Have you been shell shocked by an unwanted divorce?
An unwanted divorce is the end of dreams, your future and a roadblock no one expects to deal with.
You've found yourself the recipient of an unwanted divorce. Your spouse may have just walked out, or left you for another man/woman. There may have been a midlife crisis, and you didn’t figure into the “new life.” Whatever the reason, coping with an unwanted divorce can be very difficult. Many people in this situation find themselves depressed, tearful, and afraid.
Moving on with your life may seem insurmountable, but there is hope.
Here are nine things you need to know about healing from an unwanted divorce
Time Doesn’t Heal All Wounds
It takes time. The old adage, “Time heals all wounds” is only partly true. Time does heal some wounds, but many wounds from an unwanted divorce will never heal. However, time does lessen the sting, and with time, the flood of memories and regrets will happen less and less often. You will one day appreciate the pain for what it was…an opportunity to learn and grow.
You Are Worthy of Love
When a spouse files for divorce, your self-esteem can take a beating. Some report feeling worthless or unlovable. Just because you are not able to make the relationship work with that one person doesn’t mean you can’t move on and find a loving relationship. The divorce may have had much more to do with your spouse and his/her issues than being about you.
Don’t blame yourself. Self-criticism only makes it harder. This is the time to be good to yourself, not beat yourself up.
Cultivate Positive Friendships
Evaluate current friendships and make new ones. Many recently divorced people are surprised to get a cold shoulder from some of their friends. If they were mutual friends with your ex-spouse, they may be more loyal to him or her than you.
It is likely, though; that you have some true friends you can reach out to at this time. Make new friends by asking someone to lunch or to a movie. You need friendships to support you through this transition.
Remember Who You Were Before the Bad Relationship
Remember the past. No, I don’t mean the past relationship. Reach back in your memory to your life before that relationship. What were your hopes and dreams? Were there places you wanted to go or new things you wanted to try? This is a perfect time to take that writing workshop, art class, or other activities that interest you. Maybe you want to go back to school. You have to make a new life for yourself and it should be self-nurturing.
Take Time to Grieve
Give yourself time to grieve. Take down old picture albums of the marriage, play “your” songs. Have a good cry. Cry deeply and then let it go. Give yourself a time limit on your grief, and then make a pact with yourself that you won’t let yourself dwell on the negative feelings any longer. Having a daily pity party is good at the beginning of your adjustment period, but you need to set a limit on it.
Get Re-Acquainted With Yourself
Get to know yourself again. When you’ve been part of a couple, chances are many of the choices made in the relationship, such as where to eat or where to go on vacation, were not your choices but your spouses.
You may not know what you really like anymore. Try new things and learn what makes YOU happy. You now have the freedom to explore yourself and you may be surprised to learn that you are a very interesting person!
Explore All of Your Options
Use this experience as a catalyst for your new life. Sometimes a traumatic experience can serve to move us out of a rut we’ve been in with our lives. Have you been stuck in a career that didn’t fulfill you? Now may be the perfect time to look at other options. Start your life over beginning today, and realize all the opportunities that are available to you.
Celebrate Being single
Celebrate being single. There are many “die-hard singles” who really enjoy living alone. Even if they are in a relationship, there are advantages to being single. You don’t have to share a bathroom.
You can stay up late without disturbing anyone. You can cook what you like to eat. You can spend your money the way YOU want to. You can’t change being single now, even if you didn’t plan it, but find ways to enjoy it. Some solitude can be good for all of us as a time of reflection and reorganization of priorities.
Take Your Time When It Comes to New Relationships
Be careful to take some time to get yourself grounded again before trying to tackle another relationship. Rebound relationships are never good for either person involved. Therapists generally recommend waiting at least a year to give yourself time to work through the issues associated with divorce before getting involved with someone else.
Source: https://www.liveabout.com/things-you-need-to-know-about-healing-from-an-unwanted-divorce-1103043
Andrea Gillies had no idea her husband wasn't happy. Till one day, out of the blue, he told her in no uncertain terms
If anyone asks "What's the closest you've come to death?" I answer with the medical emergency I had long ago: the blue light, the ambulance … but the real answer is the night my husband told me he didn't love me any more. That felt like a death, at least. I had assumed that we were happy. It was a physical shock – I was reduced to gibbering and panic – and the striking, persuasive thing was that he didn't care; he had stopped caring what I felt about anything: that was the point. He went off overseas the next morning on business, as planned, and I made arrangements to move out.
There would be crying for a long time, on and off, but for the first week there was weeping more or less without stopping. I did it while crossing the park with the dog and walking along the beach. I wailed my way about town and sobbed in checkout queues. I lost all social embarrassment.
Three and a half years later, I live in a rented flat 200 miles away and we are divorced. The last time we met was almost two years ago, at a family event. We asked each other how we were, like acquaintances with no conversation. He was wearing a jacket I'd bought him once, from the Boden sale, and looked smaller than I remembered. For some reason, I told him this, and he said: "Yes, I appear to be shrinking."
He didn't look too unhappy about it. I realised that I wasn't going to say any of the one-liners that had queued up in my head ready for this moment, and which dealt saltily with the pain and chaos his decision had caused. Something about the day was too banal, and there was too much. I knew I wasn't going to say anything personal to him ever again.
Besides, technically, I had already moved on by then, following the directive that, at some point, you have to get back out there. I wasn't much interested in other men, but I made myself be interested; the one thing that seemed obvious, from my vantage point in the slough of despond was that only the distraction of another relationship was going to help me get out of it. The memory of being tracked at night across the sheet by someone intent on spooning in his sleep wasn't fading: quite the opposite. It had become powerful and undermining. It wasn't the prospect of being alone that was the problem. If I had been able to eradicate the sense of loss, if I had been able to reboot my brain and start afresh, I might have been happy to be alone. But I was constantly haunted.
If you work at home and don't talk to strangers in pubs or do sport or belong to associations, and don't have school-age children, it is very hard to meet new people. After a while it seemed obvious that online dating was the only way forward, though I wasn't prepared for how much effort that would take. The process of being "on offer" was not only humiliating, but time-intensive. Soon, a significant chunk of every evening was taken up patrolling half-a-dozen dating websites, pruning my advertising copy and getting into conversation with people. Often they proved to be the wrong people, though the realisation could take a lot of effort and a lot of Skyping, trying to establish a friendship so as to minimise the sense of risk.
People on dating sites fall into two camps: the instant meeters, who say hello and want to have a drink on Friday and those who have been badly burned and need a long run-up (I fell into the second category). There are different rules there, inside the digital flirtation pool, and people behave in ways they never would otherwise. The discarding of people becomes commonplace because it can be seen as a throwaway culture of endlessly refreshing offers.
One high-achieving, emotionally literate, sane-seeming man sent two emails a day for a month, growing ever more sure I was the woman for him, before deciding he didn't want to meet after all. Not meeting became the norm. Sometimes just before the date the confession emerged: his unusual fetish, his being a decade older than the profile suggested or the existence of a wife watching television in the next room, entirely oblivious. At other times it was simpler: he got off on the attention and was lonely, but not actually interested.
Somewhat dented, I gave up for a while but all attempts to meet someone in other ways failed. Partly this was to do with being middle-aged and out of shape. If I dropped a glove in winter in the street, there was never a man rushing to retrieve it, smitten and intent on taking me ice-skating.
Back in the online swamp, I began to give myself pep talks about the good-enough match. I began to operate in a kind of optimistic denial. It is easy to get into a situation in which he is keen and you are not very, or vice versa: a pragmatic clinging together of incompatibles, for just a little while, until too sad or bored to cling on any more. There are times in life when the sea is more attractive than the lifeboat.
Unrequitedness was a big issue. Men who reminded me of my husband, the interesting, handsome ones to whom I wrote long, witty letters, naively expectant of my worth being obvious, were out of my reach, talking to younger women with smaller bottoms. Rows and rows of contestants, even of age 50-plus, specified that they would meet only females under 30 who were a maximum size 12. A man of 56 told me: "Plain fact is, you're the wrong side of 40 and Rubenesque, which means you've got very little prestige." He told me to go to the gym and give up carbs. A frequenter of the manosphere, an online subworld of male bloggers and commenters, used the manosphere acronym SMV (sexual market value) so as to inform me that I didn't have much of it. It was all very disheartening and the end result was that I became grateful for crumbs of hope. In that situation, if someone nice crosses your path, genuinely single, not alarming-looking, someone you like on first sight, and the date goes well, and he's keen to have a second: the day this happens is a magnificently lucky day.
It seemed less and less likely that it would happen. But then, a year ago, reading new listings on a website from which I was about to delete myself, I met a man called Eric, a very tall man (good), who lived alone (good) and who worked in IT (maybe not so good). I wasn't sure, after the first date – nervously, he talked a lot about fibre optics – and that's when lots of people give up, thinking that if there is no instant "spark", there's no point.
There's a lot of crap talked about the spark. I can tell you from my own experience that sometimes it doesn't emerge for quite a while. Sometimes, people are just slow to get to know.
Some of the most endearing things about Eric have only emerged over time. Besides knowing a lot about the stars and about science, he has a secret passion for romcoms, is a buyer of surprise flowers and tickets, is up for budget flights on winter weekends, and is the uncrowned prince of DIY.
It also turns out that he is the kindest man I have ever met. If I were to lock myself in the bathroom and howl like a wounded fox, as I did the night my ex made his announcement, Eric would be distraught. He would sit on the floor and talk to me through the door, and beg to be let in to comfort me. Kindness is too often under-rated.
What is also noticeable is the constant physical proximity when we are together: the snuggling, the wanting to have a point of contact when sitting – a shoulder, a knee – and the frequent glancing touches when we are cooking together; the fact that even when it's cold, he'll take one glove off in the street so that we can hold hands skin to skin.
Not that things are simple. He has his baggage and I have mine, the actual and metaphorical, though I'm learning to live with the shadow, the one cast by grief. At the start I spent a lot of time fighting it, convinced I couldn't see anyone else until the shadow was gone. The truth is that it probably won't disappear altogether. It wears slowly away, like other griefs, and the trick is to accept that and be happy. Sometimes, even now, the ex pops up in dreams. Sometimes we have a frank exchange and he finally sees things from my point of view: a search for closure, I suppose. Once, when he visited me in my sleep, he told me he had broken up with the other woman, and I was horrified to find myself begging him to come home. It isn't something I'd do when awake, not now, but sometimes the subconscious hangs on to things the conscious mind has put to rest.
Now when I hear that people are to divorce I feel an acute pity. Separating is hard. When I was young and everything was black and white, I would see those articles about great life stressors and wonder about divorce being in the list next to bereavements and tumours. Even when you are happily married, the idea of separation is sometimes quite tempting. Your own flat and your own things; shopping and eating and travelling at will; a single's social life again and blessed independence.
At ordinary low points in a relationship you might think: "Well, it will be sad and there will be tricky negotiations over property and books, but it will be OK." The reality is somewhat different. What I hadn't expected was how much divorce would undermine the past. The doubts can begin to breed and multiply. Did he really mean it when he said "I do"? When did his heart begin to sink in response to my affection? Were they really happy, those holidays marked by smiling photographs? I can drive myself mad trying to identify the turning point.
But most of the time I don't obsess over these things. Most of the time I live my life forwards and can stop myself from looking back. Admittedly there are still bad, self-destructive days when everywhere I go, all I see is everything I've lost. Sometimes they are quite concrete things: I lost my house, for instance, and may never be able to afford one again. Other less tangible kinds of loss strike deeper, and quantifying them is a seductively bad habit. There are times, even now, when I beat myself up because suddenly it's obvious that it must have been my fault. Superficially, we were happy: it wasn't a bickering, obviously bad sort of a marriage and the end of it shocked everyone we knew, but the fact has to be faced that he was so miserable that he was driven into a corner, and turned his own life upside down in his desperation to be free. That's the shadow that's difficult to shift. But you have to live your life as forward-facing as you can. And you learn as you go; you learn so much.
I live my life differently now. I don't know if I could live with someone again. I don't assume that love will last, or look forward beyond the summer. Fundamentally, no matter what promises we make, the truth is that today is all we have.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/12/how-i-picked-myself-up-after-divorce
Marriage should be a mutually beneficial arrangement for two people. Love, of course, matters, but historically, women had finances and their future stability to consider when choosing a husband. And over the past hundred years, our concept of marriage has changed—not just in America, but in many parts of the world. Today, women no longer marry to survive. Instead, independent women tie the knot for love and self-realization. But love and self-realization are also increasingly becoming reasons for getting a divorce.
According to a recent study conducted by WP Diamonds, one in ten marriages ends due to a lack of freedom. Once divorced, this newly-won freedom can seem a little frightening to even the most independent women. The important thing is to stay focused on your goals and assert your wishes. Starting over after divorce is about taking control of your new life.
Fight for your dreams, and take control of your life
Maintain a positive outlook, and when all else fails, remember that independence doesn’t mean never asking for help. Realize how much other people value you—your colleagues, friends, and family. Allow your positive thoughts to fuel you and help you build up your inner strength. If you need more support during this difficult time, you should get that support. Your real friends and family will stand by you through hard times. Talk to your friends, other divorced women, or a professional to get the divorce advice you need. In fact, one out of every four people going through a divorce would consider seeking professional help from a therapist.
And that’s good. For if there was ever a time one should turn to experts, it’s during the life crisis of divorce. Those same people who’d “consider a therapist” might benefit from learning about the steps resulting from working with a coach. For at some point, you want to stop talking about your situation and DO something that is appropriate for your circumstances. And without regret. Appropriate action lessens anxiety and can relieve stress.
Independent women know this. We know how to make the best out of what life gives us, to speak up, and to take control — all of which takes a certain boldness and action. This also means taking control of our mental wellbeing and making decisions that are in our best interest.
Stand up for your rights, and carefully think about your next steps
Parting with someone close to you can be an emotional and painful process. Making rational decisions during this time is difficult but essential. If you can do so now, your future will be more stable—both emotionally and financially. Many women find it helpful to create a plan to follow during and after the divorce so they don’t lose track of what is important. As a divorced woman, you have rights. Create a checklist of your next steps. Here are a few examples of tasks you can add to your checklist:
- Seek professional, emotional divorce advice
- Find a good financial advisor
- Ensure your children understand the changes they’re experiencing
It is not always easy, but it is ever so important to be honest with your children and to talk to them about what is going on. Your intention might be to protect them, but this is a hard time for them as well. Now more than ever, they need to know that they are loved and that they don’t need to choose one parent over the other.
Be yourself, and gather your strength for the future
In all stages of life, you should remain true to yourself and follow your own path. This is also very important when it comes to starting over after divorce. Remember: You are not just a wife or a mother. You will always be, first and foremost, you—an individual, an independent woman. You can decide for yourself where to go, what to do, and which values you cherish after divorce.
Sometimes the stress of going through a divorce can bring out our ugly sides, and a person can turn to intimidation and other forms of manipulation to get what they want or to spite their Ex. If you remain fair and refuse to fall into this trap, you will increase your chances of coming out the other side a much more positive and emotionally stable woman. Stay true to yourself and surround yourself with people who are important to you—people who love and support you. Celebrate the good times rather than dwelling on the past.
Be patient—starting over after divorce takes time
Deciding to divorce was likely a long process, after all. The decision to part ways with the person who was once your other half is not taken lightly. The wait for the divorce to finalize can also be excruciating. Depending on how long you were married, the prenuptial agreement, children, and many other factors, the divorce process can take several months or years. This is not always easy so when you hit a low moment picture your life after divorce and what it will feel like to be in control again. If your divorce has just finalized, know that once the dust has settled life after divorce will get better.
Your reward: your new life after divorce
Life goes on. As you contemplated divorce, filed the paperwork, and waited for your attorney to tell you it was finally over, daily tasks and responsibilities continued to pile up. Your job, your children, your home—each of them needs your attention. Divorce is rarely easy. You might have even asked yourself, “How will I move on after divorce?” The truth is that starting over after divorce will bring up a lot of emotions, but mostly, women feel like taking a great sigh of relief. Both before and throughout the divorce process, it can feel like you’re holding your breath. Are you ready to let it out? Your life as an independent, divorced woman is waiting for you.
Source: https://sasforwomen.com/starting-over-after-divorce/
Marriage should be a mutually beneficial arrangement for two people. Love, of course, matters, but historically, women had finances and their future stability to consider when choosing a husband. And over the past hundred years, our concept of marriage has changed—not just in America, but in many parts of the world. Today, women no longer marry to survive. Instead, independent women tie the knot for love and self-realization. But love and self-realization are also increasingly becoming reasons for getting a divorce.
According to a recent study conducted by WP Diamonds, one in ten marriages ends due to a lack of freedom. Once divorced, this newly-won freedom can seem a little frightening to even the most independent women. The important thing is to stay focused on your goals and assert your wishes. Starting over after divorce is about taking control of your new life.
Fight for your dreams, and take control of your life
Maintain a positive outlook, and when all else fails, remember that independence doesn’t mean never asking for help. Realize how much other people value you—your colleagues, friends, and family. Allow your positive thoughts to fuel you and help you build up your inner strength. If you need more support during this difficult time, you should get that support. Your real friends and family will stand by you through hard times. Talk to your friends, other divorced women, or a professional to get the divorce advice you need. In fact, one out of every four people going through a divorce would consider seeking professional help from a therapist.
And that’s good. For if there was ever a time one should turn to experts, it’s during the life crisis of divorce. Those same people who’d “consider a therapist” might benefit from learning about the steps resulting from working with a coach. For at some point, you want to stop talking about your situation and DO something that is appropriate for your circumstances. And without regret. Appropriate action lessens anxiety and can relieve stress.
Independent women know this. We know how to make the best out of what life gives us, to speak up, and to take control — all of which takes a certain boldness and action. This also means taking control of our mental wellbeing and making decisions that are in our best interest.
Stand up for your rights, and carefully think about your next steps
Parting with someone close to you can be an emotional and painful process. Making rational decisions during this time is difficult but essential. If you can do so now, your future will be more stable—both emotionally and financially. Many women find it helpful to create a plan to follow during and after the divorce so they don’t lose track of what is important. As a divorced woman, you have rights. Create a checklist of your next steps. Here are a few examples of tasks you can add to your checklist:
- Seek professional, emotional divorce advice
- Find a good financial advisor
- Ensure your children understand the changes they’re experiencing
It is not always easy, but it is ever so important to be honest with your children and to talk to them about what is going on. Your intention might be to protect them, but this is a hard time for them as well. Now more than ever, they need to know that they are loved and that they don’t need to choose one parent over the other.
Not sure what steps you need to take? Here are some more tips for newly-divorced independent women.
Be yourself, and gather your strength for the future
In all stages of life, you should remain true to yourself and follow your own path. This is also very important when it comes to starting over after divorce. Remember: You are not just a wife or a mother. You will always be, first and foremost, you—an individual, an independent woman. You can decide for yourself where to go, what to do, and which values you cherish after divorce.
Sometimes the stress of going through a divorce can bring out our ugly sides, and a person can turn to intimidation and other forms of manipulation to get what they want or to spite their Ex. If you remain fair and refuse to fall into this trap, you will increase your chances of coming out the other side a much more positive and emotionally stable woman. Stay true to yourself and surround yourself with people who are important to you—people who love and support you. Celebrate the good times rather than dwelling on the past.
Take these 46 steps to ensure your divorce recovery.
Be patient—starting over after divorce takes time
Deciding to divorce was likely a long process, after all. The decision to part ways with the person who was once your other half is not taken lightly. The wait for the divorce to finalize can also be excruciating. Depending on how long you were married, the prenuptial agreement, children, and many other factors, the divorce process can take several months or years. This is not always easy so when you hit a low moment picture your life after divorce and what it will feel like to be in control again. If your divorce has just finalized, know that once the dust has settled life after divorce will get better.
Your reward: your new life after divorce
Life goes on. As you contemplated divorce, filed the paperwork, and waited for your attorney to tell you it was finally over, daily tasks and responsibilities continued to pile up. Your job, your children, your home—each of them needs your attention. Divorce is rarely easy. You might have even asked yourself, “How will I move on after divorce?” The truth is that starting over after divorce will bring up a lot of emotions, but mostly, women feel like taking a great sigh of relief. Both before and throughout the divorce process, it can feel like you’re holding your breath. Are you ready to let it out? Your life as an independent, divorced woman is waiting for you.
Source: https://sasforwomen.com/starting-over-after-divorce/
For divorced men, the reality is painful emotionally, physically, financially, and just about any angle you can look at it. It’s simply an unpleasant experience. To rebuild from it or from anything, the anger needs to subside, whatever humor to be found needs to be brought forth, and a renewed spirit developed.
At the same time as rebuilding begins, there needs to be an emphasis placed upon not regressing to less- developed former states. Many men in this situation fall back to a younger adult mentality of late night partying and ill-advised romantic involvements. Instead, focus on using the experience to emerge wiser and more prepared for what is next in life. Remaining stagnate or regressing are traps that usually lead to even more heartache.
There is hope for life after divorce. Divorced men can experience less trauma and create positive growth. There are ways to rebuild life and be a better parent. Here’s how:
Make Time to Grieve
The shattered dreams, the broken vows, and the reality of starting over all cause severe emotion. Shoving that emotion down and not releasing it will cause further damage in every case. Most do not realize the destructive paths they are going down until a lot of carnage is behind them. All the stages of grief come with divorce: shock, denial, anger, and acceptance. But for men, in particular, there can be a deep sense of personal failure. Finding trusted people to share these emotions with is highly recommended. That could be a clergy person, a counselor or just a wise and sincere friend or small group. As you move into this major life transition, being emotionally unstable is not beneficial to your cause. Address your grief.
Regain Individual Identity
Marriage is about partnership and teamwork, and now you find yourself on your own. It’s time to regain your individual identity and figure out what are the things that make life work well for you. It’s important to learn to respect yourself and feel worthy again. Hone the character traits and abilities you possess that lead to positive results in your life, and critically figure out the ones that contributed to the lack of success. Doing these things will enable us to better understand what we need and expect from the next relationship. Most of all, learn to pray with sincerity and purpose. God has not and will not leave your side.
Build a Network of Friends
Just because you’re single now, life after divorce doesn’t have to be lonely. Divorce will wreak havoc on some of your current friendships, but gracefully accept that and retain the ones that reach out to you. Moving forward, carefully work to make new friends in similar situations with similar goals. This is the area that is most vulnerable to regression. It’s certainly expected to have an active and enjoyable social life, but craft it with great care.
Prudent Financial Planning
You have enough stress from the divorce already. Accumulating mass amounts of debt will make life much more miserable as you transition. Alimony and child support are going to force serious restructuring. Doing so bitterly is going to send trauma throughout the entire family unit, especially landing right in the heart of your children. They will feel unwanted and as if they are burdens, when what they need more than anything at the moment is lots of reassurance that dad is still going to be there for them. Make the hard decisions and necessary cuts. It’s going to painful, but you’ll come out of it one day much better off.
Make a Goals Bucket List
Starting over requires deciding what are the things most important to you. Make a bucket list of goals you wish to achieve in this new direction in life. A better version of the man you already are. A better and wiser parent. Be a man that prepares himself for the best chance at happiness and success. Try and feel new things.
Source: https://www.allprodad.com/rebuilding-life-after-divorce/
