When we were young, we were told by our mother’s to always use the “buddy-system” to keep ourselves safe.  It could have been a sibling or a friend, so long as there was someone with you, our parents thought the likelihood of our safety and well-being was increased.

Last weekend, I sat with a group of women, some old friends and some new.  There was one woman who was just beginning the arduous process of divorce.  We offered encouragement, and stories of surviving and surmounting the inevitable challenges that lay ahead for her. She had her first of two meetings with potential family law attorneys the next week and had more questions than she could remember. We all talked her through the things that we thought were important. She’d wished she had a notepad to write it all down in order to better remember.

The next day I was included on a group text.  The woman starting her divorce asked the group of us if anyone was available to go with her to this appointment to interview the potential divorce/family law attorney.  I said yes. Even though we were newly acquainted, my offering to go with her has much more to do with moral support than it does with a familiarity with all her particulars.

A couple of months earlier on a Sunday morning, a friend texted to say that she had broken her foot, and that she was going to call an Uber car to take her to the emergency room. I texted, then called, back to say I would come and take her, that she could not go to the ER alone.  Before I got into the car, she texted back to say that a neighbor was going to take her.  I explained that I was still coming to the hospital, as she needed all the moral support she could muster.  It’s funny how when the injury is physical, we’re quick to realize the need for support–the confusion that comes from an injury, the unfamiliarity of medical terms, conditions and procedures and the necessity to remember what you were supposed to do once you LEFT the appointment or the hospitalization.  How is it any different when facing a divorce?

We should adopt and model the “Buddy System” with our female friends around us–close friends or casual acquaintances. Even if you are just taking notes for her to reference after the appointment. We can decrease the adrenaline laced fight-or-flight responses to unfamiliar, stressful meetings and environments.  Similar to what I get to do in the daily work I do, you can use any (or all) of the bad things that you survived and surmounted to help another woman in similar shoes to the pair you once wore.

Pay it forward baby.