The world can be a dark place for the ones who have loved and lost.
Letting go of the connection you shared with someone who was once so close to you places significant emotional pressure on your life. You feel abandoned, scared, and heartbroken, unable to move on. You’re starting to question everything, especially your ability and willingness to ever love again.
Still, life is a peculiar thing. It runs its course whether we like it or not. Even when it brings hurtful changes, it’s teaching us valuable lessons along the way. A heart that was once broken can heal again, but the transformation must begin within your own soul.
How to Survive Your Divorce Without Falling Apart
Don’t run from this meaningful experience: Embrace it
There are times in our lives when heartache becomes so unbearable that we feel prepared to do whatever it takes to avoid the pain that wakes us up in the morning and stays with us until its time to go to sleep. Going through a divorce is one of such times.
You’ll be tempted to sleep off entire days, avoid friends and family, or even rush into rebound relationships, just to try and make the pain stop at least for a short while. Stay strong and try not to indulge these impulses as much as you possibly can.
Avoiding pain isn’t going to get you through and past it. Only facing and overcoming it can.
Regain control and set your boundaries
Keeping your former partner’s belongings or leaving your own with them might give you a feeling that there are still things you share between the two of you, but these items and your connection to them is always bad news.
For Gloria Curtis, a college paper writing services, custom essay service, and professional essay writers contributor, divorce was a devastating experience. What made the healing process a lot more difficult was, by her own admission, clinging on to the past and not setting any boundaries to safeguard her from memories of a life that was already gone.
Save yourself the false hope and additional heartache just waiting to happen. As long as there are constant reminders of what is gone, you won’t be able to move on with your life.
Stay active: physically, mentally, and socially
The overwhelming desire to hide and disappear until the pain goes away is a feeling that’s perfectly understandable after a traumatic experience such as divorce. Talking to other people or doing the simplest house chores can look like impossible things when you feel the world crumbling around you. Staying active, however, is a crucial part of the healing process.
Staying active in every meaning of the word will help you take your mind off the pain you’re feeling, making the time pass quicker, and giving your days the purpose you’re looking for. If you have children, spend as much time with them as you can. Help each other power through this challenging period of your lives, and strengthen the bond that truly makes you a family.
Grief takes its time, so you should, too
Let your heart heal at its own pace, and admit to yourself: This pain will take a while to get rid of. After so much time spent with your former spouse, don’t make yourself forget them in an eyeblink, or resent yourself for not being able to do so. Let your soul grieve for as long as it needs to.
Be careful as the healing process takes its toll. Pain can often come and go in waves. You can feel entirely crushed at one moment, yet at another, you feel just fine. Don’t jump ahead of yourself only to feel disappointed if the pain comes back to haunt you. You did nothing wrong. It’s just the way these things go.
On the bright side, each time the pain resurfaces, it will be a little less intense than before, until the time comes when you’re over it for good.
Time changes nothing. It’s what we do with it that counts.
How can you ever feel at peace after losing the partnership you believed and hoped was for life? Many people around you will do whatever they can to help you through this experience, and the sentence you’ll undoubtedly hear the most is: Time heals all wounds. But there’s a more profound truth behind this thought.
Be kind to yourself and take your life one baby step at a time. Even the smallest of efforts are going to count along the way.
Time changes nothing on its own. It’s utterly impartial and uninvolved when it comes to our lives and our pain. It’s the life that happens over time and the ways we choose to live it that can actually make a difference.
Conclusion
Divorce isn’t just the end of a relationship. It’s the end of an era, which announces significant changes in both former spouses’ lives.
The pain you feel today because of this separation, however, doesn’t get to define the rest of your life. There is life after divorce, and you owe it to yourself to put in the effort to reclaim your identity. There is the light at the end of the tunnel, even if you can’t see it from where you’re standing right now.
It’s time to make a move and embrace this significant transition. It’s time to become a new version of yourself, tougher and wiser than ever before.
I was unfortunately, thrust into a divorce and I wish that I would have tried harder and put forth more effort than I did. I was married one day and then then divorced the next. I carry around a lot of pain and regret and it makes it hard to understand how I did not see this coming. If only I was able to go back in time to change my behaviors, I would do absolutely anything to do it. I had my entire world in my hands and I blew it. Not out of comfort, but out of stubbornness. There are days that I feel that I cannot continue on, and there are days that I feel optimistic that I will be given another chance to make it right. The hardest realization is that you should never take your family for granted. Cherish every moment you have because like me, it can vanish without a trace and without warning.