Unfaithful: Perspectives on the Third-Party Relationship

Home of the most thoughtful and clarifying pieces on infidelity on Medium. Essays by and for all three corners of the third-party triangle.

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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.

#1 — Denial

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Unfaithful: Perspectives on the Third-Party Relationship
Unfaithful: Perspectives on the Third-Party Relationship

Published in Unfaithful: Perspectives on the Third-Party Relationship

Home of the most thoughtful and clarifying pieces on infidelity on Medium. Essays by and for all three corners of the third-party triangle.

Mitzi Bockmann
Mitzi Bockmann

Written by Mitzi Bockmann

I’m a certified NYC based Life and Love Coach who works with people to help them find, and keep, happiness and love.

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