Divorce is disorienting. Everything feels uncertain, from finances to family dynamics.
Divorce is one of life’s most disorienting experiences. Everything feels uncertain—finances, parenting, health, even your sense of identity. Unlike other life transitions, divorce comes with a built-in window of uncertainty. Civil proceedings stretch across months, sometimes years, forcing you to live without clear answers. That gap between what you want to know and what you actually know is where fear grows—but it’s also where growth begins.
Why We Crave Certainty
As humans, we’re wired to seek safety in the familiar. Routines, financial stability, and family roles anchor us. When divorce disrupts those anchors, the brain scrambles for something predictable to hold onto. We cling to bank balances, routines, or our children’s well-being as if they can shield us from the unknown.
Psychologists call this the Intolerance of Uncertainty—the tendency to react negatively when the future feels unclear. Each of us has a different threshold, but the higher our intolerance, the more fear and worry we carry. Divorce collides directly with this need for certainty. Answers about custody, support, and money don’t come quickly. Instead, the process—gathering documents, drafting scenarios, waiting on courts—often multiplies the uncertainty.
The Search for Safety
At its core, divorce triggers a primal search for safety. The trouble is, the more we chase certainty outside ourselves, the more elusive it becomes. What helps instead is recognizing that real safety doesn’t come from outcomes—it comes from how we respond to uncertainty itself. By stepping back, breathing, and grounding ourselves, we can create a sense of stability within, even when the outside world feels shaky.
Controllable’s vs. Uncontrollable‘s
If you’re amid divorce, you already know how much is beyond your control. Yet the natural instinct is to tighten your grip on what you can’t change. This trap breeds suffering: magnifying worst-case scenarios, straining communication, draining energy, and even affecting sleep and health.
Shifting focus to what is controllable frees resources for creative solutions. For example:
- Custody: You can’t dictate the final decision, but you can control how you respond in the moment—by communicating calmly and modeling stability for your children.
- Finances: If your spouse is seeking higher alimony, imagine the court already granted it. Practice living with that amount by setting it aside each month. If the final number is lower, you’ve built savings; if it’s higher, you’re prepared.
This shift doesn’t erase uncertainty—but it turns it into something you can work with.
Flipping the Question: “How Can I…?”
Uncertainty often leaves people feeling powerless, stuck in a victim mindset. David Emerald, in The Power of T.E.D., describes this as the Victim-Persecutor-Rescuer dynamic. It’s common in divorce: one spouse feels persecuted by the other (or their attorney), waiting for a judge to rescue them.
The antidote is a simple shift in language: ask, “How can I…?” This question flips the brain from victim to creator. Instead of seeing persecution, you see challenge. Instead of waiting for a rescuer, you seek a coach, a mentor—or your own inner wisdom.
Each time you ask, “How can I?”, uncertainty loses some of its power. Options surface, solutions emerge, and negative thought cycles loosen their grip.
Conclusion
Divorce will stir some of your deepest fears, and uncertainty may feel overwhelming from the first conversation to the final decree—and sometimes even beyond. But uncertainty does not have to define your experience. When you see it as opportunity, it shifts from threat to teacher. Yes, it exposes weak spots, but those gaps mark the exact places where you can grow stronger. With reframing, uncertainty becomes the path to clarity, resilience, and confidence in your future.
For more than 35 years, CBM has helped individuals facing divorce find clarity in the midst of uncertainty – guiding them through the financial and tax complexities of transition with steady expertise. If you need assistance, please contact Steve Schleupner, CFP ® CDFA®, via our online contact form.
