There is divorce and there is extreme divorce.

Extreme divorce is lengthy, involves emotional and financial abuse, punishment, using or confusing children, and overall bullying behavior. 

Extreme divorce should be illegal but instead, it is seen as the acceptable behavior of men behaving badly.

Essentially, it can involve as much if not more control as the fractured marriage once did.

There is something else which sets extreme divorce apart from the average divorce.

One spouse is determined to ‘destroy’ rather than ‘divorce’ the other.

There was an episode of Iyanla: Fix My Life where an emotionally exhausted and terrified woman feared her husband’s threats to take their children. Iyanla implored the woman to see what was truly happening and said, “He doesn’t want your children. He wants to take YOU down.”

This is a game.

You dare leave or wrong me and I will make sure I come out on top.

These are individuals who behave badly and bully to win. 

Winning being the operative word.

They have zero ability to do the right thing because they do not possess the vision to see the ‘right’ thing. They strictly view the world from their own vantage point. And are the type of individual who when feels wronged will seek retribution and inflict their personal brand of punishment on another.

Extreme divorce sadly lacks the proper support systems. One person is far more powerful either financially or emotionally using income and children to accomplish their objective. Society doesn’t understand it because the powerful person is ‘pretty’ in some manner, successful or charming.

There are 5 Commonalities of Women Enduring Extreme Divorce:

1. Extreme Duress:

The type of pain and pressure of continued emotional and financial bullying is intense. It morphs into living a life of elevated fear and anxiety. A world which is completely unpredictable and out of control as another human being puppets it. It makes the bullied spouse seek help.

2. Begging:

The inquires evolve into begging. Desperate pleas to aid in helping free one’s self from an individual who is terrorizing them and/or physically, emotionally or financially endangering the children.

And so begins a desperate search to find anything or anyone who can help quell the abuse.

3. Rejection:

The cries for help will be rejected. Any person who lives in a world which tolerates this type of outrageous behavior has surrounded themselves with people who will tolerate it and look the other way.

4. Anger:

Once it becomes evident there are little to no available societal resources the debilitating fear turns to anger. Especially when those closest to the inflicting spouse do not care enough wake-up and realize this is NOT divorce. It is abuse. The anger is often not directed at the bullying spouse though it may appear to be. It is in actuality a profound fear for the children impacted and the inability to function at a normal level under continued emotional upheaval.

5. Disillusionment:

The anger ultimately becomes disillusionment. A complete exhaustion and hopelessness that society and those that know them seem to view spousal bullies as acceptable.

That all is fair in love and war.

Well, it isn’t.

There’s a reason we don’t send kids to battle.

They deserve to be protected.

But people continue to just look the other way and say things like ‘I don’t want to get involved’ or ‘I don’t want to take sides’ or ‘this is what men do.’

What if it was their children they were fighting for?

Would they send troops into the war-torn divorce country then?

One can only hope.

Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist

(Photo courtesy of Pexels)

on Twitter @colleenorme
on Pinterest @colleensheehyorme
E-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com
www.colleensheehyorme.com