Amy Wood – Maine Collaborative Law Alliance

Collaboration Over Debate: The Real Way to Win

Amy Wood, Psy.D. What is Collaborative Divorce October 16, 2016November 4, 2025Amy Wood, collaborative divorce, friendly divorce

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Amid this particularly adversarial [October 2016] election season, it occurs to me that fighting, though great for TV ratings, rarely accomplishes anything. I’m thinking about the presidential debates, where the more the candidates assert their positions, the more defensive and polarized they become. Fighting to outdo your opponent makes sense in debate because the idea is to prove the validity of one viewpoint over another. But when you bring that kind of aggressive, self-serving stance to personal human disagreements, you usually lose.

The secret to winning in the arena of human conflict is to appreciate that the best fixes come from synthesizing rather than isolating different perspectives. Obama, speaking of politics, is known for solving complex problems by gathering several experts — scientist, economist, historian, etc. — around a table, hearing their varying ideas, and channeling the best of what they offer into a well-rounded solution more potent than what any one of those experts could have created on their own. When you get beyond a “my way or the highway” mentality to embrace rather than reject other opinions, you release yourself from limitation and enter into an enormous playground of possibility.

This process of synthesizing differing approaches into a more powerful outlook is the heart of collaborative divorce. Instead of wasting time and money by bickering endlessly from their own hard-lined mindsets, husband and wife gather with a team of divorce specialists to craft a divorce agreement that is greater than the sum of its parts. At best the couple comes up with creative solutions they never thought possible; at the very least they each end up with solutions they both — not just one of them — can live with.

It’s not exactly easy to put ego aside and consider the perspective of someone you may be angry with or feel betrayed by. The process is less challenging, though, when you throw out questions that work well for debating but get in the way of resolution, such as:

How can I beat my opponent?
How can I prove that I’m right?
How can I show everyone that I am smarter/more deserving/morally superior than my opponent?
How can I make this go my way?

Even if you regard your spouse as a complete idiot with whom you have nothing in common, you can reach a mutually palatable divorce settlement by unlocking yourself from a single-minded position. These questions will help you to move beyond guardedness and into the sort of productive, flexible discourse that attracts enlightened answers:

What solution is truly best for our children/our mental health?
How do I want to feel at the end of my marriage? (Victorious, unencumbered, confident?) Other than getting my own way today, how can I get to those feelings?
How would I want to describe my behavior during my divorce to my children/my boss/my students/my favorite mentor?
How do I want to remember this process five years from now?
How can I behave today to help this process go as smoothly as possible?
What might happen today if I let empathy for my spouse, rather than a desire to win/get revenge, guide my actions?
How might letting go of the outcome make this process easier/more productive?

The beauty of expansive inquiries like these is that they open up potential for equally expansive solutions. And if you’re still not convinced that yielding is more likely to bring success than digging your heels in, you need ask just one final question:

What remedies might arise were Hillary and Donald to take their gloves off, highlight the strengths they both bring to the ring, and integrate — rather than argue — their brightest ideas into a plan for our country?

Amy Wood, Psy.D. MCLA Founding Member About the Contributor | Psychologist Amy Wood, Psy.D. helps adults to articulate and accomplish their own unique versions of success through psychotherapy, executive coaching, speaking, mediation, and collaborative law coaching. A pragmatic optimist, she is known for her capacity to simplify complexity and see manageable solutions amid the overwhelm of modern life and work. Dr. Wood is the author of the award-winning book Life Your Way: Refresh Your Approach to Success and Breathe Easier in a Fast-paced World, a founding member of the Maine Collaborative Law Alliance, and a member of the Maine Association of Mediators. She earned her doctorate from the Adler School of Professional Psychology, graduated from the College of Executive Coaching, and is a certified mediator. Visit her website at amywoodpsyd.com.

Lies We Tell Ourselves to Stay in a Bad Marriage

Amy Wood, Psy.D. Thinking of Divorce May 8, 2016November 4, 2025Amy Wood, collaborative divorce, excuses for not getting divorced, healthy divorce

The human mind is amazingly enabling. We can use it to justify our behavior, to 49191110_s avoid the pain of facing that we’re not doing what we know we should be doing to improve our lives. We’re not perfect and so we don’t have sufficient courage to always act on what we know deep down is good for us. When we don’t want to face inconvenient truths, we camouflage the nagging pain of not listening to our inner wisdom by overpowering it with superficially convincing rationalizations.

Such as:

I can’t exercise because I’m too busy.

I can’t eat healthfully because it’s too expensive.

I can’t go back to school because I’m too old.

Nobody likes their job; that’s why they call it work.

And so on.

The more a prospective change requires of us, the more likely we are to make excuses to keep that change at bay. And so it makes perfect sense that people in bad marriages find all sorts of reasons to avoid the daunting work of divorce.

Here are some of the most common excuses people give for staying in a bad marriage, along with reasons why it’s easier in the long run to stop making them:

I can’t leave my marriage because it’s not the right time. Being sensitive to your spouse when you’re planning to divorce is the decent thing to do. Only an insensitive jerk demands a divorce on their spouse’s birthday, on a momentous holiday or anniversary, or just before their spouse takes a major exam. The mature thing to do is make your announcement when nothing big is happening. Because divorce is never fun, there is never a perfect time to bring it up, and you can spend the rest of your life finding reasons why you need to wait. Eventually, if you want your anxiety to go away, you have to settle on a relatively neutral D-day, take a deep breath, and bite the bullet.

I can’t leave my spouse because they need me. Ending a marriage is particularly challenging when you perceive your spouse as overly dependent on you — because, after all, what nice person wants to reject someone vulnerable? Two important things to remember here: 1. You’re actually not being nice by staying with someone out of pity or obligation. To the contrary, you’re preventing your spouse from moving on, growing, and hopefully meeting the right partner someday. 2. Staying with someone because they supposedly need you is a handy way of making yourself look strong and thoughtful when you may actually be the needier partner; presenting this façade takes a tremendous amount of energy that could be better spent on facing that your marriage is over and learning to find your own way.

This is just what marriage is like. When you’re unfulfilled in your marriage and reluctant to go through the pain of divorce, it’s tempting to believe that all marriages are miserable and so there’s no point in going to the trouble of ending it. You can tell yourself that all couples have terrible problems and act disrespectfully toward each other behind closed doors, and only those too weak to accept that reality get divorced. You can keep on presenting yourself as tough and devoted by broadcasting your capacity to stay committed to your spouse no matter how awful your marriage gets. Again, though, it takes lots of energy to cast yourself as a high and mighty martyr. Accepting that your unhappy marriage is not the norm and ending it will free you up to find marital harmony in your future.

I’m staying married for my kids. If you’re a parent, keeping your kids at the forefront when making major life changes is the right thing to do. But make sure you’re not using supposed parental responsibility as a way to dodge decisions you are afraid to make. Yes it’s certainly true that children are better off growing up with their biological parents in the same house, but only when those parents are in a thriving partnership. Kids see right through parents pretending to be happy, and that experience can cause them long-term emotional damage. If you and your spouse move through divorce in a way that protects your children from antagonism, they are very likely to be stable and secure being co-parented by the two of you in separate homes.

When you get down to it, pretty much every excuse in the book to not get divorced (when you’ve tried everything to save your marriage and you know divorce is the answer) just creates greater turmoil for everyone involved. The longer you sidestep what you know needs to happen, the more you are preventing you and your spouse and kids from having the life opportunities you all deserve.

So be honest with yourself: are you putting off divorce because you’re not psychologically prepared to handle it? If so, summon the courage to take action — and you’ll soon find that the anticipation of divorce causes way more dread than getting on with it.

Amy Wood, Psy.D. MCLA Founding Member Psychologist Amy Wood, Psy.D. helps adults to articulate and accomplish their own unique versions of success through psychotherapy, executive coaching, speaking, mediation, and collaborative law coaching. A pragmatic optimist, she is known for her capacity to simplify complexity and see manageable solutions amid the overwhelm of modern life and work. Dr. Wood is the author of the award-winning book Life Your Way: Refresh Your Approach to Success and Breathe Easier in a Fast-paced World, a founding member of the Maine Collaborative Law Alliance, and a member of the Maine Association of Mediators Board of Directors. She earned her doctorate from the Adler School of Professional Psychology, graduated from the College of Executive Coaching, and is a certified mediator. Visit her website at amywoodpsyd.com.

Should You Stay or Should You Go? How to Know if Divorce is the Answer

Amy Wood, Psy.D. Thinking of Divorce April 5, 2016November 4, 2025Amy Wood, coping with divorce, deciding to divorce

20504781_s I’m sure you’re familiar with that routine Hollywood movie scene where a married couple is fighting and one spouse — usually the woman — marches into their bedroom and heaves a suitcase from the closet, flings clothes into the suitcase hangers and all, slams it shut, then storms out of the house with it, all the while yelling accusations and threats.

That sort of impulsive exit makes for great drama, but what it usually does in the real world is bring on regret and further complication. Divorce is a decision best arrived at as a last resort solution — only after ample consideration and soul-searching, and not as a reactive, unexamined escape.

If you’re thinking that maybe your marriage is over and you’re just not sure, that’s a good thing because you’re taking the time to determine whether divorce is worth the trouble. Here are some indicators that divorce is an option that will ultimately make your life better, not worse:

Your spouse is a habitual cheater, liar, and/or substance abuser. If your spouse is any of these things, there is no way your marriage can be healthy or happy. Everyone has issues and makes mistakes, and infidelity, dishonesty and addiction can be overcome, but only with a firm and unwavering plan for growth and change. If your partner has promised more than a couple of times to become faithful, stop lying, and/or stop drugging or drinking to excess and not followed through, they most likely will continue on a self-destructive path that will eventually take you down too — no matter what you do to try and stop it.
Your spouse is abusing you and/or your kids. People who physically or mentally hurt other people to get their way are dangerous. It’s that simple. If you are married to someone who even subtly intimidates, manipulates, shames, or attacks to undermine your (or your kids’) confidence and power, you are being abused and you and your children are at serious risk. Don’t be swayed by the blinding charm that typically follows an abusive incident; that ability to seduce you is all part of keeping you in an insidious controlling cycle that will play over and over, steadily eroding your self-esteem, until you get out.
You don’t respect your spouse. The central ingredient holding a fulfilling marriage together is positive regard between partners. When you are proud of your spouse for their solid character, you feel honored to be with them and you delight in their company. When that respect goes away, maybe because your spouse has taken you for granted for too long, broken too many promises, acted immaturely too much, or adopted ideas or interests you don’t admire, you can no longer believe in or have faith in them as a teammate.
You feel relieved when you’re away from your spouse and you dread reuniting. When your marriage is thriving, the home you share with your spouse is a harmonious refuge where you can be comfortable and at peace. Engaging in pastimes away from your spouse is integral to keeping your marriage stimulating, but if you’re finding that you’d rather be at work, with your friends, or even running errands just to avoid being at home, there’s a chance you’ve outgrown your partner. Especially when, even after you’ve taken a long break, you feel queasy as you anticipate being together again.
You don’t have enough in common with your spouse. Having everything in common with your spouse is a sure way to bring on marital boredom. When spouses support each other in pursuing their individual interests — the classic example is the husband who watches sports while the wife goes shopping — the marriage becomes richer. What spouses must have in common to make a marriage work, though, is core values and long-term goals. It’s not a big deal if one of you enjoys sports and the other doesn’t, but if you disagree on morality and ethics, parenting, money management and other pivotal issues, it’s not likely that you have a foundation to build on.
You are chronically unhappy in your marriage and you’ve tried everything. The key word here is chronically. Even the best marriages are sometimes really challenging, and so it’s smart to delay your decision to divorce until you’re certain that marital strife has become an unalterable norm. It’s also wise to pull out all the stops to save your marriage so that you don’t worry later that you left too soon. Have you looked at yourself squarely and taken full responsibility for your part in your marital woes and then done your very best to be adaptable, cooperative, humble, and patient as you work to improve your relationship? If so and you see no improvement, then it’s probably time to call it quits.
You just plain want a divorce. Personal reinvention is a major trend in our culture, and so divorce is now considered an acceptable way to make your life more you — even if there aren’t any glaring problems in your marriage. Your spouse might be a perfectly nice and normal person, and your friends and family might be telling you you’re crazy to want to split up, but at the end of the day the choice is yours. You don’t have to justify ending your marriage to anyone except yourself. So after you’ve looked at the facts, examined your choices and weighed the consequences, give your intuition final say over expert opinions.

Six Ways Divorce Can Turn Your Life Around

jjay Life After Divorce March 14, 2016November 4, 2025Amy Wood, coping with divorce, healthy divorce, life reinvention, positive divorce

Six ways divorce can turn your life around Back in the 1970s when I was growing up, the emotional pain of divorce was made worse by society’s general judgment of divorce as a character failing. If you got divorced, it meant that you weren’t committed enough to your marriage, you weren’t trying hard enough, you didn’t take the institution of marriage seriously.

Thankfully, the contemporary view is that divorce is an empowering alternative to remaining stuck and demoralized in a stale union. No longer stigmatized as a shameful defeat, divorce is now encouraged as a route to personal liberation, reinvention, and a brand new chapter when a legal romantic partnership has run its course.

When you get on board with the idea that divorce can open you up to better things, the stress of getting through it is lessened. Focus on these six rewarding outcomes of ending your expired marriage and you will be able to see light at the end of the tunnel:

You don’t have to limit yourself anymore. What ultimately drives couples to divorce is the sense that their marriage has become too small. It’s impossible to be happy when you’re constantly contorting yourself to fit into a relationship you have outgrown, especially if you’re walking on egg shells to avoid setting off that other person. When you divorce someone who cramps your style, you are able to get out of that confined space, exhale, stretch, move freely, and start growing again.
You become clear about what you don’t want. Because divorce forces you to face the cold reality of what’s not working, it sets you on a determined course of sweeping your life of everything else that no longer suits you. You become highly discerning about what you don’t need or desire anymore — not just excess books and clothes and other unnecessary stuff but obligations, responsibilities, goals, beliefs that aren’t serving a purpose. If it doesn’t add to your life in some truly useful and/or meaningful way, it must go.
You become clear about what you do want. The advantage of ridding your life of what you no longer want is that you become much more certain about what you desire. The drudgery of dismantling your tired marriage and discarding all else that’s not doing it for you anymore leaves you with available space and time to fill as you please. And only what brings you joy and is genuinely worth your time and effort is allowed in.
You set a positive example for your kids. When you bravely decide to go through the turmoil of divorce because you know the value of listening to yourself no matter how scary, you are demonstrating to your kids, and everyone else for that matter, the critical importance of personal integrity. By refusing to tolerate a marriage that won’t allow you to be your best self, you are demonstrating the absolute importance of self-care. And when your kids see you thriving in a new life that is so much more you, they really appreciate the value of not settling…and seriously, is there a life lesson more important than that?
You get to call the shots. Divorce is essentially an assertiveness training boot camp that teaches you once and for all how to speak, stand up, and act for yourself. You learn through the experience how to stop looking to someone else to steer your life, how to enjoy true independence, and how to make the best choices for you. You don’t have to argue anymore about money or chores or parenting, and you don’t have to fight to be heard or respected or get your way. You get to decide what to do and when and how to do it, and resistance falls away.
You get to do it right this time. Once you’re out of the wrong marriage and into a new life situation that actually fits you, you are in the best position possible to be happy. Wiser, stronger, and oh so much surer of yourself than you were the last time you said “I do,” you are completely poised to attract a great partner — if and when you are ready. The biggest reward of divorce is that you realize not only that you can make it on your own, but that being alone is a whole lot better than being with the wrong person. Once you know how to be by yourself and like it, you’re not at risk of marrying for any reason less than putting icing on the cake of an already fulfilling life.