Season of Transition: Tips for Navigating Holiday Emotions, Stress, and Grief During Separation and Divorce
1. Give Yourself Some Grace
During this time of overwhelming change and grieving, allow yourself some grace. It can be helpful to acknowledge that the holidays will magnify the emotions of this loss and change in your family including the changes in your routines, traditions, and family roles. Recognize that it is normal to feel this way and that you are not alone, especially when separation and divorce are still so new.
The Holidays do not need to be perfect (they were probably not perfect during the marriage). There is a great deal of pressure to have the ideal holiday season just like in the Hallmark movies or what it may seem like your friends and colleagues are having with their intact families. Give yourself permission and grace to simply have the best holiday you can during this time of transition and accept that it will be different, particularly if this is your first holiday after the separation. It does not need to look like anyone else’s holiday or your past holidays. This is your new normal, and navigating it after separation and divorce can make everything feel more intense.
Try to focus on a few simple things during the holidays that bring you peace and joy, perhaps this is enjoying a cup of hot cocoa in your favorite Christmas mug that your daughter made for you at summer camp. Maybe it is decorating the tree with your kids or watching your favorite holiday movie as a family. You do not need to recreate the same Christmas you experienced while living together as a family for it to be special and to make new memories for you and your children.
2. Recognize and Lean into the Sadness, Grief, and Emotions
It can be helpful to lean into the sadness, grief, and other emotions that come with celebrating the holidays after separation. When it comes to grieving a significant loss, it never works to ignore it. Grief will find you. It will ambush you. It is not going anywhere until you work through it and have some time to heal. Acknowledge these feelings and remember that it is normal to feel a sense of loss and sadness. You may even feel anger. These feelings are often magnified during the holidays. You are not just grieving what is happening now, but also the loss of what you imagined your future would be. It is normal to grieve the loss of sharing the holidays together as a family, family traditions, and family vacations. All of these memories of past holidays for many are a painful reminder that celebrating together as a family is no more. By your leaning into these difficult feelings, you begin the process of acceptance and you will be better equipped to help your children accept these changes too. Let them know these feelings are normal.
At an age appropriate level, talk with your kids about how they are feeling and encourage them to be honest about their feelings and not stuff them away. Encouraging your children to identify these emotions and why they are feeling this way will allow them to begin the process of acceptance and healing too. Maintain open lines of communication with your children and reassure them that they can always talk with you and the other parent about what they are feeling.
Even though these changes in your family are painful, especially during the holidays, they also represent an opportunity for new happy moments together. It is important to understand and explain to your kids that the sadness, anxiousness, anger, and other negative emotions can also co-exist with some happy feelings during the holiday too like excitement, hope, faith, peace and joy. Allow yourself and remind your kids to let the positive feelings in even when there are negative feelings too. Provide them with assurances that even though it hurts, it will get better.
3. How to Find Your Holiday Joy After Separation and Divorce
By helping your children find joyful moments during the holidays, you will also help yourself find that same joy. Here are a few ideas. Involve your children in creating one or two new traditions in your home. It may be making a Christmas ornament together or cooking something that was passed down to you by your grandmother. Perhaps after Christmas service, you have sushi for dinner. It can be anything. Just create some new traditions with your kids and you will be creating new memories that one day you and your children will look back on as cherished time together and the sadness of that time will seem much smaller when looking back on it.
Talk with your co-parent before the holidays about how together you may continue to celebrate some of the family’s favorite traditions you both shared with the kids over the years. Discuss how you may share (or alternate) the family traditions going forward. For example, Dad may watch the Grinch with the kids and Mom may take them to the Christmas Parade. Do not make these family traditions a competition between parents and homes. What is important is agreeing how to carry them on for the children in a joy filled way going forward. If it does become a battle ground, rather than ruining these memories for the children, consider working with a mediator to make a child-centered plan for how to carry on these favorite traditions in both homes. These conversations can feel heavier when separation and divorce are still shaping every part of the family structure.
4. Working with a Family Mediator Helps Set Parents Up for Success:
By working with a skilled family mediator early on, the mediator will facilitate healthy discussions to help parents create a child-focused parenting plan and schedule to include the holidays. An experienced family mediator will also help parents identify possible areas where conflict may arise during the holidays and discuss in advance how to approach these situations in a constructive manner when they do arise. By anticipating potential areas of conflict and having these often difficult discussions now with your mediator, the conflicts are much less likely to catch parents by surprise later during the holidays. The mediator’s goal in facilitating and drafting the parenting agreement is to minimize the opportunity for conflict, including the need for litigation in the future, to equip parents with healthy conflict resolution skills, and to help parents remain focused always on the best interest of their children. Working with a family mediator can be a stabilizing force during separation and divorce and help families move toward healthier routines.
If you are facing family conflict, consider divorce mediation. It’s a more cost-effective, less stressful, and more collaborative approach that can help you achieve a positive resolution for your family.
Call us today or schedule a free consultation and learn more about how our services can help you.
Lucy Nichols is a mediator at Colin Family Mediation Group and is an avid writer for The CFMG Blog.
