High Stakes Divorce vs. Conscious Choice Divorce

By Maren Beckman

Sure you’ve got stress – big time! Stress and divorce go hand in hand. The human body has a wonderful way of responding to stress. For example, it keeps the mind alert to drive defensively, quickly averting that child’s ball rolling into the street. It’s useful to quickly respond to circumstances, preserving the well-being of the child running after the ball. Sometimes, however, a natural response to immediate threat is not useful in the long run.

People report their divorces as among the most stressful experiences in their lives. Significant decisions are discussed and resolved as participants feel this stress. Once made, those decisions are lived daily for a very long time. Being the high stress experience that it is, access to normal brain functioning and inner resourcefulness is often compromised during divorce. Understanding how the body responds to stress helps utilize the positives and avoid the negatives.

Under stress, physiological mechanisms take over to preserve the system. Specifically, the stress response mechanisms take over. The system goes on auto pilot. The body releases hormones known as cortisol and adrenaline, which break down nutrients for quick fueling of the fight or flight mechanism. These hormones are first on the scene at the feeling of impending threat or danger. This is mighty useful if there is a hungry, foul-breathed, saber-toothed tiger sizing you up for lunch. Of course, it is rare these days to run from human-eating tigers. However, whether being drooled on by a hungry tiger or facing the snipes of an angry spouse, the body responds identically.

Here you are in a stress inducing situation called divorce. You will not be running or fighting physically. So what’s a body to do? The stress hormones function best by closing down all non-essential body operations. Think hungry tiger. Either you run fast or become the tiger’s lunch. You do not stop to have empathy for the tiger if you want to stay alive. Cortisol shuts down every high-energy function of the body not needed to flee or fight. Immune system functions, some brain functions, and emotions are temporarily disabled.

Ideally, your emotions assist in test driving options that are generated in the divorce process. Think of gut responses and hunches. When stressed, access to those emotions is denied. Moreover, you can’t access the parts of the brain responsible for creative problem solving, resourcefulness, and creativity. Even further, important negotiation tools are blocked. Compassion, empathy, helpfulness, generosity, tenderness, respect, and love are all inaccessible.

Imagine sitting at a negotiation table with your attorney while your spouse and the spouse’s attorney are across from you. Your spouse throws out a barb aimed below the belt. The tiger growls. Your body goes into defense mode. Cortisol and adrenaline spill into your system. It is an instant flood. On alert, the body perceives threat and danger. Your heart increases its pump rate to rush blood to your running and fighting muscles. Your system is on full alert. In this scenario, one attorney calls a halt to your spouse’s sniping behavior. Even if the spouse stops sniping, your body is ready for attack mode. The options are to attack or leave. And you will remain in that state for quite a while as the system slowly swabs the decks from the hormonal flood. At best, your parasympathetic system needs a full 45 minutes for clean-up, reabsorbing all that adrenaline and cortisol. While your body cools off and restores peace, the negotiations continue. In this hypothetical situation, the rest of the people in the room are discussing issues of great importance without your full presence. You are unable to engage all thought processes. You cannot generate respect and empathy for a different perspective any more than you could empathize with that hungry saber tooth. Decisions made under these conditions endanger personal stakes on both sides of the negotiating table.

So how can you expect to make conscious choices when the conscious brain is disabled by the stress hormones? You can’t. Your choices are limited to the options available under fear and duress. This is not optimal. Little of the available information will be assimilated and processed. Choices made from fear, defensiveness, or fight usually do not prove worthy over time.

What do you do when you are in negotiations and flight/fight takes hold? How do you put a pause on negotiations or decision-making until you regroup? You do have a choice. In every situation you can aim for the high road rather than aiming for the spouse’s throat. When calm and assertive, you are able to make decisions out of conscious choices. These conscious choices enhance a more positive process with the likelihood of more desirable results. Which divorce process do you choose: one with presence of mind or one driven by hormones?