Episode Description - How to Heal From an Emotionally Abusive Marriage
What happens when divorce strips away not just your marriage, but your very sense of who you are? Licensed clinical social worker Debra Alper reveals why so many people emerge from divorce feeling completely lost – especially when they’ve been in emotionally abusive marriages.
Drawing from decades of experience, Debra explains the hidden process of self-erosion that starts long before the divorce papers are filed. The slow buildup of unmet needs, quiet compromises, and unconscious bargains that happens in emotionally abusive marriages often leaves you disconnected from the core of your being.
When divorce happens, you find yourself not only grieving the relationship you lost, but also questioning your own identity. Healing from this kind of trauma isn’t just about getting through the legal or financial parts of divorce. It’s about reclaiming your voice and rebuilding your inner foundation.
From navigating high-conflict divorce and the grief that comes with it, to treating post-divorce dating as a learning lab, you’ll discover how to move from reactivity to intentional choice. If you feel numb, overwhelmed, or unsure how to dream again, this podcast episode will give you permission to play, to daydream, and to let small wins stack into lasting change.
It will show you how to heal, and how to love again.
Show Notes
About Debra
Debra Alper is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and owner of Life Transitions Counseling, PLLC, specializing in relational therapy, helping clients to identify and recover from emotional abuse and divorce process and recovery. She has worked extensively since 1999 with individual clients striving to experience deeper, more meaningful relationships, couples in the midst of marital crisis around infidelity and unhappy, lonely relationships, and clients struggling to get through the emotional and life changing hurdles of pre and post-divorce. She also works extensively with clients in emotionally abusive relationships helping them to understand the dynamics that keep them stuck and aiding them in moving out of toxic patterns.
Connect with Debra
You can connect with Debra on LinkedIn at Debra Alper, LCSW and find out more about how to work with Debra by visiting her website at Life Transitions Chicago.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Debra
- Debra Alper is a licensed clinical social worker and owner of Life Transitions Counseling. She specializes in helping individuals recover from emotional abuse, navigate divorce, and rebuild their sense of self by focusing on empowerment, self-awareness, and healthy relationship patterns.
- Divorce is a long emotional process that often follows years of unhappiness and disconnection and many people lose their sense of identity while trying to maintain a troubled marriage.
- Healing begins with taking responsibility for your part, not assigning blame.
- Therapy is essential for processing grief, trauma, and rebuilding self-worth.
- Reclaiming personal power involves setting healthy boundaries and using your voice.
- Two key self-reflection tools: the Mirror Exercise (identify traits) and the Pyramid Exercise (values, passions, dreams).
- Balancing strengths and vulnerabilities helps reshape a healthier self-image.
- Positive “selfishness” and self-care are necessary, not indulgent, during recovery.
- Joy, play, and small pleasures help ease emotional healing after divorce.
- With time and effort, divorce can lead to personal growth, empowerment, and renewed purpose.
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Transcript
How to Heal From an Emotionally Abusive Marriage
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
reclaiming identity, healing, transformation
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Debra Alper
Karen Covy Host: 1:40
Hello, and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision making so we can discover what keeps us stuck, and more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator, and arbitrator, turned coach, author, and entrepreneur. And now without further ado, let's get on with the show.
With me today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Debra Alper. Debra is a licensed clinical social worker and the owner of Life Transitions Counseling. She specializes in relational therapy, helping clients to identify and recover from emotional abuse, and helping them to navigate the divorce process and beyond. For decades, she has worked with individual clients striving to experience deeper, more meaningful relationships and couples who are in the midst of marital crisis for a variety of reasons. She also helps clients who are struggling to get through the emotional and life-changing hurdles of pre- and post-divorce. Debra works extensively with clients in emotionally abusive relationships, helping them to understand the dynamics that keep them stuck and aiding them in moving out of toxic patterns. Debra, welcome to the show.
Debra Alper Guest:
Karen, thank you so much. I am so thrilled to be here with you.
Karen Covy Host:
I'm thrilled to have this conversation. I've been really looking forward to it because, quite honestly, you go deep. You and I love that about you. And I want to just dive right in and talk about something that I don't think enough people talk about, think about, or even realize until they're in the middle of a divorce. And that is the effect that divorce has on your identity. Can you speak to that?
Debra Alper Guest: 3:36
Absolutely. Um, so to me, divorce is a process. So divorce doesn't happen overnight. You don't wake up one morning having been perfectly content and all of all of a sudden decide, oh, I'm gonna get a divorce today. It's a process that goes on year after year of real unhappiness. Now, the exception to that is when there's a crisis that happens, you find out that your spouse has been cheating. That's a different discussion than what I'm talking about here, which has its own ramifications. But when you're dealing with um deciding if you're going to get a divorce or even negotiating with your spouse in terms of should we continue staying married, there's been a history leading up to that of you being unhappy, your needs not being met. And oftentimes when that happens, there's a disconnect with yourself in trying to make the marriage work, in trying to stay put out of fear, out of um choice in terms of I have no other options. You find ways to negotiate with yourself. Not all of this is conscious, but you make little deals with yourself in terms of, okay, so maybe, you know, you know, maybe my voice doesn't get heard in this relationship. It's not the worst thing. At least the kids still have their parent, their other parent in the house. Or you strike bargains, unconscious bargains. And cumulatively, what happens with that is that you end up really distant from who you are and what your needs are. So once the divorce happens, not only are you going through the trauma of separating and you know having to build a new normal, but you're kind of lost in terms of who you are. And that's what I see so often in my practice.
Karen Covy Host: 5:51
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I work with so many people who use pretty much those exact words of I don't even know who I am anymore, right? And I can totally see how it's not the thing, something that happens overnight, that over time they start to lose their sense of who they are inside. The question is, once you're going through a divorce, which is its own big traumatic identity crisis, how do you go about finding yourself again?
Debra Alper Guest: 6:26
Yeah. Well, first of all, hopefully you found a good therapist. So that's step one for all of you out there. Um, because you really need someone to help you along on this journey. And um within that therapeutic relationship, what has to happen is that you need to not only focus on um kind of the trauma of the divorce. Now, if you've got an easier divorce, you know, if you think of divorce on a spectrum and there's really high conflict, and then there's generally easier. But I use the term easier with quotation marks because divorce is never easy. Um, but if you haven't gone through a very traumatic process in the divorce, you're probably ready pretty quickly to start rebuilding that sense of self. If you've gone through a lot of trauma, work has to be done in terms of letting go and going through the grief process of what you've been through, which really is a process similar to the grief process when someone dies. You know, we've got anger, we've got sadness, we've got there's a whole spectrum that you've got to go through before you can really begin to rebuild that sense of self. Once we're at that point, what we're looking at is really connecting with the basics in terms of taking ownership and responsibility for how it happened that you separated from yourself in the first place. You can't just blame somebody else for that. Well, my wife was a bully and I never cared about me and my needs. It was always about her. Or, you know, my husband just he was absent, and I just had to spend all of my time taking care of everyone else. That may be true, but we all have our parts in that. How did we get to that place is an important first step. Once we realize our part in it, then there really are many ways that we can slowly begin to take back that sense of ownership of our lives and who we are and what's important to us.
Karen Covy Host: 8:41
Yeah, let me let me stop you right there for a minute. And because I'm curious, is this reclaiming of self, the process that you're describing, is that something that needs to wait until after your divorce is over, or is it something that, you know, someone could start working on even while they're going through a divorce?
Debra Alper Guest: 9:02
You know, it really depends on the state of the client, to be honest with you. Um, I've had clients that are going through a divorce and pretty early on realize that I gave away my power, I gave away my autonomy, I gave away my voice, and I'm ready to get it back. And yes, I'm fighting like hell to get through this divorce and to get the custody settled and to get the money settled, but I also need to look at myself. Then there are people that come to me in such trauma and such crisis because of the divorce itself, that the work really lies in being able to navigate that with them while gently reminding them of they do still have a voice and helping them to find it within the context of at least the divorce process and the custody process. They'll come to me in terms of like, you know, I feel like, I feel like I'm overreacting, maybe I'm, maybe I'm being too emotional, maybe, no, okay, you're just not able to voice what it is that you want. So you're feeling it instead. So we have to help them find the words for to ask for what their needs are and to feel entitled to get those needs met, which they're not used to doing. So it really depends on the situation.
Karen Covy Host: 10:36
I love that. And what I, you know, for a lot of reasons, because I have long, like for decades, been advising clients that the way you go through a divorce matters. And it matters. What I'm hearing you say is exactly the same thing that if your divorce is so high conflict and so traumatic that all you can focus on is getting through it, you don't get to that healing part, you don't get to that reestablishing your voice and your sense of self until after it's all behind you. So it matters a lot. And I also like the what I hear you saying about the idea of taking personal responsibility.
Debra Alper Guest: 11:19
Yeah.
Karen Covy Host: 11:19
That, you know, and that's something that's so hard for us to do because so many people, when they hear the word responsibility, what they you're saying responsibility, and what they're hearing is blame.
Debra Alper Guest: 11:33
So, so true. And they all they want to blame in a high conflict divorce is their spouse. They are furious at the spouse, and they may have very good reason for being so, but no one kidnapped them and put them in that situation. It takes two people for a relationship to thrive, and it takes two people for a relationship to fall apart. And even in really bad relationships, as you know, I work a lot with emotional abuse, uh, the victim of an emotionally abusive relationship has personal responsibility in that relationship. That doesn't mean they have blame. It means that in order for them to make sure that they're never again in that type of a relationship, that they can look at what my part was in allowing this. How did I fall into this pattern unknowingly? What did I bring into this relationship that led that led to this? And how do I make sure that I bulletproof myself so that this never happens again? That's personal accountability, not blame. So I agree with you totally.
Karen Covy Host: 12:46
And I what I really like about that is the idea that if you are a victim, if everything is, you know, somebody else's fault, you have no power.
Debra Alper Guest: 12:58
100%. It leaves you so vulnerable all the time. You have to take back your own sense of self, your own empowerment. And that's part of the work of recovering from a divorce is finding that solid ground within you, not just reactively, not just uh basically reacting to external forces, but being able to look at internal forces and make decisions that no, I am not going to allow this negotiation to go on like this. No, I am not going to allow this lawyer to speak to me like that. No, I am not going to agree to this ridiculous demand. I'm going to fight this. It's being able to house certainty in terms of what you need and who you are.
Karen Covy Host: 13:51
You know, you just said something that really made me smile when you said, I'm not going to allow this lawyer to talk to me this way, right? Because often what I've seen happen, I mean, in order for lawyers to really do their job, especially in a high conflict, highly litigated divorce, you need that bulldog. You need someone who is in your face. Like, but you want them in your spouse's face, right? The challenge is human behavior is consistent. So if they're that way with your spouse, they're probably also, to a certain extent, a bulldog with you as well. And I love that you're saying to people step one is empowering yourself to not be treated that way by anybody.
Debra Alper Guest: 14:37
Exactly. Well, I mean, there's typically a repetition in terms of when you've lost yourself, you haven't just lost yourself with your spouse, you've lost yourself across the board. So it's about recognizing. I mean, I have my clients practice. I often practice with the dry cleaner. Okay, they're dropping off, they're dropping off their white dress on a Monday that they want to wear again next Saturday night. And the dry cleaner says to them, Oh, yeah, well, we can have this for you next Monday. Now, the old client would say, Oh, okay, um, all right, I guess that's all right. My client goes in and says, you know, I would really appreciate it. I need that dress for Saturday. Can I pick it up on Friday, please? It's being giving yourself the permission to ask for what you need and to feel as though you're entitled to do so without coming off as entitled. You know, you're entitled to do so because you're a human being and you have a need and it's reasonable, and you're presenting it in a polite way. That's different than being entitled. And oftentimes people who have lost themselves feel like they're being too much when they ask for something that they do need. They feel like they've crossed that line to entitlement. So we work on that a lot.
Karen Covy Host: 16:01
I like that. That's such a critical distinction, you know, of entitlement in a negative way where you feel like the world owes you, versus entitlement in a positive way, which is just no, I'm a human being. I deserve a certain level of respect and to be treated in a certain way. You know, one of the things, because you and I have talked before, one of the things that I love about your work is that you have a lot of exercises that you give people to do along the way to help them regain that sense of self, to regain, you know, their set their positive entitlement, we'll call it, right? Can you share anything with our listeners that if they're there, if they're out there saying, yeah, that's me, what can they do themselves besides getting a good therapist, which I highly recommend, and you are one of the best. Um but besides doing that, what can they start to work on right now today themselves to start getting themselves back?
Debra Alper Guest: 17:06
Well, I love this. Um, I have two exercises that come to mind that I use all the time that I think are so powerful. So the first one, I call it the mirror exercise because what I want you to think of is holding up a mirror to yourself. And that mirror should tell you not only what you look like, but who you are. So it's a mirror to your inner self. So, in holding up that mirror, I want you to have a sheet, a legal pad of paper, and I want you using bullet points to you can time yourself if you'd like to, because that gives it a little sense of urgency. See how many qualities you can come up to describe who is in that mirror. I am funny, I am warm, I am loyal, I am honest. All of the qualities that make you - you. And I feel like that's a great way to get started because oftentimes we don't see ourselves. Other people can say to us, oh my god, you are so funny. And you're like, me? Like, I no, I don't even know how to tell a joke. But what so I'm asking you to see yourself not through your eyes, but through the eyes of a mirror that is reflecting back at you from the outside, almost as though if your best friend was holding up that mirror. How what would the eyes tell you about you? And I want you to keep that list because that list is a really good blueprint in terms of what you bring out into the world. And I want you to start being able to connect to it. So that's one exercise that we do a lot.
Karen Covy Host: 19:01
Yes, let me jump right in because I I'm sorry to interrupt, but I know most people when you say how do you see yourself, which is how they're gonna interpret the question, how do I see myself okay? And they start writing down, and it's a laundry list of I'm too fat, my hair is weird, I don't, you know, I'm not funny, I'm not, and you barrage yourself and berate yourself with all the negative things. So is this list just positive things, or is it both, or how does that work?
Debra Alper Guest: 19:35
I don't think that any of us are one-dimensional. I don't think it should just be positive things. All of us have our strengths and our vulnerabilities. And this list should reflect both of them. It cannot just be all of the things that we're not good enough as, because there's parts of us that all of us have gifts that we bring to the world. So it needs to include a balance of it. And, you know, what's also interesting in looking at the list is if you do this exercise, you know, say starting today, and then three months from now, you sit down and do this exercise again. Hopefully that list will have been skewed a little bit. Maybe some of those negatives that were so much a part of your internal narrative that was just on autopilot, maybe some of that has begun to shift. So these are not fixed points, but it's important to get all of it down. And I'm so happy that you pointed that out. It isn't, it has to be a balance. So if you want to do, let's do 25 and 25. Let's try and hit as close to 25 positive attributes that that mirror is telling you. And let's see how many, no more than 25 of negative attributes are do you, vulnerabilities are you carrying within you? Because our vulnerabilities also can grow into strengths if we work on them, if we recognize them instead of feeling shame about them. So it's good to have.
Karen Covy Host: 21:09
I like that. I like that the idea of a balance is good. And I would also think that it would be very telling when you do the exercise at two different points in time, like how the negative list grew or shrunk, you know, how easy it was, because especially when you're going through something traumatic. And to your point, you work with a lot of people who have been emotionally abused, which wears down your sense of self. Um, it's gonna be way easier to think of negative than positive. But then after you're doing some work, hopefully things flip the other way around.
Debra Alper Guest: 21:49
Right, exactly, exactly. And you know, it's we've got to start somewhere. So even if, you know, and again, I see shame all the time in my practice. People come in feeling such shame about having failed in their marriage, having um put up with the treatment of theirs that their spouse gave them. And the truth is, there's no shame in any of it. All of it is a learning process, all of it gives us information into our own vulnerabilities and ways that we can grow. So without recognizing kind of our underbelly, it you never can, you never can seek the light because you're so busy trying to hide that underbelly. So this list, even though it's kind of raw, and even though it may force you to kind of have to confront some of these, and a lot of these narratives are false narratives that we've just told ourselves over and over again since childhood, they're imprinted in our minds. Um being able to kind of start teasing those out is wait a minute, that's really that doesn't hold true for me anymore. Why am I still feeling this way? So it just gives us a really good blueprint to start working with.
Karen Covy Host: 23:13
Awesome. So that was all exercise one. You had mentioned a second one, and I I want to make sure to get to that one too.
Debra Alper Guest: 23:21
Okay, so the second exercise I like a lot, it's called the pyramid exercise. So I have my clients drop a big triangle on a piece of paper, and I asked them to divide the triangle into three different sections. So the foundation of the triangle, the widest part of the triangle, is going to be our core values and beliefs, who we are in a basically unchanging way. Um, you know, if we've always been a rule follower from the time that we were a child, we're going to continue to be a rule follower for the rest of our lives. That's a core part of who we are. That would go in this bottom part. Um if we're guided by faith of any kind and always have been, very tied to a higher power and religious practices, core belief. So we're building this pyramid. The first layer are the more or less unchanging parts of what makes us. Um, you know, a sense of um, you know, anything that uh that you can identify as pretty much unchanging and um unwavering that goes in the core. The whole middle section of the triangle, and that this is the part that oftentimes people have a hard time filling because they are disconnected to themselves. What are the things that bring us joy and make us feel passionate? And oftentimes people are so numb when they come to me that this middle part they can't access. And you're shaking your head, you recognize this as well.
Karen Covy Host: 25:18
A hundred percent. I mean, and that's one of the hardest things when you can't feel anything, it you can't identify what's going on inside because to your point, you're so disconnected.
Debra Alper Guest: 25:31
Right. So, in that case, what I asked them to do is to take a step back and to really think about their life. So I have one client um who loved to cook, and she always cooked for the family, but she didn't necessarily think of it as her joy or her passion because it was her job, it was her role in the family. So sometimes it takes a conversation, maybe with friends, if you don't have a therapist, maybe with family, in terms of, you know, like what do you recognize any things that the like if you had to describe the things that like you see I'm really good at or that I really like to do, how would you describe that? In maybe give me an example of two or three things. Um, someone who like loves flowers. Um, you know, you might not think about that, but flowers can bring you joy, gardening can bring you joy, being in nature can bring you joy. So it's just getting quiet enough that you can actually connect with the parts of you that you kind of just take for granted as, well, it's just, you know, whatever. It's me, it's me just, you know, living my life. It's identifying that. The very top part of the pyramid is what I call hopes and dreams. So this is the part of the pyramid that you get to play with a little bit. Um, and oftentimes when you're stuck in survival mode, the hopes and dreams part is empty. You're not thinking about five years from now because you can't you're trying to survive this year in terms of how am I going to get through this? So it allows you to play with that empty space in terms of what do I hope for? If I could wish, you know, it's kind of like when you buy the lottery ticket and you know, what yeah, we just had the billion-dollar lottery ticket, and you know, who didn't buy a lottery ticket that time? You know, the chance of, oh my God, what would I do if I won a billion dollars? Well, it's kind of that idea. What would I do if I when I am out of this marriage and I am feeling healthy and whole and complete? How do what are the dreams that I have? Do I want to travel? Do I want to go back to school? Do I want, what do I want to do with my life?
Karen Covy Host: 28:08
But how do you help someone connect with that part of themselves? Because what I see happening is while you're in the midst of crisis, in the midst of a divorce, hopes and dreams seem so far away you can't even think of what it is you might want someday. So, how do you start to make that connection to the hopes and dreams that are still somewhere buried deep inside of you?
Debra Alper Guest: 28:35
Well, I think it's recognizing that it feels a little frivolous right now when you're in trauma and when you're in crisis. It's giving yourself the permission. It's like a timeout from your from the trauma of your life, from the trauma of your day. And it's allowing yourself maybe uh a Friday night that the that the that the soon-to-be ex has the kids, you're home alone, you've got nothing to do. And instead of sitting there and feeling lonely, maybe what you do is you decide, you know what, I'm gonna watch um, I'm gonna watch an old episode of Stanley Tucci in Italy. And I'm gonna see, is there anything appealing about that? I know I like food, so I'm gonna see is there anywhere that he goes that inspires, it's giving yourself the permission instead of just feeling sad and lonely, and I don't have my kids, and this sucks. Excuse my language, but let's face it, it does when it happens. And um, allowing yourself kind of that freedom to play, even if you're not coming up with a life plan for that hour, that night, you've allowed yourself to daydream a little bit.
Karen Covy Host: 29:53
I love that. I I totally love that, and I love the idea of playing and lightening up the energy for a little bit. It's not, and what you're saying, and I hope people hear this and understand it, you're not talking about denial. You're not talking about you're talking about pretending everything is all perfect and positive. You're just talking about, you know, for a couple of hours, try having fun a little bit.
Debra Alper Guest: 30:20
Right, right. It's a choice, it really is. And look, I get it. Sometimes when we are so depleted and beaten down, it just seems like work to do that. But sometimes if we can give ourselves the permission that this is life now, this is not always going to be our life. And to get through this, you know what? Tonight, I'm gonna take myself to go see the Downton Abbey movie that nobody else wants to see, but it's just so fun for me. I'm gonna let myself get a big thing of popcorn and maybe some sour patch kids along with it, and sit for two hours and escape into a place of the English countryside. Because you know what? One day it might be fun to go to the English countryside and check that out. It's allowing yourself a time limited time out from the nonstop rumination. And I think that really that attests to mental health. It does.
Karen Covy Host: 31:27
Oh, yeah. I a lot of a lot of people. Struggle with mental health issues in while they're going through a divorce in a way and at a level that they don't otherwise ever have to deal with, thank God. Um, so I I love that this is proactive. It's like, let's keep that from happening. There's no reason to end up in that level of despair. You don't have to, it is a choice.
Debra Alper Guest: 31:55
You know, I think we were talking before in terms of the difference between uh entitlement as something that's bad and knowing that you are entitled to certain things. The same thing goes for the word selfish. Okay. Being selfish has a negative connotation in terms of you're only thinking about yourself. Don't you see what's happening here? And you're going out and doing retail therapy today, you're going out and spending money on a new purse, or that's so selfish. But selfish can also be looked at as something that's really important for mental health and self-care. It's loving ourselves and caring for ourselves enough, making choices sometimes that others might not approve of, but that we on a fundamental level know we need to take care of ourselves. So whether it be the bubble bath just as a timeout, whether it be the retail therapy, whether it be going treating yourself to a movie, whatever it is that you need in that moment to help you get through a really hard time in your life is never a negative. That is self-care, which is being selfish in a very positive way. So I think that that's important to put out there as well.
Karen Covy Host: 33:20
Yeah, I love that. I love that the, I think these distinctions are so important because you're right, when you say selfish, that is a very negative connotation in normal, you know, conversation. And the way you've reframed it is really helpful for people because if you don't care about yourself, you can't really if you haven't given to yourself, you have nothing left to give to anybody else.
Debra Alper Guest: 33:53
100%.
Karen Covy Host: 33:54
And you know, just sort of sort of to segue from there, can you speak a little bit to how this work and this self-care and all of the things that we've been talking about impacts your ability, even after the divorce, to move on to your next relationship?
Debra Alper Guest: 34:12
Absolutely. Well, uh my thought is is it really is never a good idea to move on to that next relationship until you've done the self-work, until you've taken the time to reflect on where you were, how you got there, how you've gotten out of that, and the work that you're doing right now in terms of learning how to be alone, how to be autonomous. You never want to get into another relationship out of need. You want to be able to get into another relationship when you are whole and when you are ready to meet someone else that's whole. And when the two of you can come together, you define this new entity. It's not that you fill each other's halves, you're defining this new entity, which is the relationship. And so all of this work prepares you not only for that new relationship, but for you to thrive in different ways than you ever could have imagined. I see this all the time in divorce with people who go through it and who are at the absolute lowest that they ever, ever could have imagined. And they come out of it in this metamorphosis almost like the butterfly out of the cocoon. And it doesn't happen overnight. I think it takes a good five years, to be honest, post-divorce. For you to really be in that secure, thriving place of knowing what it's like, having a new normal, having completely um let go of a lot of the trauma that may or may not have occurred. And that's the time that you begin to really reap the benefits of all the work that leads up to that.
Karen Covy Host: 36:06
So would you recommend for people who are going through a divorce or have recently divorced that they wait five years before they start dating?
Debra Alper Guest: 36:14
No, but I would recommend because it's not it, that's not set in stone. That's just my experience in terms of working with different clients. I think that dating can also be an experiment while you're recovering in terms of instead of looking at dating as trying to find the one, you look at dating as a learning opportunity about what have I learned from this person? What have I learned from this relationship? What do I know for sure I don't want to do again? And it gives you the opportunity to test out your new skills. And I'm not saying that you use people to do it, but you go into it with good intentions, but you keep your eyes open in a way that you might not have before. You're looking for yellow flags, you're looking for red flags, you're looking for green flags. And the green flags may look very different from the green flags that you would have thought of 10 years ago. So it gives you a learning opportunity. But I think generally it takes a good number of years for you to be on firm ground, especially if you're starting off on very shaky ground. Now, not everyone loses themselves in a divorce. So, you know, it just really depends on the individual client.
Karen Covy Host: 37:39
Yeah, I like that. And I and I love the distinction you just made about it depends on the person. I mean, I usually I tell people all the time, divorce is not one size fits all. And neither is marriage or healing or any kind of relationship issue. It's different depending on the person. So I love that you said, you know, if you're starting off and you haven't lost yourself in your marriage, maybe you're fine, you know, and you don't need to do as much work. Although I think something as traumatic as a divorce, which even the even the amicable divorces are traumatic on some level, um it takes a while to look at yourself and regroup. I think everyone would be wise to do that, even if they're not completely devastated. But if they are completely devastated, it's going to take longer to put the pieces back together. That just makes sense. This, Debra, thank you so much for all that you have shared. Is there anything else? If you had one other thought to leave with the audience, somebody who's going through a divorce, who feels like they don't know who they are, that they've lost their voice in their marriage. They don't recognize the person they look at in the mirror and see these days. Any other advice, if you could tell them one thing, what would you say?
Debra Alper Guest: 38:58
I would tell them that where you are today is not where you are going to end up. It just is you're in a process and you may feel as though you're drowning right now, but you're not drowning. You're treading water, you're doing what you need to do to get through this. And eventually you're not only going to swim to shore, but you are going to reclaim new land for yourself. And it you will get to this new land. You just have to go through the process and have faith that you're going to make it to the other end of it. That's it's that's it.
Karen Covy Host: 39:37
I love that. Have faith and get a good therapist. And speaking of good therapists, if people are looking for one and they want to find out more about you, where is the best place for them to do that?
Debra Alper Guest: 39:52
So the best place is to go check out my website. So my website is life transitionschicago.com. And on there you will find articles that I've written, um, other podcasts I've been a part of. You'll find a wealth of information in terms of what I do, along with contact information for you to reach out to me. And I would love to um hear from any of your listeners and start this journey with um with any of them.
Karen Covy Host: 40:21
Debra, thank you so much. This has been, I think this has been a really solid, really good conversation. Thank you for everything you've shared.
Debra Alper Guest: 40:30
Well, thank you so much, Karen. I really, really appreciate this so much.
Karen Covy Host: 40:31
You're welcome. And for those of you who are out there watching or listening, if you enjoyed today's episode, if you'd like to see more episodes just like this one, do me a big favor, give it a thumbs up, like, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe on YouTube, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and I look forward to talking with you again next time.
