Robert E. Alberti, PhD
As you begin to read this book, you’re probably smarting from the recent end of a love affair. Perhaps you were married for many years. Or you may have been in a committed relationship without the endorsement of church or state. You may have children, or not. You may have initiated the breakup, or you may have received a terse text message. Your ex-partner may have been a wonderful person, or a jerk.
Whatever your own story, right now, it hurts like hell.
We know how overwhelming it seems, but you can work your way through the difficult and painful process of recovering from the loss of a love relationship. It’s not easy, and it won’t happen overnight. But you can do it. Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends will show you how, with a proven nineteen-step process that has helped more than a million readers to recover and rebuild their lives after enduring the pain of a divorce, breakup, or loss of a love partner.
Again and again, we’ve heard from divorced men and women who have read and worked their way through this process that they are profoundly grateful to their friends who said, “You’re going through a divorce? You have to read Rebuilding!”
Sure, you can read these pages in a few hours. But the process of divorce recovery is another matter altogether. Use this book well, perhaps for a year or more—whatever it takes. You’ll gain a few steps forward, then fall back a step. Most people make faster progress when they take part in a divorce recovery seminar based on the book (the Rebuilding Divorce Recovery Seminars). But whatever else you do, allow yourself the time it will require to work through what Bruce Fisher liked to call “the divorce process.” His research showed that it can take two years or more.
Wait. What? Two years? Not what you wanted to hear, huh? Truth is, in the real world, you won’t go from married person to divorced person to fulfilled independent person in a few weeks, or even a few months. It will take some time.
As you begin your own journey of rebuilding, you’ll note right away that’s the way we have described the process—like climbing a mountain. (Probably not surprising, since Bruce spent most of his adult life in Boulder, Colorado, at the foot of the Rockies.) It’s an apt metaphor; the process can seem slow and difficult. And you’ll likely find there are “detours” along the way; like a mountain trail, it won’t be a straight path to the top. The nineteen steps are presented here in the order that they most often—though not always—occur in people’s lives. You’ll probably experience setbacks, switchbacks, and occasional side trips that take you off the path. Don’t let that stop you. Each of the steps contains valuable life lessons that are well worth working through. Allow yourself as much time as you need to understand your pain and rebuild your capacity to move on.
You’ve probably already discovered that there are tons of books out there about how to deal with divorce. Most have to do with legal issues, finances, parenting and custody, finding a new love. Rebuilding takes a different approach. It’s our goal to help you deal with the almost-inevitable emotional issues you will confront as you put your life back together after this major disruption.
The book starts out with an overview of the process, followed by guidance for the early months, when you’ll likely confront significant levels of depression, anger, and loneliness—the darkness before the dawn. As time goes by, we’ll help you to let go of the baggage you’ve been carrying from the past. As you start to recognize your own personal strengths and worth, you can once again risk trusting others and you’ll open yourself to new relationships. Eventually, if you keep climbing, you’ll discover a life of purpose and freedom. The process probably won’t be smooth, but at each point along the way, this understanding trail guide will be at hand when you need support.
If you’re reading Rebuilding as you take part in a Fisher divorce seminar, you’ll find the class will set the schedule for you, and you’ll be learning a great deal from discussions with other group members. If you’re reading the book on your own, you can set your own pace and tailor your focus to what’s happening in your life at the moment. Either way, you’re likely to find yourself rereading some material that is important to you as you make your way up the mountain.
Bruce Fisher was an “Iowa farm boy” (his words) who, after college, became a probation officer working with teen offenders. That experience led him to graduate school to learn more about the emotional forces that impact people’s lives. Then a divorce changed the focus of his studies and his career. He began to learn more about how people deal with divorce, and that work led to his development of a scale—a “test” of sorts—to examine the process. His research with that first version of his Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale uncovered fifteen (later nineteen) key steps that occur with remarkable consistency (though not always in sequence) in the lives of people who are going through the emotional pain that typically accompanies a divorce. You can use an online version of the Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale at http://www.rebuilding.org/assessment.
As Bruce extended his model to a seminar, guiding others through the divorce recovery process, he began to put his ideas and experience into book form. His early self-published volume, When Your Relationship Ends, found its way to me in 1980, in my capacity as editor and publisher at Impact Publishers (and a licensed therapist myself). Bruce and I worked together for a year to create a trade edition of the book, which Impact released in 1981 as the first edition of Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends. Bruce had by then begun training others in how to use the model and conduct the seminar, and his ten-week program was springing up all over the United States and abroad.
The hundreds of facilitators Bruce prepared during his three-decade career provided him with invaluable evidence about how well the process was working for the members of their groups. Those results—the experiences of tens of thousands of seminar participants—provided the evidence base for continuing improvement of the model and the book. By the time of Bruce’s untimely death from cancer in 1998, his rebuilding model had expanded from fifteen to nineteen steps, progressed through three editions of the book with nearly a million copies in print and translations in many languages, and spawned hundreds of seminars using his program in community centers, churches, clinics, therapists’ offices, and private homes around the world.
And it’s not only the personal experience of readers and seminar participants who affirm the value of this process in their lives. Dozens of research studies have been conducted by professors, graduate students, and therapists, most of them published in peer-reviewed professional journals. These studies show that most participants in seminars following the Rebuilding model make significant gains in self-respect, acceptance of the divorce, hope for the future, letting go of the ended relationship, acceptance of anger, and building a new social network. Thus, Rebuilding is a well-developed, evidence-based, and proven approach, not just another “pop-psychology” book.
We know that relationships these days are all over the map. Traditional marriage has waned a bit in popularity; fewer young people are marrying, and those who do are waiting longer. Most divorced people marry again, but second marriages are not lasting any longer than the first. Ethnic and religious boundaries are frequently crossed as couples seek happiness that transcends those traditional barriers. Ex-priests are marrying. “Single” is no longer a pejorative in middle age. Trophy husbands are becoming as common as trophy wives, since age difference is not the barrier it once was.
Not much is known about divorce among same-gender couples, since it was only in 2015 that the US Supreme Court brought same-gender marriage into the law of the land. Although still considered sinful by some, these unions are becoming commonplace, and everyone will have to get used to this reality. While Rebuilding does not explicitly address same-gender divorce, we know that LGBTQ partnerships do break up (available statistics show the numbers to be similar to those for hetero couples), and we believe the rebuilding process to be essentially the same. When history gives us the benefit of hindsight based on experience with same-gender breakups, we may find notable differences. Until then, we consider this work to be a valuable resource for those of any sexual orientation or gender identity who are experiencing the pain of the end of their relationship. All of us are learning that our similarities are hugely greater than our differences.
Many of the elements of the rebuilding process also address the pain of loss from the death of a partner. While this book does not deal with that personal crisis in depth, we have long recognized that most of the rebuilding blocks do appear in the path widows and widowers must travel. A special section for this group was developed for and by widowed participants in the seminar, and that material has been added to this edition (see appendix D). We offer heartfelt sympathy, and trust that you may find some comfort in these pages as you put your own life back together.
We’ve tried to make Rebuilding as inclusive as we could, but we ask your indulgence if the book doesn’t give full recognition to the form your love relationship may have taken. You’ll find the process works anyway!
Throughout the book, you’ll find frequent references to the group program for divorce recovery that Bruce created. We’ve tried to label it consistently as “the Fisher divorce seminar,” but you’ll find it sometimes called “the ten-week class,” “the Fisher divorce and personal growth seminar,” “the rebuilding class,” “the Fisher seminar,” and sometimes simply “the class”—different labels, same thing.
At times as you make your way, you may feel you need extra help. We encourage you to seek out a licensed professional therapist if you find yourself dealing with high levels of anxiety, depression, or anger. Yes, you’ll ultimately have to work through the process on your own, but just as with any challenging project, you’ll do the best job by using the right tools to help you do the work. Professional support can be one of your most valuable tools if you find yourself stuck.
To get started, however, all you need is available to you right here. I urge you to read each chapter (even if it doesn’t appear at first to apply to you); keep a personal journal of your progress; (answer the “How Are You Doing?” questions at the end of the chapters (be honest with yourself!); avoid jumping into a new relationship early in your process; find a Fisher divorce seminar if you can (see http://www.rebuilding.org), sign up, and take an active part; and, once again, give yourself all the time you need.
Prepare yourself for a journey. Pack up your energy, your optimism, your hopes for the future. Discard your excess baggage. Put on a sturdy pair of shoes. Colorado’s Rocky Mountains were an important part of Bruce’s life. California’s Sierra Nevadas have been an important part of mine. And the rebuilding mountain lies ahead for you. Let’s get ready to climb together.