Cody ButlerCody Butler · Men Relationship Coach

How to Stop Emotionally Collapsing During Divorce

9 Jun 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:33

In this solo YouTube talk, Cody Butler addresses the intense emotional volatility many people experience during a divorce, where even tiny interactions—like a text message or a brief conversation—can cause dramatic swings between hope, despair, panic, and relief. He explains that this pattern feels chaotic and exhausting because the autonomic nervous system is not built to sustain such constant heightened arousal; it is only meant for short bursts of alertness. Butler outlines why these micro‑triggers destabilize emotional equilibrium and promises practical grounding and regulation techniques to help viewers break the cycle of emotional collapse.

Chapters

So I want to talk to you today about how do you stop emotionally collapsing in a divorce scenario every time something happens in the relationship. Every time you get a text message, something happens, something doesn't happen. You're so emotionally involved in the microscopic details every day that the smallest things are causing you to collapse. So let's give you some, some tips today on why that's happening and more importantly, what you can do about it. So what's going on is every, every text message destroys you. If it's got an X at the end of it, you're happy. If it doesn't, it causes you to collapse. One cold interaction can completely destabilize you. One hopeful moment lifts you and makes your whole day. One bad interaction can ruin your whole day or your whole week. One clap, one difficult conversation collapses you again. So your emotional state is constantly in this swinging situation of hope, despair, panic, relief. It's going to work out. It isn't going to work out. There's hope. There isn't. And this is absolutely exhausting because it feels uncontrollable. It feels chaotic and it just is a horrible place to live. And your nervous system was never designed to be like this. This is why this feels so, so awful to you because the autonomic, autonomic Nervous system is only designed to be in this heightened state of awareness maybe 15 minutes every 2