A couple divorces. After 2 years of being the sole support for their son, the mother is now angry and frustrated. She needs financial support for insurance and medical bills as well as for the father to be more actively involved with their son to allow her some time off.
She could resort to legal action that would be expensive and difficult, not to mention the years or lifetime of tension and anxiety that it would create.
First off she needs to become clear on what she wants and how much of a priority that is because in order to do this, it's going to take time and energy. If it's not a priority, one that we can give time and energy to then better just to drop it altogether or in this case, take a chance in court.
A more intelligent approach would be to visit a mediator before anything else because it’s unlikely that when emotions run high we're going to find the clarity to think and act purposefully. If she can learn through this mediation process to think, act and communicate more authentically then she might be able to get what she wants.
It’s all well and good knowing what you need in relation to the challenges you face, but authentic communication takes time and energy and we can only deal with so much at a time.
So how could she prioritize this according to her need for financial support among others? It’s critical to not only know what we need, but how important it is.
- accept and work to change a situation
- accept and move away from it (if possible) if it's unacceptable and we determine we either can’t change it or it's not a priority
- accept and live with it if it's unacceptable but we can't change it or its not a priority and/or we can't move away from it.
The traditional way of getting what we want is to push back or demand it and then we wonder why we end up frustrated when we don’t get what we want.
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