How to Tell Your Friends and Family about Your Divorce

 Posted on February 28, 2014 in Divorce

When getting divorced, people often have a difficult time making it public. Deciding whom to tell, what to tell them, and how to go about it can be a complicated process. Everyone in this situation has individual relationships and issues with which to deal, but there are some strategies and tactics that can apply to a wide variety of scenario.

Telling Friends and Family

One of the first things to do when telling friends and family about your divorce is to figure out how close you are to them and how much they need to know. What you should tell a sibling or close friend about your divorce is probably quite different from what you should tell your boss. Once you know what you want to say, sit them down and tell them directly. A long lead-in to a conversation only serves to make people nervous.

You should also consider the order in which you want to tell people. You likely have very different relationships with different people, even among your friends and family. Decide who may be the easiest or most supportive people to tell, and talk to them first. Following this, you can take advantage of that support network, if later conversations with other people do not go as smoothly.

Telling Your Children

Telling your children will be a very different experience than telling the rest of your family, and will probably depend largely on their age and maturity level. One of the biggest differences is that children, especially younger children, will be more primed to think in terms of how the divorce impacts them on a practical level. They may wonder where they will live and whether they will need to change schools, or even who will get the family pet. While you may not have all the answers to these sorts of questions yet, you can definitely benefit from preparing beforehand so that you can tell them what you do know.

Many experts also recommend working with your spouse to tell the children about the divorce together. While some spousal relationships may make it impossible to calmly have such a joint conversation, the stability that it provides may benefit some children. Some experts believe that children can also benefit from having the conversation on a Friday or early in the weekend. This will give you a large window to have the conversation with them, and it will also give them time to process the information. It can also help to prevent the issue from becoming a distraction at school.

If you think now is the right time to file for divorce, contact a DuPage County divorce lawyer today. They can explain the process to you and make sure that you understand all of your options.