Navigating Divorce With Integrity & Love

Dec 11

Navigating Divorce With Integrity & Love

By Dr. Hasti Raveau, PhD, LP
Founder & CEO

We don’t usually see the words divorce, integrity, and love living in the same sentence. Most of us were raised to believe that divorce means war. It means picking sides, choosing a villain, and collecting battle wounds.

But we are creating and ending “contracts” all the time, some inside of ourselves and some outside. The internal ones sound like:
“I won’t let anyone hurt me again so I’ll stop being vulnerable.”
“My worth is conditional, so I’ll just keep performing and masking.”

And the external ones show up everywhere: The job we commit to. The friendships we pour into. The marriage we enter. Even the decision to become a parent.

Every contract eventually ends or transforms. Sometimes by choice, sometimes by the simple truth that things change. Divorce is what it looks like when the structure of that contract no longer matches the humans inside of it.

And how we navigate that shift matters. A lot.

My parents’ divorce shaped how I saw everything

My parents divorced when I was 16, and I remember feeling relieved. I hated watching them fight. I hated the weeks of silence. I hated being put in the middle as the emotional translator. I thought the divorce would bring peace. It didn’t.

My mom became depressed. I barely saw my dad. Money got tighter. The emotional load felt heavier in new ways. Somewhere in all of that I made a private promise to myself: I will never get divorced.

Life loves to humble those kinds of promises.

You can’t hear your truth when you’re in survival mode

There are seasons in life where you are so busy surviving that you cannot hear yourself. Your instincts are whispering, “This isn’t working,” but the way you try to act on it doesn’t land. It comes out clumsy.

Nobody goes into a marriage expecting it to end. But people grow in different directions. They wake up to new truths and start recognizing their own patterns. And eventually one or both partners realize: “I cannot change you. You cannot change me. And we cannot keep sacrificing pieces of our souls to hold this together.”

During the pandemic, a friend of mine came over and observed me around my then husband for the first time. Later she told me how deeply concerned she was about how different I seemed. I already knew the truth, and the hard part was that we had been going to therapy for years. Four different marriage counselors. Individual work. We tried every single thing two people could reasonably try to turn toward each other.

And still, there it was: the space between us. We took the kids to Chicago for a family trip and I realized: even the chaos and beauty and distraction of the city couldn’t fill the gap that had grown between us. When we got home, I called a friend to help me process, and she said something that cracked everything open:

“You want to do this without hurting anyone. But that’s not life. People are going to get hurt. There’s no pain-free way through this.”

And the second she said it, something in me loosened. The truth had room to breathe.

Getting clear on my “why” changed everything

I asked myself what is my real why? Because the why always determines the how. Here’s what came up for me:

I wanted my family to be healthy and honest and loving.
I wanted my kids to grow up seeing healthy relationships.
I knew we would always be a family.
I knew I would always love the father of my children.
I knew I did not want to end the family, but restructure it so all of us could be healthier versions of ourselves.

When I finally said all of this out loud to him, I was so grounded that it helped him stay grounded too. He later said he felt relieved. Our marriage counselor basically became our divorce counselor, helping us stay aligned with our integrity instead of our fear. We continued to see her weekly for months.

The moment I almost chose the wrong story

One day, early in the separation, he did something that really frustrated me. I was hurt. And I remember thinking, I just want to call my friends and tell them how he’s the cause of everything that is going on.

And then….a voice washed over me so clear it almost startled me:

“This is when you are spiritually unbalanced. When you believe someone else has to be bad in order for you to be worthy of love and support.”

I will never forget that.

It’s easier to gather sympathy when there’s a villain. But that’s not love or integrity. And that’s not the kind of mother, partner, human, or leader I want to be. I can access love and support from my people without burning anyone down. I did not need to make him the enemy to feel held. That moment changed everything about how I showed up.

Restructuring the family didn’t mean losing the family

For the first two years after we separated, we still did Thanksgiving together. We still celebrate birthdays together. We learned how to stay a family differently, but still wholeheartedly.

People sometimes get confused when they see photos of all of us together, now with our new partners and stepchildren blended in. A woman once said to me, “I don’t understand why you got divorced if you can be this amicable.” And I remember thinking, Wow… this is how low the bar is.

People assume that if you can be kind, respectful, and cooperative, the marriage should have continued. But what they don’t see is the work, the boundaries, the therapy, the humility, the intentional choice we both make, even on days we don’t feel like it.

None of this happened magically

We didn’t do this alone. I didn’t wake up one day with perfect emotional maturity. We both have our own therapists. We’ve used coparenting counseling. He has an amazing supportive partner. My current husband really holds me accountable to my values when I want to spiral around co-parentings stressors with my ex. My friends and family are committed to always giving him love and respect.

We’ve both put in the time, the self-reflection, and the uncomfortable honesty. Just like anything else in life that matters, you reach your goals when you:

get clear
use your resources
stay humble
and keep doing the work

Divorce doesn’t have to be a war. It can be:

a restructuring
a truth-telling
a return to your authentic self
a healthier model for your children
an interruption of generational patterns
a commitment to doing things differently

I am still grieving the loss of my first marriage because of how it changed our children’s lives. And not every divorce can look like mine. Everyone’s circumstances are different. Safety, mental health, trauma, finances, and resources all shape what is possible. But one thing is always true: How we end things matters. Many times, it becomes the legacy our children inherit.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for ourselves, our kids, and each other is to tell the truth, honor the humanity in all of us, and restructure the family in a way that allows everyone to breathe again.

And if you’re in the thick of it right now, please hear me: you are allowed to choose integrity and love, even in the hardest transitions of your life.

With love & gratitude,

Hasti Raveau, PhD, LP

Founder and CEO

5 Simple and Powerful Divorce Tips

1. Get clear on your WHY before you make any decisions.

If you don’t know your “why,” you will make choices from fear, anger, or panic. Sit with yourself. Name your values, your hopes for your kids, and how you want to show up long-term, and let that guide every step forward.

2. Don’t try to do it alone. Build a support team.

This is not the time to white-knuckle anything. Lean on a therapist, a trusted friend, a spiritual guide, or a co-parenting counselor. When you have the right team, you make calmer, more grounded decisions even on your worst days.

3. Choose the story you want to tell about each other, especially on the hard days.

You don’t need a villain to be worthy of love or support. Pause before you speak about your ex. Ask yourself: “Is this aligned with my integrity or with my hurt?” This one practice alone can change the entire trajectory of your divorce.

4. Lead with boundaries, not bitterness.

Staying kind doesn’t mean staying unprotected. You can set firm boundaries and still be respectful. Boundaries are an act of love for yourself, for your children, and sometimes even for the person you’re separating from.

5. Remember that you’re restructuring the family, not ending it.

Divorce shifts the shape of the family, but it does not erase it. Stay focused on the long game of connection, stability, modeling emotional maturity, and creating the kind of family culture you want your children to inherit.