Wednesday, January 7, 2009

After the divorce

Divorce is an end and a beginning.From the moment you walk out of the courthouse, you will need new knowledge, ideas, and most of all a new outlook. That divorce has witnessed the birth of a new person; even though you must go on with life, you will find that you see things with very different eyes.You will be a different parent, child and adult.

Parents have to take care of themselves before they can help their children. If you don't have children you still have to deal with all the emotions you will have as a newly divorced adult. First you need to take control of your own life. It is quite normal for you to feel bad even if you wanted the divorce. You must allow yourself to grieve over the loss of a way of living.

The moment you decide that you want to go on with your new life you will becoming a different person. What you feel today is not something that you will feel in three years or even tomorrow. Right now you you can put a band aid on the wound but farther down the road a great deal of thoughtful learning is required on an ongoing basis.

Over time you are going to turn into a butterfly and no longer be that little caterpillar you were before the Divorce. To succeed; your sef image is going to have to change radically. The stresses and damage done by a marriage that ended in divorce, need to be translated into a competent and amiable way of dealing with life.

How you manage this depends on how you deal with the bumps in the road ahead. You need to cry for the loss of a relationship whether it was good or bad. Whether you divorced your former spouse or they left you; crying is very good for the soul. You must hasten not to think of yourself as a victim but must see this time as the birth of a new day. It is hard to think of being a betrayer or of having been betrayed on any level but you must go on.

Your change in identity is only accomplished by yourself. The divorce papers do not magically do that for you. Most change happens gradually as time goes by and you will have 'relapses' of emotion but one moring you will wake up and see the sun is shining and you actually will feel happy. After all the crying, anger and self doubt you will be able to carry on in a normal way but as a new person. The other person will no longer haunt your thoughts, nor be a part of your mindset, and you will be able to make decisions without needing that other 'voice'. During this transition give yourself little rewards; get a new hairdo, or a massage, a new dress, or a membership at a gym. Your emotional equilibrium will become steadier and you be in charge of things a little more each day. Be easy on you and love yourself throughout this process. The important thing is to give yourself time to heal.

It is important to see the humor in things as soon as possible as laughter is very good for the soul. If you have to deal with your former partner strive to be politely civil. If you have children don't berate the other parent around them. Leave that emotional heaving for your counselor or confidant. Just remember that each day that you move farther away from the relationship you are going to be closer to that new person you have become.

Just a few suggestions for reading if you wish.
Dating for Dummies

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