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Category: Emotional Impact of Divorce

Valentine’s Day Post-Divorce

If you’ve just recently divorced, then it might be a while before you try dating again. That means you might wonder how to handle that first Valentine’s Day post-divorce. However, there’s a couple different things you can do for yourself…

Valentine’s Day Post-Divorce

Treat yourself

A lot of people tend to beat themselves up on their first Valentine’s Day post-divorce. They’ll spend the day thinking about when their relationship was good, and that now they won’t or don’t deserve to find something better. Of course, that’s not the kind of mindset you should take on.

Rather, it’s better to spend the day treating yourself and boosting that confidence. One small bump in the road doesn’t dictate the rest of your life. Take the day to relax and enjoy it your way. You’ll begin to feel a whole lot better about yourself, and your future.

Be with the kids

If those feelings of loneliness are really creeping up on you on your first Valentine’s Day post-divorce, then it helps to be with those who love. So who better than your kids? Odds are, your kids might feel a little awkward today as well, considering they’re probably used to seeing you and your ex celebrate.

This is a great time to help reaffirm to your kids how much you love them. Plus, there’s a lot of different ways you can spend the day with them. Spending this day together can strengthen your bond, and help them start to feel “normal” again after the divorce.

Meet up with friends

What if you do if you’re feeling lonely, but don’t have kids to celebrate Valentine’s Day post-divorce with? In this case, it’s time to meet up with some friends. Your friends were probably a major source of support during your divorce. What better way to show your appreciation by spending time with them?

Maybe you and your friends decide to go out and celebrate in your own way. Still, you don’t have to do anything fancy that’ll break the bank. Rather, just getting together can be plenty. All that matters is you enjoy your time together.

Post-Divorce Health: Achieve New Goals

Divorce is going to be tough, and it can have a bit of a negative impact on the body. Therefore, it’s a good idea to invest in your post-divorce health. Doing so can help you get started on achieving your new post-divorce goals…

 Post-Divorce Health

Get an energy boost

One good reason to focus on your post-divorce health is to get an energy boost. Divorce can cause you to feel pretty tired and lacking in motivation. While this is understandable, especially after all you had to deal with, getting healthy can help you find the energy you’ve been lacking.

Research has shown that people who exercise tend to have much more energy than those who don’t. Plus, eating healthier foods will give your body more energy than unhealthier choices. Channeling negative feelings into your workout can also help you start to feel better mentally.

Improve self-confidence

Improving your post-divorce health can also help improve your self-confidence. It’s quite common to feel a bit low after your divorce. You might even start to question if you’re really all that great, and focus more on perceived negatives about yourself. Of course, this isn’t good for you or your new goals

Getting healthy helps you start to feel better about yourself. Seeing those small steps, like losing a few pounds or getting better endurance, are great for your confidence. As you continue to improve yourself, you’ll also begin to feel the level of confidence needed to tackle what’s lying ahead.

Save extra money

Some people might claim that trying to focus on post-divorce health is too costly. Things like gym memberships or the cost of healthier foods can seem expensive, especially coming off of a divorce. While they might appear so at first, you have to think about the money you’re going to be saving down the line.

Living healthier will help reduce the risk of running into health issues. That way, you save money by avoiding costly doctor visits. Plus, you’ll also be able to save money on insurance, as you can find suitable plans at a lower rate. The money you save this way will outweigh the costs of food or gym memberships.

Social Media During Divorce

Social media apps can be a great way to get in touch with friends all around the world. However, during a divorce, they can also be a point of conflict. Therefore, it’s important to know how to approach social media during divorce. That way, you avoid the potential issues it can bring…

Social Media During Divorce

Think before posting

A lot of people tend to treat social media like an open journal. They’ll post updates on their life, and how they might feel throughout the day. However, this can potentially get you in some trouble when divorcing. Therefore, you need to think before using social media during divorce.

For example, you might be tempted to post a rant about your ex. Before you do, take a moment to think about it. How will that post make you look to others, your ex, and most importantly, a judge? If a post is going to be too negative or targeted, and could get you in trouble, then it’s best to avoid posting it.

Clean Up Your Followers

For most people, friends and acquaintances tend to make up the bulk of their followers on social media. However, divorce tends to require one to lean on these friends a bit more for support. At the same time, it might also mean you cut contact with friends who don’t support you, or were friends of your ex.

That’s why part of using social media during divorce also involves adjusting who you follow, and who follows you. If you know there’s people you aren’t friends with anymore still following you, then it might be best to remove them as followers. That way, the people who do see your posts are the ones who will support you, rather than potentially be negative.

Avoid your ex

There can be a temptation to look at what your ex is doing on social media during divorce. You might be curious about what they’re saying about you or the divorce. Maybe you want to see if they’re already trying to date again. The thing is, you want to avoid this curiosity.

Ultimately, obsessing over your ex’s post is just going to prevent you from moving on yourself. While you might remain friends, you don’t need to be up-to-date on their lives. Plus, if they do post something negative or concerning, odds are someone will let you know about it.

Divorce Lessons: What You Can Learn

Your divorce is going to be a big life change. Like with any major change, it’s going to come with its fair share of lessons. These divorce lessons can teach you some pretty valuable things. In fact, there’s a few things in particular which you may want to take note of…

Divorce Lessons: What You Can Learn

It’s ok to not be “ok”

A lot of people try to repress the more-negative feelings that divorce brings. In their mind, they think that feeling bad isn’t “right” for some reason. However, one of the important divorce lessons to learn is that it’s just fine to feel upset, angry, or disappointed. Indeed, it’s actually an important part of your eventual recovery.

No one is ever going to feel “perfect” 100% of the time, especially after a divorce. Therefore, don’t be afraid of those stronger emotions you’re feeling. Once you accept how you feel, you can start to process those emotions and begin to shift towards positive ones. In a way, it’s like you’re building up a tolerance to negative feelings for the future.

Change Is Natural

Another one of the important lessons is about accepting change. Change is a natural part of life. In a way, divorce is just another kind of change, even if you might not be all that excited for it. That means you shouldn’t see your divorce as some sort of permanent failure.

Rather, your divorce is just one small change in the grand scheme of things. The world isn’t over just because your marriage is. Ultimately, it’s not worth it to spend too much time stuck on what you lost. Instead, try to be optimistic about the new, positive changes you can start to make yourself

Perspective is key

One of the most important divorce lessons is about perspective. How we view things influences how we feel and what we think. That means if you view your divorce in nothing but a negative way, then you’re going to feel and think negatively for the foreseeable future.

Instead of getting caught in that rut, try to look at things more positively. Think about how you won’t have to deal with your ex doing or saying things which hurt you. Also keep in mind the new sense of control you now have over your life. Changing your perspective can really help you process your divorce.

Toxic Relationships

Given enough time after your divorce, you might be thinking about dating again. However, you have to be careful about toxic relationships. These kinds of relationships could seriously hurt your efforts to recover and move on with a new partner. Therefore, you need to watch for some common signs…

Toxic Relationships

Trouble communicating

Communication issues are quite common in toxic relationships. In a healthy relationship, both partners will be able to talk openly and freely. This will help them solve issues without getting into arguments. Being able to talk to one another will boost your bond and improve the overall quality of your relationship.

By contrast, toxic partners struggle with properly talking to each another. Many times, their conversations end up in arguments. These arguments can erupt over the simplest of things. In fact, it might get to the point where you can’t even talk to one another at all!

Constant put-downs

Toxic relationships also tend to suffer from issues with contempt. This happens when your partner feels like they’re “better” than you are. Due to this, they don’t treat you with the respect you deserve. They may roll their eyes at you, respond with put-downs to your suggestions, or constantly use mean words when talking to you.

Sometimes, it can be hard to pick up on contempt. This is mainly because of gaslighting. You might think that it’s just because your partner is in a bad mood or you said something wrong. Try to really think about what you said, and how your partner responded. If it seems off, then it’s probably a sign of contempt.

Trust issues

Trust is crucial for any healthy relationship. Both partners need to be able to trust one another for things to work out in the long run. Therefore, it’s no surprise that trust issues are prevalent in toxic relationships.

Without any trust, the foundation of the relationship won’t be stable. Things like keeping secrets or constantly lying will just cause things to continue to deteriorate. Furthermore, it’ll also make it harder to believe when your partner is telling the truth. This can lead to arguments, and eventually a split sooner rather than later.

Mental Health During Divorce

Your mental well-being is important for a good post-divorce life. However, you also need to pay attention to your mental health during divorce as well. Getting yourself in a good place mentally will make it easier both to handle the divorce process, and move forward in the right direction…

Mental Health During Divorce

Stages of grief

The grieving process is important for your mental health during divorce. It’s important to allow yourself to grieve about the end of your marriage. Due to the loss you’ll experience, you’ll want to make sure you allow yourself to go through all the stages of grief, to better your recovery.

There’s five general stages of grief. First is denial, which tends to occur early in a divorce. Then, there’s the questioning stage and depression stage, which involves questioning what went wrong, and feeling sad over what’s happened, respectively. Finally, there’s the evaluation stage, which gives way to the acceptance stage, where you can finally begin to move on.

Maintain a positive attitude

It might seem hard to be positive while divorcing your partner. However, it’s actually pretty important for your mental health during divorce. Basically, if you surround yourself with positive things, you’ll begin to feel more positive yourself.

You probably know that when people are sad, they tend to engage with sad or depressing things. They might only listen to sad music, or watch sad movies. As a result, they end up just feeling sad all of the time. However, listening to happy music and watching uplifting movies can help give you some much-needed positivity.

Work on your physical health

Your physical health and mental health during divorce go hand-in-hand. When people feel good physically, they also feel much better mentally. This can be a challenge when getting a divorce, as the process might take up a lot of your time. Still, you don’t need to go crazy to improve your physical health.

For example, you can start to eat a bit healthier than you usually do. Plus, maybe you include some basic physical activity, like a walk, into your weekly routine. Simple things like these can help improve your physical health, and in turn, make you feel better mentally.

Post-Divorce Burnout

It isn’t always easy to adjust to a new life after a divorce. As a result, sometimes people will throw themselves into things like work. However, this can easily result in post-divorce burnout. That’s why it’s best to avoid taking this route…

Post-Divorce Burnout

The problem with burnout

The problems with post-divorce burnout are very similar to those of any other type of burnout. In general, it occurs when someone decides to use their work as an escape from the grief of their divorce. By focusing themselves solely on their work, they think they can distract themselves from those negative feelings.

However, no matter how much work you do, you can only avoid those feelings for so long. In fact, the more work you do, the longer those emotions will simmer and get worse. Eventually, you’ll reach your point of burnout, and all those emotions and more will rise to the surface, usually in a not-so-pretty way.

Accepting your emotions

In order to avoid this post-divorce burnout, you can’t avoid those sad feelings from your divorce. Rather, you need to take the time to confront and accept them. By acknowledging these feelings, you will get yourself through the grieving process, and can start to move forwards.

Usually, many people will actually take time away from work to do this. Still, there’s plenty of other ways you can give yourself some time to process these emotions. Maybe you meet with a therapist, or write your thoughts down in a journal. Whatever you chose, the important thing is getting those emotions out there.

Watch your workload

Another part of avoiding post-divorce burnout is watching your workload. There’s going to be a lot of things you’ll need to take care of after your divorce. Maybe you’re moving, or you have to adjust to being a single parent. When this happens, you need to be careful you aren’t pushing yourself too hard.

Taking on too much work can lead to burnout, even if you’re processing those emotions. Therefore, try to watch how much work you take on. Try to talk to your boss about what’s going on, and how you might need a bit of a limited workload for a short period of time. Many times, they’re understanding and willing to help you out.

Support Groups: What To Consider

The pain and loss that comes with divorce can be difficult to go through alone. Therefore, you’ll want to lean on your support system for help. One key part of this system are support groups. However, finding a group that works for you depends on a few factors…

Support Groups: What To Consider

What’s the focus?

Divorce support groups tend to have two main types of focus areas: informational and processing. Informational groups tend to spend time on learning tools and recovery. At these meetings, you’ll learn about different methods to help you adjust to your divorce, and make changes in your life.

However, processing groups are more focused on personal experiences. These are places where people can come and share their experiences with others who know how they feel. Furthermore, you can hear from others what helped them with recovery. You’ll want to figure out what kind of focus fits you the best.

How is the schedule?

You’ll also need to consider what kind of schedule these support groups have. Different groups will tend to have different kinds of schedules. Some might meet once a week, while others might meet on a more consistent basis. Plus, you’ll have to consider what days of the week a group might meet on.

Look at what your schedule looks like now, and see what kind of groups work with that. Don’t forget to consider the time duration as well. For instance maybe you’re only free at certain times each day. You won’t want to sign up for a group which could make you late for other things like work!

Is there an attendance policy?

Support groups are all dependent on those who show up to them. As a result, some groups might have stricter attendance policies than others. This usually is done to ensure that each meeting can be productive and worthwhile. After all, it isn’t fair to those who do come if not enough other people show up.

Still, you might need some flexibility. Maybe you have kids or other things which can impact your schedule. In these cases, most groups are understanding if you give them a heads-up in advance. However, it might be worth it to find one that is less strict if you know things might constantly come up. You can even look for groups which are online too.

Holiday Loneliness: What To Avoid

If you’re dealing with a divorce around the holidays, it can be pretty rough. You might find yourself feeling quite lonely or isolated. However, when you feel this holiday loneliness, it’s important to avoid some common mistakes. Doing so will help you fight those feelings off in a healthy, productive manner…

Holiday Loneliness: What To Avoid

Watch Your pride

Pride is a major cause of holiday loneliness. For instance, many people don’t like for others to see them as vulnerable. As a result, they won’t reach out to others and ask them if they can possibly spend some holiday season time together. All this does is ensure that they remain lonely, and leaves them feeling even worse than before.

Therefore, don’t be afraid put that pride aside. After all, the holidays are a time of giving and being with others. Reaching out to friends or family, even if you feel awkward about it, can be a good idea. Often enough, they’ll be happy to include you in their holiday plans.

Don’t wallow

Another thing you want to avoid doing when feeling holiday loneliness is wallowing. It can be very easy to get all caught up in your sadness. Adjusting from what you’re used to during the holidays to the new reality can leave you stuck in a cycle of sadness. However, it’s a cycle you don’t need to deal with.

Try to consider the fact that everyone goes through points where they feel down. However, you don’t have to make that sadness the focal point of who you are. Instead, look at the positive things you still have, and can start doing, and you can find yourself being a bit more thankful and happy than you were before.

Avoid unhealthy coping

Holiday loneliness can cause people to slip into some pretty bad habits. Commonly, people like to turn to alcohol in an effort to cope. Or, they might also develop some unhealthy eating habits, or isolate themselves from the rest of the world. All of these things combined aren’t going to be good for you now, or in the future.

Instead, you’ll want to use some more healthy coping mechanisms. Find some better, healthier things you like to do, and focus on them instead. Slipping into unhealthier habits will just make things harder than they already were.

Post-Divorce Cleaning: Remove Clutter

After your divorce, you might struggle to have the energy and motivation you used to have. This can have some negative outcomes, especially on the cleanliness of your home. That’s why some post-divorce cleaning might be in order. Getting rid of some clutter can help you get re-energized for the road ahead…

Post-Divorce Cleaning: Remove Clutter

The issue with clutter

The thing about clutter build-up is that it doesn’t happen instantly. Instead, it’s often a more gradual process. As people begin to struggle with post-divorce motivation, they tend to just toss things wherever. Or, if they just moved, then they may struggle to have the motivation to fully unpack, leading to more clutter.

Eventually, this becomes a cycle. As more clutter builds up, you don’t want to clean it. But, because you don’t want to clean it, there will be even more clutter in the future. As a result, it’s best to get started on your post-divorce cleaning as soon as you can.

Start small

The biggest issue that prevents people from post-divorce cleaning is feeling overwhelmed. Seeing mounds of things which need to be cleaned can quickly kill motivation. However, that’s why it’s important to not try and tackle everything at once.

It’s better to start small and work on specific sections of the house. For instance, maybe you first start with the bedroom. Then, you work your way up to some more larger rooms, like the kitchen or living room. Do this and in a few days you can see some real progress being made.

Have a plan for after

Once you’ve done your post-divorce cleaning, you want to make sure to plan to avoid future clutter. It helps to think of a plan to keep things organized. For instance, you could get organizing bins or drawers which can help keep things in order. You can also try and regularly clean to prevent too much build-up.

It also helps to think about how you might want to redecorate a room after it’s clean. Redecorating can really change the overall atmosphere and feelings a room give off, making you want to keep it clean. Plus, it serves as great motivation for when you’re doing the cleaning process.