
Going through a separation or divorce can be the most traumatic experience you will go through. It can change your perceptions of yourself and the world. Any steps you do solo can seem daunting. You might be looking for ways on how to handle divorce stress or how to recover from divorce emotionally. Have a look at these tips, and these tips will help you adjust, reflect, and grow as an individual.
1) Don’t Try To Understand Everything – Not Everything Needs An Explanation
When separation happens, we go through seven stages of grief where mental and emotional health takes center stage. This grief process can have physical signs that affect the body. Give yourself a break, recognize your body has acknowledged the trauma.
This is the start of a long process, and permit yourself to feel without suppressing the emotion. Anger, guilt, loneliness, shame, regret, and denial are all NORMAL. Do not question yourself, as it is entirely natural to get to the final step of acceptance and suddenly feel a bolt of rejection, sadness, and regret.
2) Become Strangers With Your EX-Partner
There is nothing wrong with refusing friendship for the first six to twelve months, even if the relationship and breakup were amicable. The people involved need time to sift through feelings and their needs. Sufficient time is required to break the bond and establish a separate identity that is not part of a couple.
In certain circumstances and after adequate time, you may be able to be friends with your ex again, but the immediate focus needs to be on your own so that you can concentrate on yourself and healing.
If you are still attached to your ex, then it is unlikely that you have done enough work to think clearly about the situation.
The other issue is that it is not a true friendship. There will always be unresolved issues lying beneath the surface related to how that person made you feel, how that person did not respect certain things or boundaries, or how that person showed or didn’t show love towards you.
3) Get Help
Counselling can benefit you as you struggle with your emotions and mental health concerns – It is time to get therapy when something is causing alarm and interferes with some part of your life. The general rule of thumb is that if the separation causes issues with your work, concentration, studies, and quality, consider getting professional help. Many research studies show that therapy benefits last much longer than medication alone.
4) Self Care & Self Love
Doing something that makes you happy every day improves self-care and self-love. This can be a wide range of things that bring you joy. If done successfully, you will start to feel pleasure from within just by doing small things every day.
Being in a state of gratitude and satisfaction from doing small things that bring you self-care allows you to discount relationships that are not true to you. You will not need to be saved as much because you take the necessary steps to protect yourself.
5) Overcoming Loneliness
Learn to appreciate the calm, the peace – Emotionally healthy single people are comfortable being alone in silence. They can acknowledge the silence and even feel like they miss a companion at times. Still, the difference is that they are okay to sit in silence and continue to be alone for a while, they have learned how to cope with loneliness without having to fill the space with something else like a dating app, contacting an old ex, or drinking alcohol to fill the void.
6) Be Selective With The Opinions You Listen To
Whenever someone says breakup, there are rarely any positive comments about the situation. There are already enough negative emotions happening during the grief stages. This can be emotionally overwhelming.
Naturally, when you reach out for an opinion, a part of that discussion is to seek comfort and find positivity from the situation regardless of how small it can be. Sometimes, the people you expect to speak to you are not always providing the support you need. So be wary of people that cannot offer support, positivity, and or leave you feeling worse than you did before you spoke.
7) Learn To Communicate With Your EX & Your Children
There will be several situations where you will need to communicate with your ex, particularly if you have shared children, business, or other joint-related matters. Stop aggressive behaviors and manage all items together without showing any emotion. Try to keep the peace, and do not react if your ex tries to get a rise from you. Things will settle over time.
Do not forget to continue the communication and show love to your children. It can be tempting to shield the pain from them as protection, but by pretending things are okay and covering up your feelings of pain, the unconfronted pain will show up in our lives in passive-aggressive ways. If we try to bury the pain and hide our true feelings from our children, then it will not help them in the long run.
8) Healing & Self Reflection
You get to a place of healing once you have worked on the past. It requires a particular mindset type to learn from past mistakes. Doing a life and relationship inventory will allow you to reflect in a balanced way to weigh up negative and positive things about your relationship. It should help you recognize what type of dependency you have on relationships in general and what you have learned from the experience.
If done correctly, you should come away from this exercise with more clarity on what values you are drawn to and what changes you need to make in the future.
9) Start Healthy Habits
You are what you repeatedly do, so do not underestimate the small actions that you do every day as all these actions add up. All emotionally healthy people have healthy disciplines. You may not see success straight away, but you will in the future. Each day is an opportunity for a fresh start and a new reminder that discipline brings results. Decide what habits you want to introduce into your life and show up every day to complete them consistently.
10) Setting Future Boundaries In A Future Relationship
If you have a boundary request -say it early, don’t wait to say it – if you know what your limits are, don’t wait for it to mess up and then freak out. The other person may not be aware, and they cant mind read. No one will ever know your boundaries until you say this is a boundary for me. In an early relationship, avoid saying hints like ” I wish you wouldn’t do that.”, limits need clear communication. You need to say, “this is a boundary for me,” “this thing is crucial for me,” or “I do not like that.”
Tips for Talking to Children to Cope
If you have young children or teenagers, here is a list of suggestions to assist them to deal with the separation or divorce.
Relax and pay attention – Ascertain that your children understand that you don’t blame them for the divorce. Listen to their problems and address them directly, while remaining compassionate.
Maintain routine and consistency – Maintain as much consistency in your children’s routines as possible.
Maintain strict discipline – Now that your kids may split time with both the parents, make sure you agree on curfews, bedtimes, and other daily decisions ahead of time.
Make it clear to your children that they can count on you – Make realistic promises and maintain them. Also, don’t tell them too much about your sentiments regarding the divorce.
Keep your children out of the turmoil – Avoid arguing with or criticizing the other parent when your children are present and don’t force them to take sides.
Closing Thoughts
Divorce is difficult to recover from. The first few months, or even after years of attempting to get their life together, everyone who goes through one feels lost. We all wish for long and happy relationships with the people we care about. Nobody enters a relationship expecting it to end in disaster.
After a divorce, emotions are harmed, financial support and stability are altered, and a full lifestyle change occurs. But it’s possible to survive and come out stronger. Cutting ties with you ex-partner, seeking help from a therapist, and practicing self love and self care are some of the ways that can help recovery from divorce.
Keep going. Take it one day, a week, a month at a time. Things will get easier over time. You have got to this point. Keep going. You got this!
