Key strategies for surviving an abusive divorce.
Navigating a divorce (or parenting dispute) after leaving an abusive relationship can feel like a continuation of the abuse itself, particularly when the process becomes abusive via the courts.
Legal proceedings can bring a flood of painful triggers and retraumatising experiences, but it’s essential to find ways to manage the storm and protect your emotional well-being.
In this blog, we'll explore survival strategies to help you cope with court-related stress, stay grounded, and find hope in the process.
1. The Legal Barrage: Manage the Persecutory Experience
The seemingly endless stream of legal claims, accusations, and wrangling can feel like an unpredictable onslaught—almost as if you’re under attack all over again. This unpredictability can trigger memories of the abusive cycles you’ve already endured, reinforcing feelings of fear, anxiety, regret, shame and self-blame. To manage this, it’s crucial to control when and how you engage with legal communications.
Set specific times—perhaps twice a week—when you’ll open and read emails or court-related documents (perhaps open a new email account that is only for court and instruct all solicitors to write to this). By controlling when you engage with these often distressing materials, you can prevent them from hijacking your emotional state throughout the day. This structured approach will help reduce the unpredictability that can easily reawaken trauma.
When you're not in one of those scheduled slots, avoid checking emails or notifications from your solicitor. Whilst a plan to manage triggers, this is also an empowering step of choosing not to be 'available' for abuse. You are turning up to address your legal issues, rather than being hit with emotional disturbance at random times (which is what your old life may have felt like).
2. Managing Communication Channels with the Ex
If you share children with your ex, you're likely required to remain in contact. However, reducing communication to only what's absolutely necessary and keeping it child-focused is vital to safeguarding your mental health. One effective way to achieve this is by using an app like MyFamilyWizard, which is specifically designed to track co-parenting communication. This tool limits your interactions to essential matters, ensures accountability, and stores all communication in one secure place.
Again, as with legal communication, schedule times to check messages related to co-parenting. Turn off notifications and avoid engaging impulsively, which could lead to further stress or confrontation. Every interaction should be measured and purpose-driven, helping you maintain boundaries and protect your well-being.
If you have no children - all communication can and should stop, except via solicitors.
Communication with an abusive ex is a channel to abuse and should not be considered in any other way. You will not get closure, they will not see sense.. you will likely leave that contact feeling worse and struggling to recover.
Plan to feel urges sometimes to contact your ex - then don't (see our guide).
3. Prepare for Triggers: Anticipate Panic and Flashbacks
It’s completely normal to feel triggered during divorce proceedings—especially if you have a history of complex PTSD (C-PTSD) from the abusive relationship. The accusations, the blaming, the constant feeling that you're being unfairly judged or persecuted—these can bring you back to that powerless state you fought so hard to escape.
To manage these intense emotions, it’s crucial to have a plan to rescue yourself. Grounding techniques, reflective work, and regular self-compassion practices can help bring you back to the present when you feel overwhelmed. In particular, meditations or reflective exercises (such as our free self-compassion course and meditations ) can serve as valuable tools to help you regain control of your emotional state.
If you find yourself spiraling, revisit our previous article on managing triggers to reinforce your understanding of how to recover in the moment. The goal is not to avoid feeling the emotions but to be equipped to handle them when they arise - because they will! The best approach is to expect trauma and to plan to manage it.
4. Work with Solicitors: Don’t Seek Validation, Seek Results
Your solicitor is there to represent you legally—not emotionally. While it may be tempting to lean on your solicitor for support, especially when emotions are high, this can be costly in more ways than one. Solicitors bill by the hour, and while they may listen to your distress, it's crucial to remember that their primary role is to guide you through legal matters—not to act as a therapist.
When you communicate with your solicitor, do so with clarity and purpose. Ask direct questions like, "What do you advise?" or "What is the most effective approach?" Stick to facts, and when you're feeling emotionally overwhelmed, reach out to a trusted friend or therapist instead. This allows you to save emotional conversations for a supportive environment, while keeping legal discussions focused and efficient.
If you are leaning on friends, get them to read this guide on how to help.
5. REALISE You Are Not Alone, and This Will End
Many victims of domestic abuse experience this emotionally draining journey through acrimonious divorces, but it’s essential to remember that you are not alone. The legal system can feel isolating, but countless others have walked this path and emerged stronger on the other side.
It can be easy to doubt yourself or regret the decision to leave when the process feels relentless—but rarely does anyone regret leaving an abusive relationship, even when the pain of divorce is excruciating. This part of your journey, while harrowing, is temporary. There is light at the end of this tunnel.
6. Understand the Order of Your Healing Process
In the midst of divorce, healing may feel impossible—but there is an order to things. First, you need to manage the emotions that arise from the court process and divorce (steps 1-5 above). Then, once the chaos begins to settle and the abuse is no longer part of your daily life, you can begin focusing on your own therapy and long-term healing.
It’s important to acknowledge that healing from abuse can’t truly begin while you’re still enduring it in some form. Once the court battles feel manageable, turn inward and address your trauma through therapy, self-reflection, and continued self-care practices (this is where our recovery programme fits).
If you have children, the third priority is to maintain consistency in their lives. While you’re managing your emotional state, it’s crucial to be a steady, reliable presence for your children. We’ll explore more about this in an upcoming article on parental alienation, but for now, focus on being present for your kids.
Summary
A divorce, particularly when experienced as abusive through the courts, can trigger feelings of helplessness and trauma reminiscent of your past abuse.
To survive this, it’s critical to manage how you engage with both the legal process and your ex, prepare for emotional triggers, and set boundaries with your solicitor. By controlling communication, grounding yourself when panic arises, and staying focused on practical outcomes rather than emotional validation, you can navigate the divorce with resilience.
Remember, you are not alone, and this experience—while painful—will eventually end. After the chaos subsides, true healing and recovery can begin.
Additional reading:
We have written a lot about co-parenting, how to deal with the courtroom and how to recover from the courtroom stress in our articles, all free here.
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