Divorce with Compassion

About Me

How I Descended the Rocky Path
With an Open Mind and a Loving Heart
copyright Laurie Rubin
Feb. 1, 2003
For support with your divorce you can e-mail me at LaurieMRubin@aol.com

In February 2000, my husband of seven years repeated pledges of never-ending love and fidelity. In August 2000, he voiced concerns about not feeling in love. In June 2001, Daniel (not his real name) moved out. By early September 2001, he had severed all communication with me, contacted a lawyer and begun suing for a divorce. Final divorce papers were signed in June 2002.

Daniel’s presence in my life had filled my needs for support, empathy, appreciation, sharing, security, commitment, inspiration, compassion and love, to provide a partial list. Losing my long-term partner felt devastating. As if that wasn’t enough, I also had to come to grips with another consequence of Daniel’s leaving. Daniel’s desire to be actively involved as a father meant a drastic limitation on the time I could be with and nurture my beloved daughter. I had a strong need to parent, coupled with a deep intuitive belief that young daughters have a deeper need to be with their mothers than with their fathers.

From the start of my harrowing journey, I worked to integrate Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (NVC) into all my responses. (See below for an explanation of NVC.) Using NVC was an extension of a wedding vow and a choice to honor the integrity of both Daniel and myself. I credit NVC with being the single most important thing to help me cope and eventually heal. The other key healing force was my daily practice session with my exuberant Australian Shepherd dog. I don’t mean to imply that NVC made it easy. It was never easy. The break up was the longest deeply painful period I have ever experienced.

It is the healing that followed the pain that excites me and gives me hope. The NVC process, and more specifically the giving and receiving of empathy, changed my life. Empathy altered the quality of grief from misery and despair to mourning and compassion, and then finally to healing. I’d like to share some of my experience with the hope that it might help others going through a similar process.

Throughout the separation and divorce Daniel and I disagreed on countless topics, every one of them wrapped in high emotion. Dozens of times during the divorce process I had to choose a response to something Daniel said or wrote. I often felt an enormous amount of disagreement with Daniel’s proposals, yet I didn’t want to react out of anger or spitefulness. I so wanted my response to be effective in moving us toward a collaborative agreement. I worried over how to respond to Daniel’s communications when they so totally conflicted with my memory of the past and my understanding of the present. I worried about how to respond when his words so strongly failed to meet my needs for compassion, humane treatment, and acknowledgement of who I am. Virtually every time I reacted, I had to receive empathy for my pain before I could begin to find a path that met my need for compassion, honor and honesty and that I believed would contribute to our daughter’s well-being.

One of my goals throughout this process was (and continues to be) to find empathy for Daniel. In no way was this a philosophical or do-good approach for me. This was a process to help me feel less pain. My experience has shown me that when I become conscious of the human needs underlying the behaviors of someone I’m in conflict with, it lessens my anger, misery and despair. When I connect with the beautiful universal human need motivating the “other,” I relax, I breathe, I feel compassion.

My experience has also shown me that I can’t usually arrive at this healing spot simply by trying to empathize with another person. If I start there, my attempts at empathy become hollow NVC vocabulary. One of the first things I remember learning about Marshall Rosenberg’s model was the phrase, “Me first, always.” At first this seemed a paradoxical and impossible way to create a world of sharing and caring. Now I am convinced that this is the process I must follow if I want to end up feeling compassion, connection and empathy for the man who used to be my partner-for-life. First I needed empathy for all the emotions stimulated in me. Then I could open my heart to find empathy for Daniel. Finally, I was able to choose an action that I believed would move us forward on the path of co-parenting our beloved daughter.

I got my empathy in a number of ways. (See below.) I also created for myself a unique kind of NVC session to prepare myself for legal paperwork, mediation and court appearances. I sought out the support of a friend in the NVC leadership program. I asked her if she would be willing to meet with me on a regular basis to help me plan my responses in a way that would meet my needs for compassion and integrity. These NVC strategy sessions were invaluable.

Line by line we would pore over court documents filed by Daniel in his quest to increase our daughter’s time in his new home and to divorce as rapidly as possible. Sentence by sentence I would receive empathy for the anguish stimulated in me. Paragraph by paragraph we would translate Daniel’s statements into feelings and needs language. I would try to empathize with the person crying out because his needs weren’t being met. I would seek to connect with the sacred human spirit inside Daniel. Finally we would strategize on what wording I might use to respond. What language might I employ that would honor Daniel’s motivations and still speak my truth?

Here’s an example of how I used the NVC strategy sessions. When I read Daniel’s 22-page petition for a court order requiring our six-year-old daughter to spend half of each month with him and away from me, I exploded with emotion. I felt astounded, afraid, angry, and desolate. This didn’t meet my needs for trust, respect, humane dialog, nonviolent conflict resolution, or wanting to provide stability and nurturing for our daughter. So much of Daniel’s written statement conflicted with my memory of events and thus didn’t meet my need for congruency. His comments about my actions didn’t match how I would have described myself or how I could remember Daniel talking about me for almost ten years. Of all the unmet needs that were stimulated in me, my need to be acknowledged was central to my pain. Over and over through the process I became aware of how important it was for me to be seen and heard.

Once I connected with my need to be seen and with my vision of who I see myself as, I could breathe peacefully again. Then we turned to empathy for Daniel. Clearly he was frustrated, angry and annoyed. What could have motivated him to take me to court instead of negotiating with me? What needs were being served by including details about our life in papers meant for a judge? With the aid of my NVC strategy partner, I guessed Daniel was motivated by his needs for autonomy, relief from pain, wanting to nurture our daughter, and wanting to be validated as a parent. This helped me stop picturing Daniel’s words as an attack on me and instead view them as a call for attention to his needs. From this space I could more easily plan how to answer, honoring Daniel and his role as a father while fighting for our daughter to have more time with her mother.

After Daniel took me to court concerning custody of our daughter, he agreed to work with a mediator to settle financial issues. When he proposed a specific amount of monthly child support, our mediator eagerly shared with us a way we could both end up with more money in the bank. By restructuring the support and calling a portion of Daniel’s support “family support” or “child and spousal support,” we could each legally save approximately $1000 each year on federal taxes. To my surprise and to the mediator’s apparent astonishment, Daniel flat out refused.

Here’s how I got through this using NVC. I felt surprised and disgusted. I thought to myself, “How could anyone be so stupid that they would turn down more income, especially someone who has been complaining repeatedly about how tight his money situation is?” I translated that thought into this: Daniel’s refusal doesn’t meet my needs for justice, for financial security, for taking care of our daughter’s material needs, or for thoughtful decision making. After the session, I decided to try explaining the mediator’s plan to Daniel in other words. As I prepared an email letter to Daniel, I worked on empathizing with him. This is what I wrote:
Dear Daniel,
… I know you and I share a need for peace that is not met by the way the federal government spends its funds. I would like to understand better why this restructuring does not meet your needs. I'm wondering if it is your need for integrity and honesty that keeps you from choosing the restructure? If you are refusing to pay spousal support, perhaps it seems dishonest to have a court document calling your payments spousal support? Could it also be your need for autonomy that is not met? I know you really value the idea of my supporting myself 100%. Perhaps reading the mediator’s restructure conflicts with your need to communicate clearly that you choose to end spousal connection and responsibility?

I felt a huge flood of relief after writing the letter. When I connected with the beautiful human needs which might have been motivating Daniel, my anger dissipated. Although Daniel didn’t reply and he never changed his mind on the issue, my needs for understanding and connection were met, and I could move on without resentment. A follow up discussion on this topic led to Daniel’s agreeing to a substantial lessening of the amount I paid to buy him out of our house. This helped meet my needs for financial security and fairness.

Until Daniel left the house in June 2001, ours had been a harmonious relationship. We agreed much more often than we disagreed. Raised voices were virtually never heard in our house. What happened? I found out a lot from listening to Daniel in the period before our separation. It seems my partner had learned so successfully as a child to hide his true wishes in the hope that others would want him that he had lost the ability to know his own needs. When he agreed with me throughout our relationship, often neither one of us knew that Daniel might not have been speaking honestly about what he wanted.

Looking back now I feel sad to imagine how many times during our relationship, Daniel was needing more attention, while insisting everything was fine and that he didn’t want anything. I have tried hard not to blame myself for this. As much as I’d like to be able to resolve conflict and create connection by myself, I see now that if my partner could not share his feelings and ask for what he wanted, there was no way I could have successfully offered to meet his needs. How tragically sad for both of us that I couldn’t contribute to the joy of the most beloved person in my life.

Today Daniel is married to the woman he told me about in the summer of 2000. Our daughter splits her life evenly between our two homes, says she is happy and no longer complains bitterly about leaving mom for so many nights. Although he still refuses to speak to me under most circumstances Daniel and I follow a mutually agreed upon parenting, which provides for a mostly conflict free relationship.

My heart wrenching pain has flowed away, leaving behind a growing well of compassion and understanding. I feel proud when I look back at my actions during the divorce. I did everything I could think of to advocate for a process of collaboration and concern for family. I refrained from angry remarks. I worked diligently to empathize with Daniel’s underlying needs whenever he spoke angrily. All the empathy I received for my pain and the empathy I felt for Daniel helped me heal and prepare for the next adventure in my life. It’s my hope that I can use what I learned during this journey to support others in an equally painful place meet conflict with compassion.


	Divorce with Compassion

	About Me How I Descended the Rocky Path With an Open Mind and a Loving Heart copyright Laurie Rubin Feb. 1, 2003 For support with your divorce you can e-mail me at LaurieMRubin@aol.com In February 2000, my husband of seven years repeated pledges of never-ending love and fidelity. In August 2000, he voiced concerns about not feeling in love. In June 2001, Daniel (not his real name) moved out. By early September 2001, he had severed all communication with me, contacted a lawyer and begun suing for a divorce. Final divorce papers were signed in June 2002. Daniel’s presence in my life had filled my needs for support, empathy, appreciation, sharing, security, commitment, inspiration, compassion and love, to provide a partial list. Losing my long-term partner felt devastating. As if that wasn’t enough, I also had to come to grips with another consequence of Daniel’s leaving. Daniel’s desire to be actively involved as a father meant a drastic limitation on the time I could be with and nurture my beloved daughter. I had a strong need to parent, coupled with a deep intuitive belief that young daughters have a deeper need to be with their mothers than with their fathers. From the start of my harrowing journey, I worked to integrate Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (NVC) into all my responses. (See below for an explanation of NVC.) Using NVC was an extension of a wedding vow and a choice to honor the integrity of both Daniel and myself. I credit NVC with being the single most important thing to help me cope and eventually heal. The other key healing force was my daily practice session with my exuberant Australian Shepherd dog. I don’t mean to imply that NVC made it easy. It was never easy. The break up was the longest deeply painful period I have ever experienced. It is the healing that followed the pain that excites me and gives me hope. The NVC process, and more specifically the giving and receiving of empathy, changed my life. Empathy altered the quality of grief from misery and despair to mourning and compassion, and then finally to healing. I’d like to share some of my experience with the hope that it might help others going through a similar process. Throughout the separation and divorce Daniel and I disagreed on countless topics, every one of them wrapped in high emotion. Dozens of times during the divorce process I had to choose a response to something Daniel said or wrote. I often felt an enormous amount of disagreement with Daniel’s proposals, yet I didn’t want to react out of anger or spitefulness. I so wanted my response to be effective in moving us toward a collaborative agreement. I worried over how to respond to Daniel’s communications when they so totally conflicted with my memory of the past and my understanding of the present. I worried about how to respond when his words so strongly failed to meet my needs for compassion, humane treatment, and acknowledgement of who I am. Virtually every time I reacted, I had to receive empathy for my pain before I could begin to find a path that met my need for compassion, honor and honesty and that I believed would contribute to our daughter’s well-being. One of my goals throughout this process was (and continues to be) to find empathy for Daniel. In no way was this a philosophical or do-good approach for me. This was a process to help me feel less pain. My experience has shown me that when I become conscious of the human needs underlying the behaviors of someone I’m in conflict with, it lessens my anger, misery and despair. When I connect with the beautiful universal human need motivating the “other,” I relax, I breathe, I feel compassion. My experience has also shown me that I can’t usually arrive at this healing spot simply by trying to empathize with another person. If I start there, my attempts at empathy become hollow NVC vocabulary. One of the first things I remember learning about Marshall Rosenberg’s model was the phrase, “Me first, always.” At first this seemed a paradoxical and impossible way to create a world of sharing and caring. Now I am convinced that this is the process I must follow if I want to end up feeling compassion, connection and empathy for the man who used to be my partner-for-life. First I needed empathy for all the emotions stimulated in me. Then I could open my heart to find empathy for Daniel. Finally, I was able to choose an action that I believed would move us forward on the path of co-parenting our beloved daughter. I got my empathy in a number of ways. (See below.) I also created for myself a unique kind of NVC session to prepare myself for legal paperwork, mediation and court appearances. I sought out the support of a friend in the NVC leadership program. I asked her if she would be willing to meet with me on a regular basis to help me plan my responses in a way that would meet my needs for compassion and integrity. These NVC strategy sessions were invaluable. Line by line we would pore over court documents filed by Daniel in his quest to increase our daughter’s time in his new home and to divorce as rapidly as possible. Sentence by sentence I would receive empathy for the anguish stimulated in me. Paragraph by paragraph we would translate Daniel’s statements into feelings and needs language. I would try to empathize with the person crying out because his needs weren’t being met. I would seek to connect with the sacred human spirit inside Daniel. Finally we would strategize on what wording I might use to respond. What language might I employ that would honor Daniel’s motivations and still speak my truth? Here’s an example of how I used the NVC strategy sessions. When I read Daniel’s 22-page petition for a court order requiring our six-year-old daughter to spend half of each month with him and away from me, I exploded with emotion. I felt astounded, afraid, angry, and desolate. This didn’t meet my needs for trust, respect, humane dialog, nonviolent conflict resolution, or wanting to provide stability and nurturing for our daughter. So much of Daniel’s written statement conflicted with my memory of events and thus didn’t meet my need for congruency. His comments about my actions didn’t match how I would have described myself or how I could remember Daniel talking about me for almost ten years. Of all the unmet needs that were stimulated in me, my need to be acknowledged was central to my pain. Over and over through the process I became aware of how important it was for me to be seen and heard. Once I connected with my need to be seen and with my vision of who I see myself as, I could breathe peacefully again. Then we turned to empathy for Daniel. Clearly he was frustrated, angry and annoyed. What could have motivated him to take me to court instead of negotiating with me? What needs were being served by including details about our life in papers meant for a judge? With the aid of my NVC strategy partner, I guessed Daniel was motivated by his needs for autonomy, relief from pain, wanting to nurture our daughter, and wanting to be validated as a parent. This helped me stop picturing Daniel’s words as an attack on me and instead view them as a call for attention to his needs. From this space I could more easily plan how to answer, honoring Daniel and his role as a father while fighting for our daughter to have more time with her mother. After Daniel took me to court concerning custody of our daughter, he agreed to work with a mediator to settle financial issues. When he proposed a specific amount of monthly child support, our mediator eagerly shared with us a way we could both end up with more money in the bank. By restructuring the support and calling a portion of Daniel’s support “family support” or “child and spousal support,” we could each legally save approximately $1000 each year on federal taxes. To my surprise and to the mediator’s apparent astonishment, Daniel flat out refused. Here’s how I got through this using NVC. I felt surprised and disgusted. I thought to myself, “How could anyone be so stupid that they would turn down more income, especially someone who has been complaining repeatedly about how tight his money situation is?” I translated that thought into this: Daniel’s refusal doesn’t meet my needs for justice, for financial security, for taking care of our daughter’s material needs, or for thoughtful decision making. After the session, I decided to try explaining the mediator’s plan to Daniel in other words. As I prepared an email letter to Daniel, I worked on empathizing with him. This is what I wrote: Dear Daniel, … I know you and I share a need for peace that is not met by the way the federal government spends its funds. I would like to understand better why this restructuring does not meet your needs. I'm wondering if it is your need for integrity and honesty that keeps you from choosing the restructure? If you are refusing to pay spousal support, perhaps it seems dishonest to have a court document calling your payments spousal support? Could it also be your need for autonomy that is not met? I know you really value the idea of my supporting myself 100%. Perhaps reading the mediator’s restructure conflicts with your need to communicate clearly that you choose to end spousal connection and responsibility? I felt a huge flood of relief after writing the letter. When I connected with the beautiful human needs which might have been motivating Daniel, my anger dissipated. Although Daniel didn’t reply and he never changed his mind on the issue, my needs for understanding and connection were met, and I could move on without resentment. A follow up discussion on this topic led to Daniel’s agreeing to a substantial lessening of the amount I paid to buy him out of our house. This helped meet my needs for financial security and fairness. Until Daniel left the house in June 2001, ours had been a harmonious relationship. We agreed much more often than we disagreed. Raised voices were virtually never heard in our house. What happened? I found out a lot from listening to Daniel in the period before our separation. It seems my partner had learned so successfully as a child to hide his true wishes in the hope that others would want him that he had lost the ability to know his own needs. When he agreed with me throughout our relationship, often neither one of us knew that Daniel might not have been speaking honestly about what he wanted. Looking back now I feel sad to imagine how many times during our relationship, Daniel was needing more attention, while insisting everything was fine and that he didn’t want anything. I have tried hard not to blame myself for this. As much as I’d like to be able to resolve conflict and create connection by myself, I see now that if my partner could not share his feelings and ask for what he wanted, there was no way I could have successfully offered to meet his needs. How tragically sad for both of us that I couldn’t contribute to the joy of the most beloved person in my life. Today Daniel is married to the woman he told me about in the summer of 2000. Our daughter splits her life evenly between our two homes, says she is happy and no longer complains bitterly about leaving mom for so many nights. Although he still refuses to speak to me under most circumstances Daniel and I follow a mutually agreed upon parenting, which provides for a mostly conflict free relationship. My heart wrenching pain has flowed away, leaving behind a growing well of compassion and understanding. I feel proud when I look back at my actions during the divorce. I did everything I could think of to advocate for a process of collaboration and concern for family. I refrained from angry remarks. I worked diligently to empathize with Daniel’s underlying needs whenever he spoke angrily. All the empathy I received for my pain and the empathy I felt for Daniel helped me heal and prepare for the next adventure in my life. It’s my hope that I can use what I learned during this journey to support others in an equally painful place meet conflict with compassion.

	What is NVC? Nonviolent communication is a straightforward communication model. At the same time it is a blueprint for a world of peace and justice, a world where everybody’s needs are met. It’s a process for deepening human connection to one’s self, to others and to life. NVC offers a depth of possibilities associated with the rich connection that develops between persons when they begin to focus less on specific strategies and more on universal human needs, both their own and other people’s.

	How I received empathy In the beginning Daniel and I met with an NVC trainer whenever possible to help us communicate. I found the trainers’ empathetic translations infinitely more satisfying than meeting with a counselor and hearing her diagnosis. It was in the context of a private NVC session that I first experienced the powerful connection I could feel with Daniel as the result of my own developing skills at giving empathy. Today I feel some excitement imagining my ability to connect this deeply with a future partner. Over and over I requested and received empathy during NVC practice groups and empathy circles. After the first three or four times, I sometimes felt uncomfortable revealing that I had a need for empathy for the ongoing process between Daniel and me. Bringing up this situation again didn’t meet my need to share empathy time fairly with all participants, plus I felt disappointed and embarrassed that I wasn’t yet feeling comfortable and healed. When I look back I am pleased that I found the courage to continue to ask for what I needed. Each and every time the empathy I received in an NVC practice group helped me heal and move forward. Sometimes I called individuals from my practice groups and requested empathy in between sessions. Sometimes I made an appointment with an NVC trainer for a private, individual session. Throughout my experience I tried to give myself self-empathy whenever I could. While my skill for this had improved, I found I enjoyed quite a bit more receiving empathy from others wishing to connect with me.

	My Favorite Links Center for Nonviolent Communication Bay Area Center for Nonviolent Communication


	My Favorite Products


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Divorce with Compassion

About Me

What is NVC?

How I received empathy

My Favorite Links

My Favorite Products