Avoid Divorce During the Holidays At All Costs-Young couple holding hands and smiling walking in snowy forest No one wants to be divorced during the holidays, especially if you have kids. Divorce is a traumatic experience that you never want to associate with any holiday. That especially goes for the winter holidays that are traditionally family-oriented.

Holidays are a horrible time to start a divorce because not having your kids for any of the high holidays could melt your resolved to finish the long process and reconsider your course of action.

Avoid Divorce During the Holidays At All Costs-Call a Holiday Cease-Fire

Let’s make this clear: A cease-fire isn’t surrendering, and it’s not a compromise. It’s an attempt to see if you can create and keep a commitment to STOP fighting for a few weeks during these stressful times of the year. Let go of the past, stop projecting “what-if” scenarios into the future, and simply be there with your partner to get through until January. Putting marital arguments on hold for the holidays can be difficult, but far from impossible.

Hey, I know it feels good to be impulsive! Saying the things that you’ve buried out loud will make you feel better… temporarily. The problem is that those “truth bombs” are going to pollute everything you need to do right now to get through the holidays. Remember, it takes a minimum of six months to finish a divorce if you have kids. The average divorce takes 18 months! I have clients who are still not divorced after four years since we finished trying to save the marriage. In other words, waiting for another month should within the realm of possibility.

Statistics show that January is the month with the most divorce filings: New Year, New Spouse. My advice is to wait until your children’s end-of-year exams are over in May or June. This allows you to create a new normal with your kids over the summer without the emotional overload affecting their studies at school or ruining the winter holidays.

2. Leave the Kids Out of It

Breaking the news of a divorce to your children can be an incredibly delicate conversation. You must not tell them anything until you are both clear on the messaging!

This isn’t a conversation that you should have separately with them. It’s important to talk to them together. Telling them one-on-one or in front of your partner when the other spouse is not ready yet is detrimental to the kids. That is using your children to guilt and manipulate your partner, a black card that should get you thrown out of the game!

If your plans for divorce came together just before the holidays, you can delay them for a few weeks for the sake of your kids. Just think about your soon-to-be former spouse as a roommate. It isn’t like the kids will really notice, as the last thing they want to think about is their parents having sex.

I’m sure you both have a lot of pent up resentments and want to air all the dirty laundry. During the holidays, you finally have a few days off from work, so it can be tempting to let it all out because you will be spending more time together. Family time during the holidays is not the time nor the place. Instead, schedule an appointment with me or any marriage therapist you feel confident in to help you get through December.

Remember, you can’t get rid of each other. If you both love your kids, then you likely won’t ever be living more than 50 miles apart. You’ll see each other every week. You still need to co-parent with them for years, so just saying you want a divorce and finishing a divorce are two goals, very far apart. You can put those goals on hold for the holidays, for the sake of your children.

3. Put Down the Phone and Start Talking

Phones are so powerful nowadays. The knowledge of the planet is available in the palm of our hands. Of course, there are also countless cat videos. Phones can equal infinite distraction and scrolling. They mingle our work and business lives so that the boundary between them is blurred past recognition. Social media addiction is real, and phones make an excellent escape from dealing with an unhappy marriage.

There is no need to air dirty laundry directly on social media, especially during the holidays. You should also skip the passive-aggressive meme-sharing. I know you want to send messages to your partner indirectly, but this is not going to help you accomplish either goal of getting your partner back, nor having a peaceful, non-confrontational, and inexpensive divorce.

Schedule a 10/10. You need to put the kids to bed, pour a glass and wine, and practice listening to each other for 10 minutes each. One partner talks while one listens for 10 minutes, then switch. The listening partner’s goal is to hear the FEELINGS their partner is directly or indirectly expressing underneath whatever it is they have to say.

You do not have to solve the problem of your partner. You do not have to feel bad that they have problems. But you DO still have to listen if they are bitching about the same work issues for three years in a row. You do not need to tell them to get a new job; you only need to listen and express empathy for their frustration.

All feelings are real and valid to the person feeling them. Empathy is understanding the feelings of another person, especially if you DO NOT feel the same way. And feeling empathy is very much in keeping with the spirit of the holiday season!

4. Have Your Partner’s Back During Family Get-Togethers

You’re going to be seeing many of your relatives over the holidays. It’s important that you do not tell the family anything about your plans for divorce.

Bad mouthing your partner to parents and siblings will only shut them down more. It reduces your ability to compromise and save face later. If you throw your partner under the bus at Thanksgiving, how are you going to believably explain that you’ve reconciled and everything is hunky-dory at Christmas dinner four weeks later?

Just like the kids, tell friends and family as little as possible, then present a joint statement once you have talked it out and came up with a plan to move forward. Obviously, if you are separating, your parents’ homes are the most common places to retreat too. Still, maintain strict radio silence. If you need to discuss the situation, find professional help rather than bury your partner to your family.

Instead of competing to get your needs met, try to compete in meeting your partner’s needs. I always remind people that the techniques to divorce peaceably are the same to save a marriage. If you can do it, you might not have to divorce. Many couples start the process of divorce and never finish it. Others reconnect and discover new things in themselves. It’s a god-awful way to get a couple talking, but once the log jam is broken, it is incredible just how much can actually be accomplished and cleaned up emotionally.

The holidays are considered to be the most wonderful time of year, but they can also be the most stressful. If you’re on the verge of divorce or separation, that stress can overwhelm you and drive you to make decisions that aren’t in the best interest of your marriage or your family. By following the advice above and putting divorce on hold for a few weeks, you can have an enjoyable holiday season for you AND your children. And if you need to talk about things to get that done, I’m always here to help!