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Introducing the latest transcript blog featuring an insightful interview with Karen Omand, a grief expert who specialises in helping individuals navigate the emotional complexities of divorce. In this heartfelt conversation, Karen shares her profound understanding of grief and how it can manifest before, during, and after a marriage ends.
Join us as we explore Karen’s expert perspective on the stages of grief, its unique challenges in the context of divorce, and how to move forward with compassion and resilience.
Read on for the full transcript of our interview, “Understanding Grief in Divorce.”
[Music]
Hello everybody, thank you so much for joining us once again on The Divorce Magazine which is very much a magazine, an online magazine for people going through divorce. If you haven’t seen us yet try us on YouTube, we’ve got a LinkedIn page as well, we’ve got Pinterest, we’ve got um, Twitter which is well, X which is to be Twitter, so you can find us on there and loads of articles on our website, The Divorce Magazine.co.uk um, so go on there see what you can find. We’ve got everything divorce, whether it’s legal, whether it’s um, psychological, whether you’re looking for counselling, family mediation, we have all of that on the divorcemagazine.co.uk.
One of the things I like to say about the magazine is that um, the articles that you find on there are all written by professionals. So we don’t have bloggers who write for us, it’s all professionals, qualified people who write except for those who write from an angle where there’s their own experience of divorce and how they managed it or um, separation. So do join us and see what you can find then hopefully, not hopefully, I think you will find that it’s quite helpful um, as it is you’ll find something there, if not let us know and then we will add something on there for you.
So my name is Dr Soila Sindiyo, I’m the Founding Editor of The Divorce Magazine and um, today we have Karen Omand who’s um, actually from Canada, so we have people from all over and on The Divorce Magazine, and Karen holds um, degrees in sociology and thanatology, she’ll tell us what that is in a moment, and she has lived experience of living through um, an abusive marriage and uh, subsequently a very high conflict divorce.
Focussing on the often overlooked realm of grief and divorce she co-founded The Divorce Workshop in 2021s with her colleague Kirk Mosna where, where they’re aiming to empower those on the divorce journey. As a certified grief counsellor, and divorce specialist, Karen advocates for greater awareness of grief in divorce, aiding both recovery and pre-decision Detachment. She’s the co-author of The Divorce Workbook which will be coming out this Autumn, so look out for it and um, at the end of the interview, Karen will tell us where, you can find the Divorce Workbook once it’s out. So welcome Karen!
Oh thank you for having me on, it’s a pleasure. Um, thank and thank you so much I have to say that we do have an article by Karen on, on our website so if you want to see and you know there’ll be contact, her contact … although we’ll talk about them at the end also.
What is a Thanatologist?
So one of the first questions I’d like to ask you Karen, is what is a Thanatologist? I hope I’m saying it correctly! You are it’s, it’s I think in every podcast, I get asked that question because it’s such a rare, it’s a rare degree I think, uh, it’s the only one in Canada was at the school I went to. It’s a four-year degree um, it’s the study of grief and loss and bereavement, wow, of all different types like non-death loss, suicide, ethics, like it’s interdisciplinary so um, but my whole focus is, we’re trained to look at the world through grief, and so that’s kind of what led, I’ve worked, I’ve worked for um, a lot of years with death loss, but I noticed there’s not a lot of awareness in the divorce field about grief, and how much grief there actually can be, so that’s than Thanatology. It is a, it’s a specific, niche area but um, well needed and I don’t think it’s very recognised um, in the field of divorce as much, so I’d like to you know, as we open up and talk about that I’ll share some of my insights anyways.
Yeah, and I think you’re right because when you talk about grief, the first thing that most people think of the first thought that crosses your mind is death um, in terms of physical death, losing someone that you love, but when we talk about divorce, I’ve noticed and I realised that people will talk about an ending, but there’s more to divorce than just an ending and I’m sure this is what we’re going to talk about.
The death of a relationship: what are the common factors?
So if we start off by talking about just the death of a relationship, I’m sure every relationship has an ending and it’s different for, not every relationship has an ending, every divorce has an ending. I would imagine that it’s different for different people. But maybe there’s some common factors? Yeah, so in my field of grief when I look through the lenses and I’ve worked with people, there’s about four things that are common. Now granted, all grief is unique, right? How you, you know, how we divorce is unique, how we grieve is unique, but certain things I see that’s pretty common, one is that um, they don’t even know that they’re actually maybe grieving. So, they’ve come to me and they’ll, they’ll talk to me and I’ll be like do you know that I think this is grief?
Another thing I noticed is not many people, for death loss and non-death loss, actually know what the symptoms of grief are. Some of them may have headaches, or digestive problems, or cognitive problems right? Maybe they can’t process, or make decisions, and we know divorce is huge of decisions making at the beginning. So there’s a lot of symptoms of grief that they don’t even know and I have to make awareness of that, like we have a sheet in the in the workbook where I say, take a look at this checklist and that awareness can help them go oh, pardon me, go oh maybe I’m actually grieving as well, right? It’s not just anger, and blaming, maybe there’s some major components of grief in my, in my divorce here.
And the third one I noticed when I’ve done support groups is, I’ve brought up the feelings of failure and they generally in the recovery part uh, a lot of people I’ve worked with feel like they’ve failed. And I think that’s society right? We didn’t do the, we didn’t live up to our vows. Society doesn’t like failure, you know we don’t like any bad grades, and um, so that comes up with a lot of divorce.
The last one I want to mention is the post-divorce grief. So, if you’ve been in a difficult, bully type of marriage, and you get out of that marriage, you’ll have to do some processing, the fact that you have to accept that who you were married to. And that is a component of grief as well, and that is for myself as well.
What you, what do you mean? Just, okay so, after you leave a toxic marriage, like you’ve, you’ve left an abusive marriage, as you go through the years and like for me it’s seven years, I’ve had to process the, the grief I felt. I’ve grieved the fact that I was in that marriage for that amount of time and so I’ve had to accept that reality and accept it that, yes I was with this person for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, and it was not a good marriage. And so I felt and I’ve, and others have said to me that they have felt grief about that. Does that make sense to you?
Is it, is it, when, when, when you say that is it because you made the choice that somebody Grieves about, I put myself in this situation and did I put myself in this situation, but I stayed. Yeah stayed and the reality of what that person was, right? And you know, for people that have gone through high conflict, you know, you get out and you’re thinking that’s one step but, there is a grief process of having to accept that, you know, I was in this marriage and, and um, I felt that myself as well.
And does that mean then you just you question your, your choices you question yourself yeah, yeah, yeah and you, you, you do a lot of reflecting right? And, yeah, um, I felt it myself many times, I was like I think I’m, I’m, I grieved the relationship before I left, but over the last like, the last three four years, I’ve had to grieve the fact that I was in this marriage for, this amount of time so, it’s kind of accepting of who I was married to and the choices that I made, but on that you know, we have to practice a lot of self-compassion.
Yeah, I was just thinking if, if somebody came to me and they said that, you know, thinking of themselves a certain way because they chose to marry this person, and stay with this person for a long time, I would, want to, look after them and say you know but you didn’t know, you know, it’s not like you walked in there thinking to yourself I’m walking into this marriage he or she is going, or they are going to be horrible to me but I’m going to go anyway, and I’m going to stay there you know, it’s, then, the not knowing yeah, yeah.
That’s why, for myself and others I’ve worked with you have to practice like you said there’s a lot of self-compassion right, like you have to say, you didn’t know. You know and you tried your best, like a lot of times is, you know you survived you tried your best, and there is just a bit of a component of grief there right.
Do you think that sometimes you have to be ready to leave that relationship?
Can I just ask, do you, do you think that sometimes that you have to be ready to leave a relationship? That if you leave when you’re not ready, you might leave and you might be thinking maybe I could have tried harder, maybe he wasn’t or she wasn’t or they were not that mean to me, so you live with questions, and so if you stay for two years or 3 years, even after you’ve thought I need to leave this relationship and you stay a little bit longer, it’s because you’re, kind of like preparing yourself to leave and you want to be certain that this is what I want to do. You think part of it that um, asks for somebody to, to almost wait until you’re ready and certain?
Yeah, I think a lot of people that go through divorce especially if, if they’ve been swaying a long time, they have to work themselves up to that decision, yeah, um, especially if you have children. For me, uh, personally I was grieving before I left. Okay. For quite some time, yeah, um, even though it was not a good marriage. And, and they say that about the leaver, the person who leaves their marriage, they grieve before they leave and go through, they’re almost like, two or 10 steps ahead of the person that they’re leaving. Is that your experience? Yeah, yeah, that’s my experience as well, but also I just want to mention that they’re, you know, they detach, I think on average is 5 years, but you can also, you can also grieve post-divorce as well.
Right, like I just don’t well like, once you leave, there’s a lot of relief but there can also be moments of, of grief still so, that’s what we call integration of grief where yeah, you’re integrating it more, but I just want to mention that like, I don’t want people to think oh I’ve left and then it’ll never come up again, because, it can for some. And I’ve had people say that even when you’re relieved to have left, that when, when the, I don’t know what you call it in Canada here we call it the decree absolute, when the final decree, yeah, decree absolute, comes through your door and you open it and you see that the marriage has been dissolved this, sometimes it’s like, oh, it’s almost like a moment where you cut yourself. Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty common, yeah, that it’s so I think it’s quite final. Yeah, yeah like it’s like the, the, the, the death of the relationship is final with that decree. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that many times as well.
Are the 5 stages of grief (in death) similar to the grief you experience before, during, or after a divorce?
So when, when you just started speaking you were talking about the different stages or you know, what, how, what how the manifestation of grief can present itself in divorce you know in, in post-divorce or in divorce. And, and we know that there’s uh, five stages of grief but you know, when there’s a, death of a loved one, are they similar to, what you go through with um, divorce or are there other stages of grief, or, how would somebody know that oh, I am grieving?
So, I’m just going to, as a Thanatologist um, Kübler-Ross is the, you know she’s the pioneer, one of our pioneers of, grief and loss and palliative is work as well, but Thanatologists don’t use the Five Stages of Grief. We, we use other models, because we don’t think, and I think most people know grief isn’t linear right, I think the five stages is also good, was used and is still used where it’s the brain likes simple things right, so it’s like I’m at this stage, I’m at this stage, I’m at this stage. We don’t use that, we use more if you want a different model is the, uh, Dual Process Model, which is by Stroebe and Schut? Schut? Strut, I think, and it’s more of um, loss orientation here, restorative orientation here, and you ping pang between the both um, so you have, you have your loss, so you’re, you’re grieving here heavy and then all of a sudden your friend invites you out, to go to the movies, and you’re in a bit of restorative and you, so that’s kind of a different model that we use.
That’s just one, that’s one of my favourites, there’s other models so we don’t use the five stages, as I said again, but this, this process of going back and forth is more what I see with divorce and grievers of death loss than, the, the uh, stages of grief.
What are the signs of grieving in a divorce?
What are the signs that somebody is grieving or, you know, in divorce? Um, well that it goes back to the symptoms right, like you can have anger, which could be fear-based, and crying which is the, you know that would be normal, you can be irritable, I find that, behaviourally could be changing. I don’t know if people really know, as I said before if they actually know that they’re grieving right, so other ways overdoing things, like overachieving, or underachieving, or not interested in doing anything. A lot of time grieving they get isolated and they feel down, and that’s okay you know, for a little bit um, sometimes grievers avoid. Right, uh, they tend to avoid a lot and I’m okay with avoiding for a little bit, but in divorce it’s hard to, you know things start piling on, so um, yeah, there’s, there’s um, eating, some people eat too much, and people don’t eat enough.
It can manifest in many ways, the thing about grief too is if it’s, if they’re feeling it, it’s going to come out, right grief, is grief is sneaky that way right, like um, I had a, I had a client uh, recently who started crying at work at a meeting and, she was shocked and, you know she’s like I can’t have this happening and I, you know I said to her you know if, if you don’t get it out somehow, however that is, it can be walking and physically, thinking your way through it because there’s two different, there’s two different types of grieving style that usually generally people sway in between them, it’s intuitive, and instrumental.
And intuitive is when we emote our emotions, and instrumentals when we think our way through and generally people sway between the two. So, for her, you know I told her to kind of lean into that a little bit when she’s feeling it and work through it through journaling, however certain tools for certain different type of grievers um, other ones just want to, you know they want to think their way through it you know, or, or to do things with their grief, that can be, you know, different for everybody. Yeah, yeah.
Is there a timescale when it comes to grieving a divorce?
And, and this might sound like a silly question but I know, one of the things that I struggle with when I’m working with, with um, families or clients where they have had a loss is the question of, but it’s been 18 months you know why are they still, you know, feeling like this so it’s been six months, so it’s been you know, is there, you know what I’m going to ask, is there a time scale, where you would meet somebody and they’re still grieving their divorce six years later, not wanting, is six years too long? Six months? 18 months? You know, what would you say? As a, yeah, like well you’re the psychologist you, you, you know, you know how to work this I personally I, I don’t, within a year or two I don’t, it’s a huge loss for, for some people right, so, and what I look for is baby steps of movement forward right?
What I look for there’s no closure, right, it’s integration is what we call right, so what I like to see is when I’m working with divorce, as well as death loss, is baby steps. And if I see little baby steps, and they’re slowly trying to, but I can tell you I had um, I was doing a grief presentation for a seniors group, and it was, it was a lot of seniors and some of them were widows and widowers, but there was a lady that came on and she’s like I have been divorced for 20 years and you know how angry I am. And that, you know, that I would intervene and say, for 20 years, she was holding on to that, anger and bitterness and you could see on her face right like, that is when intervention needs right, like she needs someone like you, or some grief counselling or, something to help her uh, start rebuilding her life up again so.
I have seen it a few times, um, but generally, the, generally, for most with the right type of support they recover. Yeah, yeah I don’t have a particular timeline um, I like to see little steps. Yeah, yeah, okay yeah, I think that’s fair enough, because you know if somebody just stays static also sometimes, and it continues in that way, I might be tempted to ask what are they gaining from just staying there, what are they um, getting from that because it’s almost like you don’t really want to stay somewhere that’s uncomfortable unless it’s something else is a secondary gain somewhere. But then that depends on how long, you know also.
Whether you have been left or are the leaver, does the reason matter in terms of grief?
Does the reason for the divorce matter in terms of grieving? So two parts to this question there’s a part, the part where the one who’s been left and is grieving, or the leaver who’s leaving because there has been domestic abuse, or there has been, infidelity, you know um, does the reason matter in terms of grief? Yeah I think so, yeah, yeah, I, I think it to me I’ve had it where someone was married to someone for 30 years, didn’t really know exactly what was like, that they were coming like they were coming, going to get divorced had thought they had a lovely family, and they come home and decides to tell this other person that they’re divorcing her, after 30 years.
Difference compared to a couple who’s been who you’ve probably worked with that have tried for years to make this work, and they’re both just exhausted and, it almost feels like the right choice. And I think for grievers, the one that, the, as we said before, the one that was deciding to leave, like I was, I was grieving before, right, and then the one that was left they don’t have a lot of control. So there’s another element of that right, so um, I do find the ones that were, that were left, to sometimes grieve, have harder time, yeah, depending on why right, so cheating, financial abuse, are big ones, yeah, yeah.
And also sometimes it can come as a shock, trauma, like you’re saying with the, the ones who are married for 30 years and then, yeah, you know, it’s like, it’s all over in, in a matter of moments. Yeah and your whole life, kind of like a sudden death, it’s, it’s gone and everything that you’ve built together and that secure base safe haven thing, that attachment system that you had is just, gone and I don’t think there’s a lot of support for those type of people. That’s true, that’s true um, it’s like starting all over again without somebody but then the person, is still present it’s not like they have died, they are still alive.
Do you think that the grief that comes with divorce affects children differently?
Do you think that the grief that comes from a divorce affects children differently, where they’re children than you know, when they’re parents? I was just thinking about that as you know we’re speaking. Yeah, I think, so yeah, uh, I’m also from a divorced family, as a child and any time I transitioned, from my mom who I was very, very attached to, to my dad and his wife, I would cry myself to sleep right, so, um, another thing is, is what parents have to understand is, you know, when you’re co-parenting, this is personal as well as, I want to just tell you guys this, I’m sure you already know this but, when they’re transitioning, you’re going to miss them 50% of the time, because a lot of people have joined custody now right, 50/50.
The child though can be grieving 100% of the time, because once if they’re with their dad, they could be missing their mom, if they’re with their mom, they can be missing their dad. So it’s just kind of awareness of that, yeah, you’re, you’re really missing them, when they’re not with you, just remember that the kids, and myself when I went through it, they’re missing the parents all the time, right, yeah.
Just an awareness thing for, for co-parenting. Yeah, it’s just something I want to um, let people know that children do grieve and I think it, you know depends on as you said the layers of loss, but like you know, one example is like a younger like, three, two, three year old could start peeing their pant, like peeing their bed again or, actually, you know, and I think if I remember correctly age, you know the tweens years are pretty tough for divorce, you know so, um, we have to be mindful of that and I think, sometimes we’re so overwhelmed as a parent when we’re going through divorce, we kind of forget. Yeah, that our kids are grieving as well, about this as well.
Yeah, I think that’s a really good point in terms of um, the children and grieving 100%, you know the transitioning, you know, sometimes they say oh well you have two homes now, you have two Christmases, two birthdays, it’s not really, probably what they would rather have. And probably with what, what you’re saying, maybe encouraging parents to just, read read, read on, the on Children of Divorce, um, even if it’s paying for one session to just have some psycho education around what my children might be going through like you’re saying, the teens and the tweens and the you know, those ones um, who are like 10 to, you know even babies feel it, even babies feel the vacuum that has been left by the other parent not being there and infants.
I think that’s really um, important um, can I just ask how old, if you don’t mind, how old you were when your parents divorced? So I was six months, oh you were six months so when I say babies do, then you know what I’m talking about, yeah, and I never, knew my parents together. Right, so I never had, a mom and dad together, yeah, and back then, so this was the 70s, um, I saw my dad four days a month, okay. Because, yeah, so every other weekend yeah, so I was very, very attached to my mother, yeah, um, that’s just the way it was back then I think, you know, um, it’s gotten a lot better but, with your past?
Yeah like, like with, with shared custody it’s getting better we’re, you know I think there’s still some struggles with that but, yeah I didn’t, I protested, I didn’t want to go, you know and that’s interesting because by the time you were six, from six months, to the time where you became vocal, where you were more, I mean we’re talking about another maybe 12 months before you can just, you know vocalise let’s say for instance or another 6 months, but it’s almost like you, held the knowledge that this is not what I want, although you were just a baby when it, it didn’t, you know how children say oh you people say oh but children are so resilient and um, I usually, usually ask resilient from what? You know they don’t know anything else, what are they bouncing back from? You know.
I think that’s more of a comfort for them, yeah, yeah, than in reality what it is yeah, yeah. I was, I was always pretty, when I met my new stepmother I made it clear at 5, that you’re not my mother. Wow, yeah, yeah, something that that setup you had grown up with it so they wouldn’t you know, they wouldn’t been, someone can assume that oh no this is how she grew up, she doesn’t know any better, and you know, so, yeah, very interesting.
How do you know when a relationship is over?
Yeah, so how do you know when a relationship is over? Someone might be watching this and listening to this and thinking but I’m not sure whether to go or to stay how, how, how does one know that okay this relationship is over? You know, that was like a question I had to really think about because everybody’s so unique as well you know. For me personally I’ll tell you what happened to me was cracks were starting to show up. I would ask my friends certain questions, I would ask my family that were divorced already, I’m like oh so how did that go? Like things were starting, I was, think I was starting to plan things. I went to the library, I was starting to look up things, and then it kind of dawned on me that I started to talk about it more, and I was building up to leaving now I was in a very difficult marriage.
So that’s how I built the courage to leave mine right, I kind of started planning. Um, I’ve had clients where they said they were, they were getting they were going out they were embarrassed of their ex. I’ve had it where they had felt contempt, um, communication breakdown you know, the Gottman is the famous couple in the states they’ve done a lot of good research there, I’m sure they have great podcasts that you guys can listen to but, uh one of the questions, because everybody asked this right how do I know and I, I, I wish there was some golden, assessment right where we could give them and say okay here take this book, take this little checklist, like the DSM5 and check off this, but you, there, there’s nothing like that right.
So one of the things I, one of the things I, I’ve done to a few clients and said okay so, if you were to go home and all their things were packed up at the door, like all of it was packed up, and they were leaving, I want you to write about that. How would you feel about that? And see what comes up right, so see how you feel if you’re, feeling really terrible about it then maybe you guys can work it out or there’s just something smaller going on um, it’s a unique, it’s unique to everybody I don’t have a, yeah, like a, the right answer for everybody.
I actually think that’s a pretty good assessment, oh, do you? Yeah I actually do because then it makes it very, very personal, and somebody might think oh okay I get home, and his bags are packed or, he’s left how am I going to feel. Um, and they might think oh I’m not sure, so that can kind of say well no you’re not sure so maybe things can work out. If somebody’s like oh my god, please let that happen, let it be so then maybe it’s, it’s time to think, if somebody else thinks no I can’t do that because of the children, yeah, I think it’s a pretty good way of assessing the situation, whether to go, yeah and I would like them to write like, I’d like them to if they you know I’m, I’m, I love narrative therapy so it’s like write it down like maybe write reflect on what you’re thinking. Really reflect on it, really reflect on it, yeah, because it’s not, it’s it shouldn’t be a decision taken lightly, you know.
It is a, it is a huge decision I think that’s why people take so long in leaving because if you, if you have kids but I, I’m working with somebody that doesn’t have kids and it’s still been a really tough decision, you know, yeah, because even when they’re no kids it’s still a family, a couple is still a family. They’re a family, and that’s what, the one, the one I, I’ve been working with she’s like but they’re my family, you know, and that hurts right and, and, and it’s painful. Yeah, yeah.
How do you get to the acceptance stage after a divorce?
A lot of the times you’ll he not just in divorce and um, in grief but a lot of the times people say you just have to accept that it’s over, you just have to accept that it’s over which is nice, and it’s great to say that and it’s true, but how do you get to acceptance? That’s a huge step.
Yeah, acceptance in the grief world there’s a couple of things, acceptance of the reality of the loss, and then on the other end is trying to make meaning out of it all. So, acceptance is, so in my field is if you think about it we talked about this already the layers of loss right, so um, think about it this way, so we have, when we’re divorcing, we have intangible losses. Right such as your identity right, and then you have tangible losses, which is like the house, the chattels right, the stuff in your home, the money that’s going out for legal bills, stuff like that and then, so, acceptance of a loss is great we, we all want them to get there, but there’s a lot of loss to get through, right. And to get through all those layers of losses you have to know that you have all these layers of losses, and then you have to accept those layers of losses.
And then we need to start, rebuilding your life so if you think about it as, if you have a house, and you have a foundational crack, and the crack is the divorce, and the acceptance is kind of you’re slowly trying to heal that crack a bit, but then you’re trying to rebuild it with bricks right, your new life, you’re trying to make meaning out of this painful situation. And, once you start doing that, then slowly the acceptance is starting to happen and then you’re rebuilding your life and, and that’s kind of that making meaning bit again, if that makes sense to you? Yeah, yeah, making meaning of your experience, I’m yeah, and, and integrating that into rediscovering who you are again right, like, I’m sure you’ve talked to many people that it’s, you know, working on rediscovering who you were, and who you are now, is part of part of recovering too, so.
But rebuilding, yeah, rebuilding your life up, because that’s what divorce is too, it’s, it is rebuilding, the life that you want or that you, you’ve been given, right because if you’ve been left, and I, the thing is though it’s funny as a Thanatologist people always say well how do I do this, how do I make meaning um, how do I re, and I’m like I, that’s I can suggest things for you, but ultimately it’s up to you what fills you up right, and that takes time as well. Yeah. That’s more in the recovery like section of a divorce, yeah, the recovery can be a long process, and I think what I have heard is, for those, you know earlier on when you were talking about those who will throw themselves into their jobs and into their work so they will just preoccupy themselves, what I’ve noticed is that sometimes, it can come back later to catch up with them, in one form or the other maybe, they just don’t want to have another relationship, or they jump into another relationship quite quickly and um, without having dealt with, everything else that was, you know, that was coming from there and they walk into this one with everything that’s there.
What advice would you give to someone who is putting up a front but internally, stuck in their past relationship?
Let’s say I’m your client, let’s pretend I’m your client and I’ve come to you, and it’s been, three years since my divorce, and I’m still struggling um, I’m going out, I’m seeing people, I’m putting up a front as in, no I’m good it’s okay I know he’s happy, I’m happy and everything, but inside me I’m, struggling. You’re still stuck and I’m yeah, exactly, I’m still stuck. What, what advice would you give me? The thing that I look for most people that are stuck is I want to know what their solid support systems are like because, what type of friends are they doing, are they, so, if you have in, in my cases that I’ve, that I’ve dealt with as well as in death loss and divorce loss is the ones that have, the best support systems, do better.
Okay, so, I’m not talking about just friends, I’m talking about do you have good peer support. Peer support meaning are you talking to other people that have either gone through divorce, or are in, have been with you kind of at the same time of divorce, but they’re good for you right, they’re not making you angry, they’re not making you uh, more sad, so peer support I look for.
I also look for yourself right, so that’s when um, how are they actually? Are they leaning into their feelings? Are they um, distracting like we talked about before avoiding because avoidance and grief, go hand in hand because who wants to be in that much pain and then the other ones is professionals, like maybe they need to see you, right like maybe they need a counsellor, they need therapists to work on their whole life story right, like um, maybe they’re feeling at the core rejected, right um, and then the fourth one is friends and family.
But, but the thing is with friends and family is, and I actually have an exercise in the book about this, is you need to make sure you’re, you’re being supported by the right type of friends and family, right because sometimes you’re not, sometimes you’re not going to be supported if you’re picking the wrong people to support you right. So, so that’s kind of what I look at, for first thing and that’s just kind of the Thanatologist me because I’ve seen it where even with the loss of a child, when I’ve worked with mothers, which I’ve done quite often is, if they have a, this type of support system, which is very difficult loss they tend to um, they’ll always grieve forever but they tend to do better than ones that are not um, well supported. Yeah, if that answers some of that question?
It does, it does and I think um, that part where you’re talking about choosing who’s going to be your support system, who’s going to be there for you because you can have some really well-meaning friends and family um, who are there on your side but, you know um, and consciously or without you know being aware of it they’ll be uh, fanning the flames of your anger, so you then they’ll be like so what has he done now, what has she done now, I would never, you know what, I’ll email him and you know, and all of that I’m not, you I wouldn’t take that if I were you, so that’s kind of like choosing who you know, who’s actually nurturing you.
Right and is that healthy for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and I also want to say is with the peers, that’s why I said you got to be mindful of the divorce peers because if you have one that’s like, really angry, well you’re going to feed off that right like we all feed off each other right so if they’re really angry and, you know you’re going to start getting angrier and, and so it’s just to be mindful of who you’re spending time with because you want, you want to be able to get validated, but you also need to start, you know, moving forward so um, those are something that, you know that I would look at closely. Yeah.
Finally, Karen could you tell us a little bit about your, your Divorce Workbook we’ve mentioned it just before um, that’s supposed, it’s coming out this Autumn. So, what is it about? where can we get it? Um, just how would it help somebody?
So this is going to be on Amazon, we’ve actually, we actually included um, some UK bits in it too because um, yeah, because divorce is, divorce, divorce right, wherever you go I mean it’s a different cultures everything but um, this Divorce Workbook we, we worked on it for about two years and about, 49 of, it’s 200 pages about 49 of that is self- test and little workouts, that I’ve designed and Kirks designed and um, they’re all to help you engage in the divorce process so um, example one of them is in the financial information is, are you anxious about money? Right, and it’s just a simple exercise, and it’s a great foundational workbook um, for those that are exploring or going through divorce.
It’s not going to replace the lawyer, the mediator, or the counsellor, or the, you know uh, financial people, but it is going to give you a good foundational start, because I don’t really think many people who haven’t been through divorce know exactly what divorce is like and it, it’s based on six units so the first unit is insights right, so, this is kind of some exercises and some tips on what it’s really like and then there’s legal information like, how to keep your legal bills down, how to pick a good lawyer, uh, what does the divorce process kind of look like, and then there’s emotions, which is, you know my favourite unit, unit.
Um, and then there’s a financial information, and then co-parenting, because that’s a big adjustment no who knows how to do that you know right it’s, it’s tough and then there’s recovery which is uh, probably the best easiest unit right, out of all of divorce right, but so yeah, we’ve been working hard we’re super excited and we wanted to do it because we wanted to make it an affordable option. Yeah, so everybody could get it, not just you know because, there’s a lot of great stuff out there but, we want to make it affordable for everybody.
Yeah, yeah, and I think what you’re talking about the different units that you’re talking about it sounds like they go from, they can help while you’re thinking about it and, and wondering about it to just after you have left but there, there are two units there that I think uh, and you put them just both of them right back to back at the end um, one of the big ones is the co-parenting bit which is um, always such a big deal but I’ve had solicitors saying that a lot of the times the financial bit tends to be the one lingering longest, they can reach the co-parenting bit and then the financial bit is the one that lingers longest and can end up costing a lot of money. And deciding on co-parenting when you’re grieving also and you’re full of anger and you’re full of rage and um, you’re not eating well you’re not sleeping well and, and the kids are not, pretty much doing the same as you it can be quite challenging, quite difficult.
You have to almost be the, the best parent, at the worst time of your like, could be, if you’re, you know like you’re super stressed, you’re not sleeping, you’re not eating, you, you could be crying, you know you having to work, you have to do it all, and you’re doing it all on your own now. Yeah, however percentage of the time, yeah, and what I, you know this better than I do but a lot of times you have to learn to repair, right, so if you over speak with your kids or you’re a little bit irritable, you shout or something, you show up as a human and say you know what mommy’s just having a bad day and I’m very sorry and um.
Exactly. The number of times that I say that to parents, and I’m not just saying the ones who are going through divorce but also just when I’m running parenting groups and I just say, if you make a mistake and you know you’ve made a mistake just say sorry, you know just say sorry, it’s not going to, show you as being weak or, you know, but it’s just saying you know what, no you’re right I shouldn’t have said that, really sorry about that, you know. Yeah, um, and also when parents argue in front of the child which can happen and will happen during divorce, almost certainly I would say, and sometimes I have parents who will be, you know oh no we had this this really huge argument before when he came to drop, you know, drop off the children, and I’ll say so were the children there? Yeah they were there, so what have you said to them, oh no, oh no, no nothing we haven’t talked about it.
And exactly, and I’m like well, um, you might want to talk about it because they have not forgotten, you know, it’s not like they, they forget about it just talk to them about it and say I’m really sorry that, you saw what happened or what, you heard what I said to daddy not right, not good, I’m really sorry that I put you through that.
Another thing I want to mention too as a child of divorce too is um, the tension that is felt with no talking, yeah, so transition days, there’s absolutely silence but the tension a child feels it’s like thick and I, and I would think it would be mindful for everybody that’s going through this is, is you may just want to try to act, civil, for the child’s sake so, you don’t need to talk like no tomorrow you just say hello and try to just make it as, as easy, win the Oscar, whatever, you have to do hello, right, win the, just hello, here yes, you know what I mean and it could just help the kids because I felt a lot of anxiety on transition days and it wasn’t like they were always fighting in front of each other it was just the heaviness of it all.
Should separated parents still get each other Father’s Day / Mother’s Day cards?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, um. I have one last question just because we’re talking about um, I want your view on this, I say this to parents but sometimes they’re like you out of your mind I am not doing that I kind of encourage them to, still give Father’s Day cards and Mother’s Day cards and even though you cannot stand your ex, just not for you, it’s from the children. Let’s go get your mum a card, let’s go get your dad a card, you know you pick it and then they write it and they give it, because otherwise would you think, you think. Yeah I think it’s good. Yeah.
My parents never did that um, but remember the 70s there wasn’t a lot of, I think research was starting back then so, I give my parents, they did the best they could with the, little knowledge they had. But yeah, it’s very hard, um, very hard, to do that but it, it is for the betterment of the children, right because children are pretty you know, if, if co-parenting’s done right, children turn out okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah they do, they do.
Karen thank you so very much for taking the time to speak with us and you know at The Divorce Magazine and I hope our readers, I know our readers, and our, because it’s going to go on the divorcemagazine.co.uk website as well, oh great, and it’s going to go on um, our YouTube channel and then it’s going to go on The Divorce Magazine LinkedIn, and so forth, um, I can’t wait for people to listen to this because I think the knowledge that it’s okay to grieve for a lost relationship and okay whe, whether you’re aware of grieving for a lost relationship or not, it does, it doesn’t mean that you don’t go through it.
Thank you very, very much for taking the time and thank, thank you for having me on um, it’s really, I have a real passion to try to, yeah, make more people aware of this um, the grief of divorce. So, yeah, yeah. Thank you very much you’re doing a good job doing it now the work was out. I hope so. Thank you very much, thank you.
How can people contact you? Oh yeah, so I’m um, www.divorceworkshop.ca you can email me at karen@divorceworkshop.ca we’re on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and YouTube as well so. Do you work with people just from all over the world? Yeah, yeah, because it’s grief, like because it’s, it’s not legal and not financial it’s like I can, I do yeah, I, I, I, do all over the world, yeah, and you’re super qualified as well so yeah, yeah I tried!
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Read more articles by Karen Omand.
About Karen Omand BASoc BAThan CT
Karen Omand, holding degrees in sociology and thanatology, specialises in guiding individuals through grief, drawing from her own experiences of high-conflict divorce, parental loss, and abusive marriage. Focusing on the often-overlooked realm of grief in divorce, she co-founded the Divorceworkshop in 2021 with Kirk Mosna, aiming to empower those on the divorce journey. As a certified Grief Counsellor and Divorce Specialist, Karen advocates for greater awareness of grief in divorce, aiding both recovery and pre-decision detachment. She is the co-author of The Divorce Workbook, coming out this summer.
Alongside Kirk, she assists individuals in informed decision-making, proactive preparation, and strategic planning for healing and recovery. Her story of resilience and empathy inspires others to navigate divorce with courage. Connect with Karen on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn check her website Divorceworkshop.ca, or sign up for the Divorceworkshop’s newsletter.
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