Divorce Help Site

How To Heal From A Divorce

Even though divorce has become common, it is still one of the most painful, difficult events that can happen in your life.

It is painful to go from being a starry eyed newly wed believing you have found the love of your life who you will be with forever to live through the painful, often times slow death of your marriage.

Divorce is the death of dreams, goals, hopes, plans, security, and vows. Different people have different circumstances and reactions. Some people go into a deep depression, cry all the time, and have a painful sadness over the divorce that can last years. Other people may get over it fairly quickly. Even for those whose marriage was bad and are happy to be divorced, they still must go through a lot of change and difficult transformation.

There are things you can do to help you cope better with the strong, painful emotions of divorce.

What you should do:

Stay busy.

If you are bored or just hanging around the house a lot, you will have too much time to think. With all the raw emotions, thinking too much will just bring a lot of extra heartache and tears you do not need. There is no use replaying the good times in your head over and over wondering why you couldn't go back. There is no answer. There is also no point in replaying all the fights and arguments and bad things that happened. What's done is done and you do not want to dwell on it, especially when the emotions are still raw. Focus on your work, on a project you've put off, anything you haven't previously had time for, volunteering, cleaning and organizing, hobbies, crafts, reading, or just doing something fun.

Exercise.

Exercise releases the chemical endorphin in your brain which makes you feel good. It is a great way to release any pent up anger and regression. It is better to go on a brisk jog than it is to hold on to your frustration and end up yelling at your kids. Plus, we all know how healthy exercise is. It's good for our health physically and emotionally.

Talk it out.

When you feel you need to get something off of your chest, talk about it. It doesn't matter who you talk to, as long as you are comfortable talking to them. It can be a friend, relative, or counselor.

Enjoyable activities

During this difficult time of divorce, get your mind and emotions off of your heartache and try to do things you enjoy. It can be anything as long as you enjoy doing it. If you are depressed you may have trouble enjoying activities and that's ok. You will eventually start to enjoy it again like you used to. This can be anything from playing sports, knitting, cooking, writing, gardening, painting, hiking, etc.

Comedy

During the dark time of divorce, give yourself a break with some comic relief. Rent some funny movies, read some funny books, and watch some funny TV shows.

Raise your self esteem

During divorce it is common for people to suffer from low self esteem. Write a list of positive things about yourself. Ask your friends to tell you what positive traits they see in you. If there is something about you that you don't like, try to work on it. Remind yourself that you are worthy. Read some inspirational and motivational books.

Religion

Turn to your religion for peace, comfort and guidance. Pray to God and read your Holy book. Remind yourself God loves you and has a plan for you. Talk to your pastor or a leader in your religion for guidance.

Inspirational quotes

Make a list of inspirational quotes and keep them somewhere that you will see them daily. One such quote is, "When one door closes, another one opens." And remember divorce isn't the end of your world.

Start Your Own Support Group

Divorce support groups can be of great help to people going through a divorce or who are already divorced. If you find that there's no divorce support group in your community, you can start your own.

You will need a place to meet. This can be in a church or a central location like a Starbucks or you can rent one of those private rooms in a restaurant. If you attend church, talk with your pastor about arranging to use a meeting room in the church for your group. Although you can meet in a public place like a Starbucks, group members will most likely prefer privacy and being able to talk without worrying about eavesdroppers. If you rent a private room, such as those offered by restaurants, they usually charge a fee, though some restaurants don't as long as you eat there. Meeting rooms in hotels always cost money. Choose a place to meet in your community and find out if there is a cost. If there is, are you going to pay for it on your own, or are you going to charge a fee? If you charge a fee, there will be less people attending. If there is a fee for a meeting room and you don't want attendance to suffer, do an optional fee. Members can help cover the cost of meeting rooms if they choose, but it's not required to attend the divorce support group meetings. Using a room at a church is probably the best idea since you will not be charged if you are granted permission by the pastor.

Next, you need to get the word out. Decide when and how often the group will meet. Try meeting every other week.

Most community newspapers offer a list of group and organization meetings. Contact your local newspaper and ask to include your group on this list. Then print up flyers and spread them around your community. Tell your friends to tell their divorced or seperated friends about this group.

Most likely, attendence will be lower for the first meetings, then as word spreads to more people about the divorce support group, there will be more people attending. Also be sure to offer refreshments at these meetings.

During group, you want to give everyone a chance to express their feelings about their divorce situation. You will probably want to bring literature to read from to the group and handouts to pass out offering advice on divorce and seperation issues. Try a "buddy system" where people are paired up and exchange phone numbers and email addresses to talk to each other and offer a sympathetic ear to each other.

Watch as friendships are made and people support each other and help each other get through this difficult time.

Find volunteers in the group to take turns being the leader and speaker at the meetings. Also, have members take turns in bringing refreshments to the meetings.

Divorce is always hard, but it's much easier when you have a group supporting you and a safe place to talk about your feelings and to get things off of your chest.