Work through

We say we “work through” a difficult situation, like a problem, disagreement, or negative feelings, by thinking about it, talking about it, and processing it.

Today's story: Amicable divorce
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Work through

Today’s English expression is a phrasal verb, and that is “work through.” We use this phrase when we have a difficult situation like a problem, a disagreement, or negative feelings. And we say we “work through” the problem by thinking about it, talking about it, and processing it. We use this with difficult situations, not easy ones.

Earlier in today’s lesson, you heard that some separating couples have chosen to go to the Divorce Hotel . At the Divorce Hotel, they spend a weekend working through the details of their separation. A divorce is not just about completing a few forms and filing them with the government. The couple needs to agree on how to divide assets fairly and how to share parenting responsibilities if they have kids.

This takes more than just filling in some forms; it takes some intellectual and emotional work—and it’s a perfect example of when we can use “work through.” So this is a difficult situation and the couple needs to think about the problem, talk about it, and do the work to bring it to a resolution. In this case, we say they are working through the details of the divorce when they go to the Divorce Hotel.

When we use “work through,” the work could be like “pen-and-paper” work, or it could be more emotional processing. After they check out of the Divorce Hotel, each half of the couple will have to separately work through the difficult emotional burden of separating. As a couple, they worked through the formalities of the divorce agreement. But separately, they’ll have to work through the details of their new lives apart. Some will work through emotional difficulties with the help of a therapist or with friends and family. Others will have to work through the financial details of their new lives: they may have to change careers, change lifestyles, or make a detailed budget for the first time.

As a kid, I was good at math, but it didn’t come naturally to me. I had to work at it. I remember long afternoons and evenings when I would work through problem sets in algebra. I had to do the hard work of thinking about the problems, processing them, sometimes saying the steps out loud, thinking about the logic, things like that. Am I doing the same thing on both sides of the equals sign? If I multiplied to get here, then I can divide to go back. Am I doing things in the correct order? These are the things you think about when you’re working through a hard problem in algebra.

This is an example of “pen-and-paper” work. There’s no real emotional burden here; I mean, yes, I was emotionally scarred by some math, don’t get me wrong. But the process of solving a math problem is more like, think about it, talk about it, follow the steps methodically, work through it that way.

But it’s also common to say someone is “working through” emotions. And in that case, we mean that a person is thinking about emotions, processing them, maybe talking about them with someone like a therapist or a friend—or simply just taking the time to resolve the difficult emotions. You can work through guilt, pain, loss, grief, emotions like that.

JR’s song of the week

How about a thematic tie-in to our main lesson for the song of the week? Today it’s “My Little Love” by Adele—I know we just did an Adele song, but JR thought this fit perfectly with today’s theme. It’s from Adele’s latest album and in this song, she tries to explain her divorce to her son. The song is “My Little Love” by Adele.

See you next time!

And that’s all for today’s audio lesson. The video lesson at PlainEnglish.com/449 is about how to describe a portion of something quantifiable. So if you have a number of things, and something is true about only a portion of them…how do you describe that situation? Well that’s what I’ll walk you through step-by-step in today’s video lesson online. The video lessons are a great way to work through some of the hardest parts of English. And the best part is, under each video you can practice writing your own examples of what you’re learning…and I read every example and give feedback. The video lessons are available for Plain English Plus+ members, so if you’re not yet a Plus+ member, you can join at PlainEnglish.com/Plus .

Remember, on Monday we’ll extend this topic a bit to talk about the co-parenting trend of “birdnesting.”

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Story: Amicable divorce