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Going in to work this morning I had to swerve slightly to miss a box turtle trying to cross the road.  I always feel a pang of sympathy for these little guys as they slowly plod across the road with trucks and cars whizzing by at breakneck speed.  Fortunately for this particular turtle he was close to my house out in the country and the road doesn’t get much traffic; with any kind of luck at all he should have made it across just fine.  But the poor guys that you see on the shoulder of the highway looking across four lanes of traffic are basically turtles contemplating suicide.  Not much of a chance that they’ll make it across is there?  But go they do and never one bit faster than they do anything else.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Bet you are wondering by now what in the world this has to do with being a divorced guy.  Well after I swerved this morning to miss that turtle my mind got to wandering, as it is wont to do and I realized how much I have been like a turtle in my own life at times.  Your average box turtle has a nice shell to keep him safe, thick scaly skin a sharp beak and strong legs – pretty impressive package for overcoming most of the normal hazards in a turtle’s life   Well, just like the turtle I have some coping mechanisms that have served me well in dealing with the daily hazards of being Bill and so – just like him – I tend to stick with them.

Problem develops though when the turtle encounters a busy highway - a whole new situation filled with completely different dangers.   He just can’t fully grasp what it is he’s facing and so he falls back on defenses that have always worked for him in the past.  Right in the middle of the road he pulls his head into his shell and depends on it’s strength to protect him from the wheels of the speeding cars . . . bad plan! 

Seems pretty obvious to us and yet I’ve caught myself doing the same sort of thing when trying to get through and deal with divorce in my own life.  I’ve fallen back on coping strategies that have worked well for me in other situations and depend on them to help me deal effectively with the dangers of a divorce . . . bad plan!  An angry ex-wife is nothing like an angry parent or child or boss – what works on them doesn’t work on her.  Same story with the legal and financial challenges you find yourself in and (most importantly) the threats to your emotional and mental health.  All of these are completely different from the normal hazards of daily adult life and attempting to use the normal adult coping skills on them is bound to be less than effective.

So how does the turtle cross the road? . . . well . . . Verrry carefully!  First he needs to fight the urge to put his head in his shell and instead should crane his neck to get a good look at the challenge he’s facing.  Next he admits to himself that his trusty shell isn’t going to be of much use to him this go round and considers what strategy is going to be most effective.  Then he grits his teeth . . . errr beak . . .and gets outside his comfort zone by becoming more situationally aware and by trying to move with greater speed and – well – agility.  If turtles did that you wouldn’t see as many in an advanced state of de-animation (to put it nicely) in the middle of the road.  And if more men took that approach you wouldn’t see as many crushed in the middle of their divorce.

Just a thought 

Be well!

Bill