Contemplating Divorce: Whether to Stay or Go. (Part II) By Susan Pease Gadoua, LCSW (Social Worker)
In this section of the book: Contemplating Divorce Whether talks about how “Thought Habits” create feelings. She gives a number of suggestions and exercises so that the reader can discover for themselves how to respond to these feelings when they experience them.
The book then talks about how to make a plan of action. Good ideas and understanding is great, but what really helps is “doing” and doing things with a goal and a direction. Whether understands that and tailors her writing to help the reader move forward.
“Contemplating Divorce” then discusses how a relationship can be analyzed and understood and possibly corrected. Again there are specific exercises to help the reader with this effort.
There is also an in depth discussion of people understanding their needs (i.e. survival, safety, love, etc…) and then sorting out where (in or outside of the relationship) those needs can be satisfied. The question of how much can be expected from a partner and how much someone needs to find for themselves is looked at in some detail.
After her “Needs Assessment” section Whether explores how to get those needs met though discussion and completion of exercises she has created. The goal of this section is to determine who can satisfy which needs and how to handle the reality that certain needs can’t always be satisfied and how to effectively relate to that reality.
At this point Whether helps the reader reexamine the basic issue of the book whether to stay or leave the relationship.
The last part of the book is focused on what to do to leave the relationship if that is the conclusion the reader has come to. This is appropriate, as in the prior two thirds of the book, the reader is given guidelines as to:
How to understand themselves as well as what to do to rebuild a satisfying relationship, if these attempts are not successful then the next step is dealing with letting go of the relationship and all the implications of that decision.
My last entry will give a brief over view of that section of the specifics of divorcing.