the "do nothing route."

Imagine yourself at an intersection and you clearly see two different roads on which you can turn.

One fork where you can choose not to seek any help here (or anywhere) and continue to have and just live with your problems or........ one where you can dive into the road maps here, follow some directions and head out directly on a new road to get right at eliminating your problems.

Which road will you chose?

Yes, your normal tendency and defense mechanism vies for not doing anything right now, in this stressful period in your life.

What you have just entered is all unfamiliar often scary territory.

We explain to you, this tending to do nothing is all perfectly normal at this stage and everyone going through a divorce has adjustment difficulty getting geared up and taking steps to handle what is coming down the pike.

For example:

Should you have any thought about not taking the time and reading up and studying the process as explained here, (and other sources) it's just a little defense mechanism that everyone has in their brains.

It's there because you are afraid to move on into unknown scary territory, and when you got divorced you were thrust into an all alone "single person" jungle.

You need to make the decision (choice) that now is the time to take steps to move out of the quagmire.

You don't want this divorce to ruin your life, do you?

So get your self motivated....lord knows we have tried......make a decision.....(choice) that this is what you need to do now...not later.

We tell you to take notice that your divorce problems are gradually disappearing as you come by our divorce site daily and read information and tips you need to know..

For example:

As you continue to read these divorce articles and guides, you will feel your problems slowly disappearing...... the closer you come to finishing going through and absorbing all the resources we have put together over 32 years.

By telling you in advance about the results thousands of others have had, who have gone through the same happening, we are working hard to trigger you to start to feel this way and compel you too, to take immediate action to get your life under control.

We have many letters yet unposted but here are some you may read that are posted, http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/letters.html

We Ask You Here.... rate your divorce problem between 1 and 10 with 10 being bad and 1 being pretty good.

Then use this chart...

1-4: You should be ready for and really need our "where do I go now with my second chance for an all new life"....information.

5-7: You need to know, what do I do now that I have stopped crying and can see some light at the end of the tunnel..

8-10: Absorbing our collection of divorce information can turn your life around in one fourth the usual time.

There are a lot of good programs around to change your life for the better that really have no connection with divorce.

Years ago I paid for and sent my daughter to a Dale Carnegie course, which is a self improvement program that has been going on for years. Currently I understand it is about $1500.00

The short story is it literally changed my daughter's life...and she really discovered she had lots of ability she did not know she had and is currently finishing her doctorate etc. etc.

There are other programs such as Tony Robbins etc. you all see on TV. My point is that if you offered one of these life changing programs to most people even free.... most would not even bother taking them.

They say, I see no reason to change my life for the better.... and they just keep on bumbling through life complaining....

Now comes the reason I bring all this up....

Many people are completely or nearly completely devastated by their divorce.

The more they are devastated, the more likely they are to decide... that "I have a second chance and I am completely in charge of me now...so now is the time to inventory and rethink and rebuild a whole new life."

These are the people that originally told us that their divorce was the worse thing that ever happened to them and then came back a year later to tell us this same divorce turned out to be "the best thing that ever happened to them."

These are the people who decided instead of rebuilding and repeating what was, they decided now was the time to build an all new bigger and better........life.

They made changes that literally changed their life in a years time...... to far better than they had ever imagined.

Often their ex went on repeating the same old same old and have not advanced their life one bit. Often their ex was the leavor and was not devastated by the divorce and therefore was not motivated to make any life changes.

We have an advantage over Tony Robbins, the Dale Carnegie courses and all the others who have to spend millions in advertising to find people who are motivated and ready to take steps to change their life.

Our advantage is our readers have been shocked by their divorce and often are highly motivated to change their life at this time.

Therefore we offer some of the same "life changing information" and we offer it free. Hopefully you are motivated to take advantage of this opportunity and do so.

Now we know that if you paid $1500 for it you would have made a commitment to your self that this is something you need to do right now and you would definitely follow through.

We do not ask for nor will we ever have that financial commitment from you so we have to do one hell of a selling job to keep you motivated and on track to a new and better life.

How well we succeed now, is entirely up to you. You readers should know we have invested 32 years putting these helps and information together (of what works) and want you to know we are still adding to it and researching it just like the day we started.

The only thing we ask of you, to those of you who go through and use most or our material, is when you too........ move on down the road....from what was a bad time in your life.....promise us you will take the time to send us feed back on what helped the most....to recover...... .........and what really helped you move on to an all new bigger and better life.
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Overheard at a divorce support group....

THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERY DIVORCE:

MINE AND SHITHEAD'S
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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #26, 7/15/03

July 15 Newsletter with pictures etc, go here

Divorce Recovery Help 24/7, WHAT WORKS 
Harlan Jacobsen

One of our readers wrote and suggested that it would be more personal and helpful if I ran my picture with the newsletter.

We can do that with some difficulty and more work, (time) but we had given some thought about doing an html format to improve the newsletters prevously, so we thought it worthwhile now to try this format at least this once, (not necessarily include the picture).

So we are sending you both the hrml...(with pics etc. and this usual text version.  We await your comments,..... 

WHAT WORKS AT HOME DEPOT

This newsletter, the Divorce Recovery 101 site, our free courses and your author can be compared to Home Depot, your home improvement center.
When your home gets damaged in a bad storm you go to Home Depot to see what's available, and what tips and instructions and help you can get to fix it and put it back together.

When your life gets damaged by a relationship storm, you stop by our sites to see what's available, what tips and instructions and help you can get to fix and put your life back together.

When you go to Home Depot you will discover that with a little extra effort, this disaster is an opportunity to not only fix what's damaged, you can completely rebuild and remodel to make it like you always wanted.

When you go to our web sites you will discover that with a little extra effort, this disaster in your life is an opportunity to not only fix where your life was damaged, you can take charge, learn how to completely rebuild and remodel to make your life like you always wanted.

Now Home Depot may not have anyone with a degree in house rebuilding, or remodeiling, but every store has people with lots of experience and know how that can help you find what you need to know how to do and what needs to be done.

They will also explain what your options are, and tell you that where you go with all this, is of course your own decision.

Your author does not have a degree in building a new life, but does have lots of experience and know how, and we do have one staff member, editor Janet Jacobsen, (daughter) even working on completing her doctorate at ASU.

Home Depot and our web sites both use the same motto:

You can do it..................We can help.

You can stop by Home Depot, and/or you can stop by our sites and pick up the tools and material you need to rebuild and even remodel, or you can do nothing.
   
Where you go from here and what happens now and the future is "entirely" up to you.
                           The Most Miserable Day Of Your Life
  
All of us going through a divorce suffer and go through some pain in the process.  True, some more than others, which we will get into at another time.

We can just visualize your quota of pain you have to go through and experience and tell you that you can ration it to make it more tolerable, and take a "little pain" for a very long time or you can really get into some devastating almost unbearable pain for a short time and get it over with.      

If you go to your Doctor and tell him this divorce pain is just too much "give me something" to make it bearable. 

He will, and certainly the pain will be less but it will likely hang
around for a very long time.
   If however you decide you are tough and can handle pain, and want to get it over with and get on with life.....then consider deliberately planning and setting up.            

<"The Most Miserable Day of Your Life."             
Send the kids to grandmas,        
Take the day off.        
Take the phone off the hook.        
Stock up on Kleenex        
Dig out all your wedding pictures
               
Lay out all the love letters you got.     
Start early, make it a full day.
               
Get out the vacation and travel photos you enjoyed together.
All the photos of you both together with the new babies.     
The holiday and family pictures.

Spend the whole day pouring over these, remembering, crying, pound the table, really get into being miserable  (do not call or talk to anyone, do not answer the door).

Most that I have interviewed that have gone through "The Most Miserable Day Of Your Life," tell me that about 3 or 4 in the afternoon they became bored and sick and tired of the whole thing and "decide" I just don't want to do this anymore.

They also told me it was the turning point in "letting go" of "what was" and "what might have been" and getting on with "going to be."   

You could do this over the usual two years, mucking around with it, or you can do it in this one tough day.
                 
          GIVE UP...ON..."GETTING EVEN"   

Quotable:            "Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done.
Forgiving means abandoning your right to pay back the    perpetrator in his own coin,...but........... it is a loss............ that liberates the victim."
[Desmond Tutu, Anglican archbishop of Johannesburg, and Nobel laureate]

Janet ran the above quote in the Country Singles and Az Single Scene newsletters she edits, and I thought it was such a good quote, that we should have by now, an article on the subject of "forgiveness."   

However, when you think about it, the whole story and the lesson are all in the quote.

Read that quote again.

Who needs another article?           

Divorce Humor with a Message

An ex-spouse is like an inflamed appendix....they cause a lot of pain and suffering, but after it's removed............ you find out you actually didn't really need it anyway.  
++++++++++++++++++
Bumper Stickers....

Hang in there...Even Moses was once a basket case.

I am out of estrogen and I have a gun

Our Jesus is better than your Jesus< BR>               
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New Articles Just Posted

Happiness as a Single Person Article about understanding importance of happiness as a single. No how to, only understanding it.
http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/happiness_as_single.htm

Going Steady -Exclusive Dating What "exclusive dating means" and the term going steady. Are you ready http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/going_steady.htm

Absolutely No Mate Hunting...go here http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/matehunting.html    If you are venturing out better read some cautions here.

Coming Apart http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/coming_apart.htm
Understanding the coming apart process, and where are you right now?
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Let us know if the new format sent seperately did or did not work ok for you because if it works for everyone we may discontinue  this version.....harlanjacobsen@webtv.net  

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #25, 6/22/03

Each issue we try to bring you what we think is important for you to know to help you shorten and remove some of the sting when you are going through the divorce process.

Each person�s divorce is slightly different then another person�s divorce but we all go through very similar emotional trauma.

It does not matter how much money you have, how powerful a position you hold in the community, how much education, no one gets a free pass when it comes to emotionally processing the "splitting of a long term relationship".

We can not "feel the pain" for you (we already experienced our own), we have no "magic pill" that all you need do is send us your credit card numbers and download you a guarantee with what we dispense that you will feel better by tomorrow.

None of that..... we have been studying and working with the subject for 32 years and what we can offer is what we have learned from over 10,000 people that have gone through the process. We try to bring to you, in an understandable plain language way, what seems to have worked for others and concepts and ideas that help you understand what you are going through.

Hopefully, we can warn you to avoid what some have done that needlessly detoured them in moving on down the road and sort of hung them up in divorce hell.

Many of you are through this pain stage and the legal stage but it is so important that you know about options, even if through that so you can share it with friends that will (count on it) be going through the process in the future.

My guess is that the "legal coming apart process" if handled in the "usual way" where most get trapped, with two adversarial attorneys, increases (adds on to) the emotional turmoil of working through your divorce by at least 50%, and often doubles the length of time before you are on the other side and working on a new and better life.

One of the most emotionally difficult things to handle is when you are caught up in the divorce process, is you feel "your life is, or has somehow gotten out of, your control."

No matter what you do seems it has little or no effect on what is happening and what happens in the future seems to also to be completely out of your control.

Even predicting how long before your new "future life" starts, seems to be totally out of your control.

It seems like there is a sword dangling over your head, hanging on a thread, and that your ex "can still do you harm."

Therefore, I have figured out that no matter how much good information and encouragement we supply you here,� it is in one ear and out the other and doing you little or no good �til you get out of this emotional no man�s land.

Therefore, I have put together an article with other links and references on the "legal divorce" being handled in such a way that explains how you have options to not give over control to a stranger (attorney) which when you do it, needlessly moves you into what I call divorce "hell."

This article tells you that you need to think twice on how you handle your "legal" divorce process, and I encourage you to send this article to your stbex (soon to be ex) and have them read it also.

In the past I have run some "legal divorce" seminars and was amazed how little most people going through the legal divorce process know about how all this works.

My legal divorce would not have been half as bad (or for my ex) if I had known what I know about the legal divorce process now.

You must understand that I have no legal expertise and each state has
laws that are slightly different versions, but the basic problem adding
to your can of worms, is what is known as an adversarial divorce.

Go to this page we just posted, read it, and go to the links we connect you with, much of which is written by attorneys, read every bit of all of those and then you will be pretty well informed about a subject that can mean a great difference in your working through this and to your future.

Go to the library and check out books on the subject and do further research on the web if you like.

Here are your options and here is the article... click on this http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/starve_lawyers.htm
If you have not yet started the legal process or you have a friend who has not, I believe this is the most important "must read" article I have ever written to help you through your divorce.
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Last issue we connected you with a just-posted-on-the-web article on giving out "fuzzies" (good feelings).

We noted that most newly singled people are mostly in a "taking" do it for me mode, the world owes me a lot attitude.

To be successful in single life we pointed out you need to practice being in a "giving mode."

We suggested that since we were basically starved for fuzzies working on line (compared to live classes) and you could practice giving out fuzzies by sending us one.

A little over 2% of the people that subscribe to this newsletter did so and we received some very nice fuzzies.

Thank you, Thank you.

One had some suggestions on how we could improve things, and which we took to heart and are now doing.

Mary sent us a fuzzy that she had been giving out fuzzies and here is
what it said that I sort of hit me and I saved�

"usually practice giving out warm fuzzies everyday, it is still good to receive reinforcement and a little push to continue to do the warm fuzzy thing. "It always delights me when I can make someone else's day a little better because I was in it."

I think that I will adopt that last line....that if you get this newsletter and..... it helps your day....

here comes my motivation motto .......

It always delights me when I can make someone else's day a little better because I was in it.......Thanks again Mary......You stated it very well...
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Just watched Sid Ceasar, now 80 years old on Larry King.

Did a thing about living in the NOW. He said there were only 3 options.

The what WAS, the right NOW, and the GONNA BE.

You need to learn to live in and really enjoy the NOW and then concentrate your thoughts and effort on planning and working on the GONNA BES.

When the GONNA BES arrive, you then have great NOWS, and with great NOWS, you will have all great WAS-ES.

This seemed an important concept and I pass it along for newly divorced to think about, since it is normal in the recovering from divorce process, to get hung up in the "what WAS."
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Here is a new one on me....I have heard of getting an annulment in the catholic church, but I thought it was something you did in the first week etc. if someone lied to you etc.

Now I find out catholic people with grown children can sometimes get an annulment.

You still have to get a divorce, but if you get an annulment from the church then you can be married in the church again..... otherwise apparently it�s down to the justice of the peace next time...(and do you really get kicked out of the church for marrying out of the church).

This subject is something I know nothing about. For a more extensive listing of links and information on annulment, go here http://www.catholic-pages.com/dir/divorce.asp and/or here... http://www.divorceinfo.com/catholic.htm
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One of the things I think is important is to be able to laugh at life and even your divorce. This one is so good, I want you to know in advance that the loading time is real slow...but wait, I guarantee it is worth it...

If you feel that you are having a bad day, just know that others may be
having a worse day� http://www.azsinglescene.com/images/cat.jpg
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Had a young guy who had been in a relationship for several years, (not married) and was having a hard time not thinking about when they were together, but she had moved in with some other guy he knew and was not seeming to have any problem handling their split at all.

Wanted to know why he was having all this problem getting her and the relationship off his mind and she was not at all......

Wrote back and told him that he was lucky he was free of the usual legal divorce trauma and if he had moved in with a sexy babe, he likely wouldn't be thinking much about what had been....either.

He wrote back....there was a catch 22.... I had said absolutley "no mate hunting for six months."

Well now I wrote back and said, No mate hunting is correct, but I did not say no dating or no relationships.   

Maybe I should change that so you understand you can have opposite sex relationships any time you are emotionally ready, (to handle more emotional turmoil) but no going out looking for a mate for six months.

Another way of saying it, date when ready but "make no promises" for six months, or a year is even better (means no "commitments�).

Are you ready for dating, article, http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/start_dating.html
Are you ready for dating, Test http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/dating_test.html
Like our young man here it often seems unfair and hard to understand that the "leavor" is not also having problems "adjusting" to the separation,....... The reason is they went directly to a replacement relationship.   

This is like the alcoholic who is forced to switch from one form of liquor to another, they had little or no pain because they never had to "sober up."

In this case, he had to "sober up" (Withdrawal Pain) from the relationship addiction, she did not because she just changed "booze" (relationships).
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Someone sent me a copy of a comment posted on http://singlestalkshop.com

which by the way is labeled Harlan's Single Talkshop chat room "Talk It Out Therapy" is open 24/7. Use as needed. No appointment necessary, No waiting, No cost.

He asked in his comments, who is this Harlan guy anyway and how come he never posts on this chat?

Never responded to that �cause by the time I got it, was well down the list and doubted he would ever be back that late to read my response.

The answer is that chat board is maintained for our readers and others to sort of be self help talk, about what they are going through, with others going through the same things.   

Any chiming in there would likely intimidate their fully talking out their problems and others responding so I have a hard enough time keeping up with questions and problems on the question and answer board on the divorce recovery front page.   

A lot of those I get are marked "private" so their question or problem etc. nor my answer are never posted. What you see there is just the tip of the iceberg.

Besides, my opinions and suggestions, cures etc. are all up front articles on the sites, with divorce page now having well over 150 articles up and about another 100 in the process of being posted as we get time.

We have added a search engine (that searches ALL the articles on the site) on bottom of the right column, front page of divorce so if you have subject or question you can put key words in the on site search engine and you will know which articles we have posted so far that cover that subject or at least contain those key words..(for new articles look in the middle column new articles section, since the search engine is updated once monthly).
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Thanks for sending these newsletters to your divorcing and widowed friends. Many have subscribed for their own free copy.

If you get this forwarded by a friend here is how you subscribe to get your own free copy in you email in-box about twice a month. Have them send a blank email to divorce_recov-@topica.com

Note, some spam filters screen out some newsletters, so if you subscribe and do not get a response from us or a timely newsletter please let us know.

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #24, 5/30/03

This newsletter has readers in the shock and crying stage all the way to those using their divorce hiatus here to plan and move on to a great new life.

Therefore we have to write for a wide area of needs so we include in the newsletter a wide variety of material for many different stages.

In the last 30 days I have managed to write several new articles and Jeff has converted some of our archives to the net.

I have taken a lot of extra time to reformat them in the scan read layout to make it easier for you to absorb material from the printed web page.

Therefore I am in this issue going to list what we have just added....to the sites and talk about a couple of them here that I think are important for both the Dating Again readers and divorce readers.   

I am aware some of you subscribe to both so some of you may have the option to read some of this twice.

First of all, I often see people in chat discussions say they just want their ex back because after they have been away from them they miss them so much and just "loved them so much" they just have to try and try to get them back...no matter what....because they just can not stand to live without them....

From my observation of the coming apart process...and writing about it for over thirty years and having had over ten thousand people in my classes.... hearing this over and over....from the unknowing.... I get labelled "very cold hearted."

Understand I have been through the pain and know exactly what they are talking about.....

Can you not sympathize..and see they are in great pain and agony....they ask.

Never the less those going thru a strong emotional feeling when cut off from their ex...or stbx...(soon to be ex) announce that this strong feeling (emotional agony) is because they have determined they did not realize it but they "really really loved them" and

I say................ that is nothing but BS......wake up....deal with reality here...

They are nothing more and nothing less then a relationship addict....going through severe withdrawal and they need a fix...

They misinterpret these strong withdrawal feelings... as something else....

This is very important to understand and though I mention it in my articles often, I think it is absolute key for you to understand completely what is going on with this roller coaster of feelings and emotions so I have just this week written a new article on it...in
greater detail..go here... http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/addiction.htm

Named the article: THE REAL SOURCE OF YOUR DIVORCE PAIN.
Actually, (after spending two days reading thru our archives) (newspaper term is "morgue") we found parts one and two of a long series I wrote years ago called Divorce: tragedy or opportunity? and we promptly got them up on the web...after laboriously converting them to scan read...we could not find part three on what was the above subject.

Thought it was the key part of solving the puzzle so I just wrote an updated version of how I feel about this today......as a key article to help you in your unlocking where you are and what you are feeling...

So it is part three...

There will be a link at the bottom, back to part one and part two which we just put up also (see bottom of page) so you are encouraged to read those also... Part four...we will look for some more soon as I get time....

Here is one (article) just posted on motivating you on updating your programming with support groups, home study here etc. go here http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/obsolete_program.html

If this newsletter was sent to you by a friend and you are new to our site also we have written a new Start Here...http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/start_here.htm
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Both of the following are so important I could not decide whether to put them on Divorce newsletter or the dating again newsletter, so I put them on both and if you get both...well, maybe you can read it twice....
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Over the years I have noticed that the majority of newly singled are "very needy, do it for me"...mode, (many experienced singles avoid them like the plague..) convince me I am wonderful, they sort of seem to somehow assume the position that they are a guest in the world...they are not into..."giving" or doing it for others, they seem to be mostly just into taking...not yet moving over to becoming a warm giving person....

One of the most powerful things we did in the divorce classes was something called a "Warm Fuzzy Story" read about it here...http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/fuzzy.htm

Someone read the story aloud for the class, we noticed that when we then did an exercise to show how to give out warm fuzzies freely, many had a great deal of difficulty doing what was a simple fun thing.... The hitch? ....it required "giving".

If we can switch you over into a fun person giving out warm fuzzies everywhere you go... and do it as a matter of habit....you will become a warm ray of sunshine and you will light up people and be warmly welcomed nearly everywhere...... (To make it an automatic habit...you have to practice this for 21 days...)

How to become a warm friendly "fuzzy" distributor....go here. http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/fuzzies.htm

Sorry that we can not do exercises online to show how good a feeling, receiving fuzzies is, how giving out even a few fuzzies can change lives and most of all revolutionize your life.

After you practice doing this long enough (21 days) it becomes a "habit", requires little or no effort on your part, and like riding a bicycle after you get on to it...is automatic and becomes great fun.

This sounds like a "fuzzy" kid story....but believe me, if you take this seriously and you become a Natural habitual warm friendly fuzzy distributor, your life will never be the same.

Warning....this is likely so out of character for you as a newly singled person, that you will have to make great efforts to remember to and actually DO THIS EVERY DAY everywhere you go for 21 days...

Print these two site pages out, have a friend read these two site addresses (pages) listed above and then go out together to "practice" giving out warm and friendly fuzzies to everyone. It matters not where you go....you should have a great time....

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Did you know that ......we who put these pages together for you,.......(like most people)..... are "starved" for fuzzies.

We are so short we are coming close to shriveling up and dying....(stopping the work and expense of operating these web sites)

We work long hours, often til way after midnight to write newsletters, articles, and to edit and modify "scan read" format pages is very intensive and time consuming and we do that extra work, just to make it easier for you to absorb. We hardly even know if anybody really is using it or getting any good out of it (or even reading it)

We ask everyone at the end of the courses and after the last day, that takes the free courses for example, to send us their comments good or
bad....and.....

Since we do not ask for any money and make no charge for anything we try to do for you, it is in fact the only "return favor" we ever ask of you.

Never the less.........

Do you know that of every 250 people who take the free email courses, only ONE actually sits down and takes the time to send us comments (a fuzzy).

Comments can be good or bad...we don't care, they are still a fuzzy...we are really starved for any kind of fuzzies.

When we get one, rest assured we pass it around to everyone here who work on these web sites and newsletters as our highlight of the day..

PRACTICE SENDING WARM FUZZIES EVERYWHERE YOU GO..... right now you have "gone on the internet".

Our address for receiving warm fuzzies and even cold pricklies is: harlanjacobsen@webtv.net

Note: Enter word "Divorce" in your subject line to get past spam filters.

Snail Mail Address:
Harlan Jacobsen
2019 South Minnesota
Sioux Falls, SD, 57105
Telephone 605 335-4125
Cell phone, best bet, 605 376-4125

All fuzzies are passed on by Harlan, no matter what form they take, to Janet, Jeff, Michele, Missy and Wilda.

Note: We get over 250 spam a day because we list our email address right out in plain sight at all of our sites to make it "easy" for you to write us. If your email bounces, please try again.
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Jeff has added a search engine at the bottom right column of http://www.divorcerecovery101.com and you can enter any keywords and search the entire site for everything we have on the subject.   The search engine is updated monthly so for the latest, just look in the just added column..    

If you would like to search all of our sites... go to our Dating again site... http://datingagain101.com upper left list of search for all of our singles sites by Google.

This search covers about 80% of our content since Google does not list all of it.
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Last issue we promised to include infomation on the "sandwich" a great method for limitations with your kids, breaking up with your new relationship etc. We just ran out of room here and will include it next issue.

copyright 2003 by Harlan L. Jacobsen

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Divorce Recovery Newsletter #23, 5/12/03

Whether you have kids or the person you eventually date has kids, one way or the other there are likely kids involved in the divorce and "moving on" to a new life process.

This newsletter will take up the "divorce recovery" process for kids.
Many in the divorce process are greatly concerned about what is my divorce doing to my kids?

We have written some articles on this subject in the past and are now posting some of them. so start here:
http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/kids_part1.html
There are three parts.

We are covering here some of what is in the aritcles and some will be repeated.

Our best line is "kids can bounce", parents go splat.

If you handle your divorced life right the kids will usually do just fine, but if you are a mess, the kids are usally a mirror of the parental emotional mixed up mess.

So work on you......we try to help with that in other newsletters, knowing that as you go, so go the kids....   We will remind you of this over and over again.

This newsletter we will just draw out and call to your attention three points you will find in the aritcles.

1. YOUR KIDS WILL OFTEN BE STARVED FOR ATTENTION.

They will often have lost much of the attention of the non-custodial parent and the custodial parent is usually SO WRAPPED UP IN THEIR OWN EMOTIONAL ADJUSTMENT, giving attention to the kids is just not gotten to. Often the kids were starved for attention even before the divorce.

A. They are starved for attention even more and they subconciously notice that the only time they get attention from you, since the divorce, is when they act up or are in bad behavior.

Example: They notice that when one of them gets bad grades, they get lots of attention. (might be bad but it is still attention) The sibling that gets great grades, gets no attention at all.

B. Result of you being too tied up and pay no attention when they are doing good behavior, and you ONLY acknowledge their existance and raise hell for bad behavior, winds up,...... YOU ARE MOTIVATING THEIR BAD BEHAVIOR.

SOLUTION: Kid time...... Set aside 30 minutes a day for "KID TIME". When they try to get your attention and you brush them off, say, just bring that up at "kid time" and we will talk about it.

Set aside 30 minutes at a specified time daily and without fail, sit down with the kids and have each bring up what happened today, and what they were concerned or thinking about.

Your part is to tell each one during "kid time" what they had done right or great, or better, for the day. Bad behavior discussion is not the subject here. (except what they bring up).

Bad behavior discussion is with the individual at another time.

This "kid time" 100% attention for 30 minutes daily will do much for your kids thriving after divorce. They know and this is the evidence that they are actually "valued enough" to be worth 100% of your attention.

Doing this daily, they will require less then 30 minutes, they will want to be off doing something else.

Do it daily never the less, shortening the time to just what is needed.

2. DATING AGAIN AND THE KIDS' REACTION

This is covered in part 3 in the kids articles above but here is a brief summary of the part on how you prepare them for your going out.

Some think they are going to have to share you or lose you or part of you as they have lost the other parent as a result of your starting to go out.

Here is how you prepare them for that.

They are now familiar with kid time...time set aside just for them.

Here we are talking about "adult time".

Ask if they had to only be around all day and night with adults and NEVER ever get to play or talk with other kids.......pretty soon you would get crabby...

In this case, you explain you have to be around nothing but KIDS all the time so you get crabby.

So starting this week, every friday night is "adult time" and you get to go out and be with other adults....   I will not keep you from playing with other kids one day or more a week and you are to understand this is my night "to play" and be with other adults. Okay?

Expand this later as you and they get the idea it is okay for you to get away from kids....now and then.

3. TO SUCCEED AT SINGLE PARENTING: SET RULES. Set rules and put them in writing.....Discuss them at kid time, who is minding the rules and who is not.

With two parents there is more observation of who is getting out of bounds etc. With one parent barely able to keep themselves on the straight and narrow the children sometimes decide there are no boundaries or rules any more.

Without rules it is like crossing a scary high bridge with no guard rails. You may never run into the guard rails but it is not near as scary as it is without guard rails. Provide the rules.

Rules and designated boundaries become much more important with just one parent.

We will be posting many more articles on "single parenting" and dating...

Here, is an article on dating and baby sitting... http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/babysitting.html

Here is a new article on concentrating on what you Control and wasting
time on Concerns. http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/concerns.html

Here is one of our single switchboards http://www.singlestalkshop.com/switchboard.html
Go there and click on "Single Parenting" for our click on listings of out side links on single
parenting.

Here is another article on single parenting on "what now" on your single parenting we have posted.
http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/kids.html
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Overheard,
"When I have to have contact with my ex, it is a real drain,"

Second party, "When I have to have contact with my ex, it is not a drain...........
...........It is a sewer."

Next issue....how to handle "limitations" with the kids... How to break up with a romantic partner and how to deal with your boss...     It is all done with the Sandwich....ALL IN THE NEXT ISSUE
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First time readers that would like to subscribe to this or other newsletters or courses, look them all over and subscribe to several totally free here   click on this....
http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/divorcenewsletter.html

copyright 2003 by Harlan L. Jacobsen

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 Divorce Recovery Newsletter #22, 5/1/03

If a concerned friend who knows you are in the divorce process forwarded this newsletter and you would like to ADD yourself to this no-cost twice a month newsletter, just send a blank e-mail to: divorce_recov-@topica.com

If you have received this mailing in error, or have worked through your divorce in top shape and do not wish to receive any further mailings from us, simply go to the end of this email where you can be automatically excluded from any future mailings.
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This newsletter is sent to those going through the divorce process to remind you that it is indeed a "process" that can take a long time to work through because it is one of the most difficult and trying things you will ever go through in your life time.

It can take a smaller chunk out of your life if you understand the process and are fully informed of what timely decisions you need to make to move along the way.

We attempt here to bring to your attention what has seemed to work in understanding the process for others that have gone through a painful divorce and moved on in a relatively short time.

If we could draw a graph going up hill it would represent what lies ahead for the newly divorced.

It seems at the time every thing seems to pile on during this uphill climb and it seems at the time you will never make it to the top, carrying all of this all by yourself. It seems to take forever to ever get above this.

Eventually you do get to the point where you give up on processing and hassling what was or what "should have been".

You finally realize that the "formerly married" part of your life is over and you are now solely responsible for getting on with building a new life in a strange new land..

Arriving at that point at long last, we know it was difficult getting there, and remind you this point for you is the top of the hill end of a climb and it now levels out. Life starts to make sense again and it gets easier and easier as you proceed down the other side of the graph back to an enthusiastic new life..

On the uphill side, losses of what was dominated your life and it seemed like your life was torn apart and you worried you would never be able to have a good life again.

Now, after getting past that, new people, new adventures and new knowledge and experiences make life exciting.

We spend a lot of time and effort here and on our sites and newspaper to attempt to help expedite your getting to the "better place", but remind you here there are many traps and detours in getting on with a new life.

Decisions you make now will have a major affect on what happens in "Act two" of your life play.

Will this be a happy successful "act two" of your "great life" story?

It will be, only if you "decide" that it will be and you make that a goal. (read up on the importance and methods of accomplishing "goals" go here http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/goals.html)

Once that goal is established, then everything you do in your new life becomes relatively easy to decide.

Does this help me arrive at my new life goal?

If it does, I do it,..... if it does not fit..... I will not do it.

Without knowing where you are going and working toward somewhere, you are drifting like a ship without a destination.

You operate with a great deal of anxiety because you do not have any clear direction of determining and deciding what is the right thing to do and you do not know where you may wind up.

Many make the mistake of making "getting married again" as their new goal.

They erroneously conclude the solution to get our of their current unhappiness is to "get married again."

They accomplish their goal, but wind up unhappy in their new married life and can not understand why that is...

Their goal never was to take charge of and personal responsibility to have a new happy successful life, it was only to "get married again" and....it was relatively easy to accomplish that...

If your goal is to learn and lead a happy successful life that you take full responsibility for and you control, you get married again....ONLY if that getting married, adds to accomplishing that goal.

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We want to all be able to laugh at divorce (it helps) so we throw in some of the divorce jokes we have come across..over the years...

Unfortunately, they come in only two flavors..... Divorce jokes that men think are hilarious, and the women think that is a horrible joke.

Or the women have a big chuckle at the other way around jokes.

Last issue we had a divorce joke that the women thought was funny.... So just to be fair, here is one the women dislike and the men pass on to their divorced buddies..

Why are hurricanes named after women and why is a hurricane like your ex?

Answer: Well, when they both come on the scene they are really wet and wild........and..... When they leave, .........they take your house..... and car.
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In case you have not filed or finished the legal process of divorce, we want to call to your attention a helpful article we just put up on the divorce site at http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/legal_costs.html
Written by a Ca. attorney, John E. Harding; he gives you ten great tips on saving money in the divorce legal process.

For most divorces, the attorneys work out the "settlement" between them and the judge mostly just makes the settlement official.

As Harding points out here, when the matter has to be entirely settled by the judge, when there is no agreement, then it becomes "very expensive" in attorney fees.

Often spending as Harding says, a combined thousand dollars in attorney fees over a hundred dollar item.

If you can settle things (split it up) amongst yourselves, you can do it even without an attorney.   A paralegal can draw up the papers but he can not give you advice or represent you. Usually a few hundred dollars.

If you can not split assets up agreeably you can save a tremendous amount by having it split by a mediator. (usually a retired judge etc.) and you both agree whatever he says, goes. The fee is nothing, compared to paying two attorneys to fight over it. (typically attorneys are $5 to $10 thousand or more (sky is the limit) for each side.)

The hitch is, divorces are often bitter and one or the other refuses to "trust" their spouse (stbx) or wants to retaliate and marches over to the highest priced attorneys in town.

Then the other spouse has no choice and has to go the same route in self defense.

This unfortunately adds tremendous emotional trauma and turmoil (and considerable time) to what is already a very "trying experience" and often leaves both financially devastated as well.
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When you are nearly ready to start to think about getting out and developing new friends and dating relationships, you should subscribe to our Dating Again newsletter and start to get informed and prepared.

This issue (out in a few days) we will be telling you how to find our new "Sex Again" website.......and you might want to sneak a peak there even if not ready for that....(purely educational you know.) To subscribe to our dating again newsletter send a blank e-mail here: dating_agai-@topica.com


copyright 2003 by Harlan L. Jacobsen

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