Divorce is one of the most stressful life events someone can go through. On the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale (also known as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale), it ranks second—just behind the death of a spouse.
Knowing exactly how to support a friend going through a divorce can be hard. During a recent podcast interview with Mel Robbins, divorce lawyer James Sexton shared the best ways friends can support friends and loved ones who are currently experiencing a divorce.
Sexton offers some easy and actionable tips that are practical, empathetic, and supportive.
4 tips to support friends
Tip #1: Meet them where they’re at.
“Stop being useful the way that you want to be useful. Stop giving them what you think they need. Figure out what they need,” says Sexton. “You want to, like, tell them like, ‘You’re right! He sucked!’ Like, first, just stop and don’t worry about how you want to show up.”
He goes on to explain it’s more about what they need.
“Rather than bringing your set of stuff to this—your divorce, your frustration in your current relationship, your, like, vision of ‘Oh my god, if this was me going through this, I would feel this, this, and this.’ Meet this person where they’re at, first.”
Tip #2: Offer them a “menu.”
Sexton says that by offering them specific options on how you spend your time when you get together is another way to be a supportive friend. He says to tell your friend, “Hey listen, I’m coming over on Thursday”, and from there you offer them a menu of choices such as:
- ‘We can talk about it if you need to.’
- ‘If you don’t want to talk about it, I can just tell you about all the crazy stuff going on at work right now.’
- ‘If you want to cry, you can cry.’
- ‘If you want me to cry, I’ll cry.’
- ‘If you want to not cry, and you want me to just make you laugh, we can do that.’
- ‘By the way, if you pick one of those things, then it doesn’t feel good when we’re in it, we can change.’
Tip #3: You don’t have to have the perfect words.
Sexton shares that to friends grieving during a divorce, he says two things:
“I wish I knew the perfect thing to say because I would say it right now,” he explains to Robbins. “Because I’m pointing out something about the inadequacy of words. Because all I’m saying then is, ‘I love you. I love you, and it hurts that you’re hurting.’”
Tip #4: Ask one specific question.
Sexton also adds that there is one question supportive friends can pose to someone struggling during their divorce.
“I say to them, ‘Can you let me do something for you?’” before offering a number of options:
- ‘Let me come over and mow your lawn.’
- ‘Let me take the kids for the day and take them out someplace, to Legoland.’
- ‘Let me cook you dinner. Not for you, for me. Because I feel out of control in this, and you’re hurting, and I love you. So could you do me the favor of letting me do something for you?’
