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The 5 Stages of Grief that Happen After the End of a Marriage and How to Get Through Them
Over the dozen years that I have been a life coach, and as I have lived my life, I have come to learn that going through the end of a marriage can be akin to going through the death of a loved one. Sometimes the pain is even worse as death is inevitable and the end of a marriage is not so. When we make wedding vows, we make them for a lifetime. The breaking of those vows is devastating.
In her seminal work, psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross posited that the brain goes through five stages of grief after the death of a loved one. Those five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Most people go through these stages, sometimes in this order and sometimes out of order, but anyone dealing with a death goes through them.
If we apply these stages of grief to the end of a marriage, it helps us understand what we are going through and allows us to develop tools to manage them and get through to the other side intact.
Let me share the five stages of grief that happen after the end of a marriage so that you can manage them in a productive way and be able to move on with your life.