It’s Not the End of America, We’re Just Going Through a Divorce

We’re grieving what we had, but soon we’ll realize the relationship wasn’t healthy anyway

Image by Walter Rhein

I remember the day my mom called us into the living room so that my parents could announce they were getting divorced. The odd thing is that just from the way my mom was standing, I knew what she was going to say.

“It’s over,” I thought to myself. “Our family is over.”

For those of you who have gone through a divorce, you know that it’s a hard thing to deal with. You feel like you’ve been gut shot. You feel an intense jumble of emotions.

You feel sad.

You feel foolish.

You feel angry.

You indulge in self-recrimination. You say, “Why didn’t I see this coming?” or “What could I have done to prevent this?”

But most of all, you grieve. You grieve because a chapter of your life is over and you’re not going back. This grief is not something that you can process in an hour or a day or a week. It can take months before you start feeling like yourself again. It can take years before you discover joy again.

The old saying is that time heals all wounds. It’s impossible to recognize how profound…