How to Survive Your Divorce — a Beginners Guide

One night, after my husband and I had separated I was out with friends at a bar.

There was a table of older ladies who were also enjoying an evening out together.

We got talking. One lady in particular asked me a bit about myself and I told her that I was recently separated from my husband.

I don’t think you can quite comprehend how much going through a divorce totally and utterly sucks unless you’ve been through one.

There was a knowing in her tone that you only acquire from really, truly understanding someone’s situation.

She said to me “You are going to be fine”.

She was right.

The thing is, when you are in the middle of it you feel like you will never recover. It’s traumatic and devastating and completely exhausting.

Friends often take sides, sometimes family does to. Usually you see a side to your ex you never would have believed existed.

Facing life on your own feels unimaginable after you join your life with someone else. Nobody gets married because they are pretty sure it’s going to end in a flaming heap of pain and resentment.

Here are some of the things I wish I had known from the start about marriage separation.

You are going to be fine

It’s not going to be easy, but you will get through it and you will be ok. There is a lot to be said about this.

When a relationship is toxic and abusive you are always better off without it and so are your kids. When you are through the worst of it you will thank yourself for your strength.

Sometimes separation makes way for a truly happy future you never could have had. The biggest thing I notice about my life now is that I am happy. I never was while married.

I have the energy to pursue my goals and be the parent I want to be because I’m not constantly dealing with the trauma of a toxic marriage.

Give yourself time

There is a fair bit of grief that comes with separation.

There’s only one way through grief and that’s time. It’s ok to feel fine one day and be falling apart the next. It’s ok to be fuming with rage one moment and aching inside the next.

This is all part of coming to terms with a huge change in your life.

Think about it like this, every negative thing you feel is one less negative thing you will have to feel as you get through your situation. It’s like a step forward and one day you will get to where you’re going.

Let yourself feel whatever you are feeling and don’t think that you have to fit your process into someone else’s time frame. Do what feels right for you.

Trust your gut feelings

This will probably be a time when your head and your gut will be conflicting in a huge way. Maybe you’ve been ignoring your gut for a while now.

Everyone seems to have a different view on what you should do, how you should deal with your ex, if you should take them back or go back to them.

Deep down, most of the time you already know the answers. Listen to your gut, it’s usually the harder option but you won’t regret trusting yourself.

This is also a time when things can get really messy. If you get a bad feeling about a particular conversation, person or something that’s happening stop and listen to your gut. Act carefully.

Don’t underestimate your intuition.

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best

It’s sad but true, a lot of the time separation starts out amicably and quickly turns hostile.

When thing’s started to turn sour between my ex and I, everybody who had been through divorce told me to hire a lawyer and get parenting arrangements drawn up.

I was sure that our situation was different, we could work it out ourselves, other people needed that stuff, not me.

I was so very wrong.

Getting professional legal advice doesn’t mean that you are trying to cheat your ex out of anything. It doesn’t even mean you have to use it, together you might be able to sort something out that works for everyone involved. But if things turn south you’ll need to know what to do.

If your ex has surprised you with some pretty poor form, prepare yourself that there might be more of that in store. You might not know them as well as you think.

It’s horrible but there are a lot of really nasty things that spiteful couples do to hurt each other when they separate. The worst kind is when kids are at the centre of it.

This comes back to trusting your gut. If you start to feel uneasy about the way things are going with shared parenting or separating property or assets, go and get legal advice and find out where you stand. Even if your head is telling you not to be dramatic.

Tip: You get what you pay for with lawyers (well, not really, if you got what you paid for you’d have your own private island). Lawyers are criminally expensive but a cheap, unprofessional lawyer can be a whole new world of surprise nightmares!

Surround yourself with support

Create a network of people who are supportive and use them. Now is the time to make a call to a friend and let them be there for you.

Spending time with positive people in your life will also help you to re-build your new life as a single person. New positive relationships can go a long way in healing the void left after divorce.

These should be people who remind you of how they see you (a fabulous, strong and beautiful person and parent) and help you to regain your self-esteem if it’s taken a bit of a dive.

Forgive and move on

Forgiving doesn’t mean that you have to accept that person back into your life.

It doesn’t mean that they are exempt from the responsibilities of their actions and it definitely doesn’t mean that karma isn’t going to come knocking on their door.

What you don’t want it bad karma to come knocking on your door.

You also don’t want someone else’s decisions to have power over you and ruin your new life. Anger and bitterness will do just that.

Let yourself feel the full range of emotions that surface, but there comes a point where you have to start letting the past go and move forward.

Doing things to try and hurt your ex will ultimately hurt you and possibly your kids more.

Check yourself. Focus on your new life and making that as positive and happy as you can, not trying to make your ex pay.

Karma will take care of that.

Your ex might grow and change. The last thing you want is to be the only one who’s hung up on the relationship while they move on with their life.

Remember…

You are not the only person to go through this and you certainly won’t be the last. Most relationships don’t last forever. There’s a whole world full of other people who get it.

Breaking up is a huge trauma but it can also be the beginning of a powerful new chapter in your life.