We spend years cruising through life with the comfortable assumption that divorce is something for ‘those other people. Our friends could tell us stories, we read about celebrity break-ups in the headlines and observe relatives going through hard separations, but inside we know our marriage is a different case. Those are the bonds we think of as unbreakable, the ones made of true love. Divorce is just a storm that happens in other people lives, it will never affect my family.
But, for many others that belief collapsed. Maybe it just takes a conversation, one revelation, or one final straw before the life you thought was rock solid begins to crumble. All that is left of the marriage you always thought would be, are the shards and splinters; looking at them… asking yourself → how did this happen to me?
The Illusion of We Could Not Imagine It Happen to Us
In the beginning, millions of marriages are hinged by devotion compounded with advantages and promises. A kind of optimistic assumption, that what you have is yours to keep. You stand up there, shout to friends and family, maybe even faith that together come rain or shine.
Marriage however is not a terminal state — it’s living, breathing thing that needs attention every day. Challenges can pile up as life takes its course by wearing you down with demanding careers, financial constraints, child-rearing and elder care (AKA the sandwich generation), or any personal health struggles one may have.
Complacency can sneak in quietly. The patterns are predictable as is the collapse of meaningful conversation to nitty gritty house chore one liners and love and sex will be consumed by the busy crush of life. You could still have love for each other, but without the active attention and communication the connection can drift a bit. The space between we and I widen — sometimes so imperceptibly that neither partner realizes it until it is too late.
The Life-Changing Moment That Comes Out of Nowhere
Even when it feels sudden, divorce is rarely sudden. Usually, it is the culmination of years of subtle disconnect. Or sometimes there is a trigger event—a betrayal, an emotional affair, that one blow up fight down to the final string. And sometimes it’s deep, slow ebb of affection wrought by indifference, grievances that have calcified and lines of life lived running parallel to one another.
Much more than that back when reality hits, it feels like an earthquake. And in the worst days, you will hear things you never thought would be verbalized to or from the two mouths in this forced march of a life: “I can’t either.” These words change everything when they are spoken. Everything you do, everything you plan to do, everything about who you are is suddenly up in the air.
It is then that you know, that no one can ever be immune, ever Divorce doesn’t discriminate. It happens in perfect marriages that looked unbeatable to the eyes of externals just as much as it happens between partners that we all initially thought would be together forever.
The Emotional Whirlwind
While marriage is legal status, divorce is the psychological end of a union. Shock, denial, anger, grief and sometimes guilt are common feelings initially. Maybe you cycle through them over and over again, some days feeling like the independent bad bitch that we all are, others feeling so sad you feel like your insides will never patch up.
These feelings could produce an infinity of doubt: Did I do enough? Did I fail? Was this inevitable? Could I have stopped it? Your mind becomes a never-ending “what if/should have loop” of destruction.
Bottom line — it is normal to grieve at the end of a wedding. When a relationship ends, you are not just losing someone you love — but the dreams that went along with them, routines and traditions once shared, aspects of yourself from within that partnership. Give yourself permission to grieve without any judgment from your inner critic. We are human and don’t hold it against another when they struggle to find their way through the darkness—this is not weakness; it’s healing.
The Emotional Whirlwind
While marriage is legal status, divorce is the psychological end of a union. Shock, denial, anger, grief and sometimes guilt are common feelings initially. Maybe you cycle through them over and over again, some days feeling like the independent bad bitch that we all are, others feeling so sad you feel like your insides will never patch up.
These feelings could produce an infinity of doubt: Did I do enough? Did I fail? Was this inevitable? Could I have stopped it? Your mind becomes a never-ending “what if/should have loop” of destruction.
Bottom line — it is normal to grieve at the end of a wedding. When a relationship ends, you are not just losing someone you love — but the dreams that went along with them, routines and traditions once shared, aspects of yourself from within that partnership. Give yourself permission to grieve without any judgment from your inner critic. We are human and don’t hold it against another when they struggle to find their way through the darkness—this is not weakness; it’s healing.
Rebuilding from Scratch
When the dust starts to clear life is not going back to before. This is when a lot of people start rebuilding —not the marriage, but them.
Divorce is not about getting over someone soon. This is about establishing a baseline for the future life stage — one built upon self, independence and direction.
Practical steps for rebuilding include:
It is about building a new structure that provides you with some normality and it gives you back something that is within your control.
Boundaries with your exes if you have children with them so that you avoid conflict.
Reaching out for help personally through friends, family or professionally such as therapists, divorce coaches.
Revisiting what makes you tick, and what really turns you on: things that may have stay at home mum standby during the marriage.
— Making financial independence a top priority to feel secure away from the divorce stress.
The latter is not always the case, however. There will be days where you feel like a bad ass and days where you wish you were invisible. As the days go by, however, you start to see a more positive side; you smile more and sleep better…and then…one day, out of nowhere, youre making plans for yourself again.
Lessons Hidden in the Pain
Everyone goes through a divorce not because it is the easiest choice but people learn a lot of valuable lessons.
Some learn to communicate better in future relationships. For some its about keeping your own identity/personal power in the relationship. Realizing they have been selling themselves short, some; for others, understanding self-worth whilst learning their limitations.
The most revolutionary realisation is that your value does not change with respect to whether you are married or single. Your marriage did not end because you are “less than. ” You are not someones wife While painful and difficult, divorce can be an enlightening teacher paving the way to a renewed self-confidence and re-found value.
Related Post: Embracing Possibility Of A New Start
Time changes perspective. Over time, the raw pain of divorce gives way to a feeling of liberation, to potential. You might find yourself picking up on subtler things (peaceful mornings without the discomfort, laughter with friends, or that exhilaration of a first experience).
This is the season where you start to create a life from your true self. You could take up a new hobby, see the world, or change careers. You start to understand that while it may have happened during your lifetime — and therefore is part of the story — your marriage was not the entire story in itself.
While the end of a marriage can pare life down to some basic elements, those very basics are things we get to build anew into something magnificent. The “we” of your marriage is no longer the restriction that it used be. Now you are free to define your “I” in whatever manner you choose.
Rebuilding with Strength & Grace
Moving on alone is not about forgetting, it is about accepting. It is about integrating the experience into your life and letting it make you more resilient, wise and compassionate.
You still feel a twinge of sadness here and there, but it is no longer the thing that takes up your multitude of days. This time, however, you are on a sturdier ground of resilience and self-exploration.
One common route of this red-pill hitting, is the divorce experience that many guys face, and yet can be one of the most empowering tool that there is, to become your complete self. You come out of it not shattered, but transformed — with the understanding that you can weather the storms of your life and still smile.
