“How could you not have known what was going on?” my friend gently implored after learning about my then-husband’s betrayals and deceptions.
“I don’t know!” I lashed out, “I’m not the one at fault at fault here. He lied. He did this to me. He destroyed everything.” The words were sharp in my mouth. My friend’s well-intentioned question felt like an additional attack. A further betrayal. A fire burned in my belly while the gate slammed shut over my heart.
I was not ready to hear the message.
Many months later, my pen explored a version of the same question within the safe confines of my journal, “Why was I not able to see what was going on in my marriage?” This time the question felt different. The threat was gone, replaced with curiosity and a desire to understand myself better. I no longer saw my taking on responsibility for my role in the marriage as absolving him from his role in its demise.
The first time this question was posed, I was not yet ready to hear the message. I was too hurt, too fragile. At that time, all of my energy was directed outwards towards him. It felt safer that way. After all, he was gone and therefore, a safe receptacle for my rage. But to look inward? Well, that was scary. After all, I would have to live with whatever I found there.
When I considered the question again, I was in a different space. Much of the initial anger had faded, like the receding waters after a summer deluge, leaving raised welts behind to show where its power had molded the very earth. I had begun to accept the limits of blaming him. I could scream obscenities at him into the night sky until the stars grew dim, but all that would happen is that my voice would run out.
Blame feels good, but ultimately leads to a dead end.
I understood then why my friend asked that question. She knew that whatever lived inside me that was too scared to see the truth would need to be exposed and explored if I was going to be able to heal from the life assault. And by the time I wrote down that query in my journal, I was ready to do the work.
With addicts, we generally understand that you cannot force them to face their addiction and seek treatment until they are ready. If confronted too soon, they lash back or aggressively deny any claims that they are in over their heads. The addiction wants to protect itself and until its host is ready for the battle, any attempts to dislodge it will fall flat.
Healing isn’t much different. We desperately grasp onto our identity as the hurt one or the victim because we fear that it is all we have left. And so when well-intentioned people suggest that we have some responsibility in our own healing or that the one that hurt us is not all-monster, we become defensive and angry. Not yet ready to hear the message.
Perhaps the biggest gift that time brings is a softening. Like butter left out on the counter on a warm afternoon, we begin to lose our sharp edges and consider that maybe things are not as absolute as they once seemed.
Pay attention to those well-intentioned queries that cause you to pull back like a wound has been touched. Those are the very areas that likely need attention. Maybe not today. But once you’re ready to hear the message.
I’ve never liked to ask for help. Even as a toddler, I would improvise tools to reach light switches or fold up my blanket in order to avoid having to rely upon somebody else.
Fast forward to adulthood, and my, “I got this” attitude only increased. At work, I would volunteer to take on all of a project in order to avoid the inevitable frustration of waiting for others and the seemingly inevitable disappointment with their final product. When sick, I would downplay my symptoms in an attempt to limit the burden on others and would soldier on despite the pain. And in relationships (yes, including my first marriage), I would stoically insist that everything was under control even as I panicked inside.
As it turns out, that stubborn insistence to handle everything alone isn’t healthy and it also isn’t sustainable. Yet for those of us that are often perceived as “the strong ones,” it can be a challenge to even recognize when it is time to ask for help, whether it be an extra hand, medical assistance or emotional support.
Here are six signs that it’s time to admit your limitations and call in some support:
1 – You’ve Been Trying to Make a Change With No Lasting Success
You recognized that something needs to change and you make both a promise and a plan for yourself. At first, it looks promising. You’re making headway and beginning to feel better.
But then something happens to knock you off track. Maybe it’s some external pressure or your internal narrative. Regardless, you soon find yourself back at square one. Only this time you’re feeling a little less hopeful and a little more defeated.
Often we don’t ask for help because it feels like we’re admitting defeat when we accept that we cannot do it alone. But failure doesn’t come from setting yourself up for success; failure comes when you don’t allow yourself to receive the tools you need to reach your goals. When you’ve exhausted your own knowledge or skillset and have yet to make lasting progress, perhaps it is time to ask for help.
2 – The Issue is Beginning to Impact Other Areas of Your Life
Sometimes an issue becomes too big to ignore. For me, one of the key signs that it’s time to ask for help is when something has ballooned to the point where it is beginning to impact my ability to sleep and/or eat for more than a couple weeks. Experience has taught me that once that point has been reached, I will end up in a catch-22 downward spiral without some sort of assistance.
When your sad mood begins to impact your work or your nagging health issue starts to limit your ability to exercise, it’s a pretty clear sign that it is time to ask for help. Sometimes we just need a little encouragement and understanding to help reset and other times we may need more tangible assistance. Either way, it’s easier to tackle big things with help by your side.
3 – You’re Consistently Overly Emotional or Defensive
We are terrible observers and reporters of our own reality. We often get so caught up in the stories that we tell ourselves that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to see the truth. And then to make matters worse, we often cling furiously to the stories we tell ourselves, becoming emotional or defensive when anyone threatens to unravel our yarn.
Have you ever attempted to remove a difficult splinter on your own? It’s challenging, isn’t it? You anticipate the pain and so you flinch before the tweezers even touch the flesh. And then once you summon the courage to search for the foreign substance, you find it difficult to dig deep enough as your pain receptors scream at you for your assault. Often, we claim defeat, not because the task is impossible, but because we allow ourselves to believe that it is too difficult.
The same thing happens in other areas of our lives (even in response to something as seemingly innocuous as household chores). When we’re too close to something, we feel it rather than see it. So when your emotions are consistently running high or you find that you’re responding defensively to something rather benign, it’s a sign that it may be time to ask for help.
4 – You Have No Idea Where to Begin
You know you need something to change. What you have clearly isn’t working. Yet when you think about the situation, you become overwhelmed at its enormity and subsequently shut down. You’ve tried prioritizing. You have written down steps. But still you doubt yourself and your judgment.
Uncertainty about the first steps is a clear sign that it’s time to call in a certain type of help – the guidance of someone who has walked this path before. This mentor can provide you with the wisdom that only comes from experience. They can gift you with the knowledge learned from their mistakes and embolden you with the hope of their success.
5 – Multiple People Have Expressed Concern For You
Many of us have a tendency to stubbornly insist that we’re fine (even to ourselves) despite hard evidence to the contrary. We brush off the pain as just the aftershocks of an old injury or downplay the pervasive thoughts that tap out dissonant chords upon our synapses. “It’s not that bad,” we tell ourselves through gritted teeth while we attempt to wipe away our tears.
So it can come as a shock when you learn that your mask of “okay” hasn’t done its job and others begin to inquire about your well-being. It’s easy to get irritated at this concern, reading it as intrusive or as a sign that we’re weak or incompetent. Yet in reality, this attention is often a warning sign that you’re ignoring something that really does need attention and that maybe you need to ask for help in order to address it.
6 – You Are Consistently Trying to Escape Your Reality
When we’re not happy with something, we often try to avoid looking at it (ever closed the door to a room to avoid seeing the clutter?). If you’ve noticed that you’re spending increasingly more time invested in escape strategies – substances, social media, unhealthy relationships, shopping, eating, etc. – it may be a signal that you have something you’re trying to escape from.
One of the reasons that we often need to ask for help in these situations is that while it’s easy to identify the escapism behaviors, it is often much more difficult to identify and address the underlying causes of those behaviors. This is where the perspective of an outside observer can be beneficial; they will help you see what you cannot on your own.
There is no shame in asking for help. Admitting your limitations is a sign of strength, not weakness. Displaying your vulnerabilities takes great courage and a willingness to accept a helping hand requires humility. Sometimes asking for help is just as important as giving it.
My ex husband has visited me the past several nights.
Not in person, thank goodness, but in my dreams.
When I awoke from the first one, I found myself strangely calm and more than a little perplexed. I was surprised for a couple reasons. I’m nearing the tenth anniversary of the day the marriage died and I have not had a dream about my ex husband in the last nine of those years. So it was more than a little weird to “see” him now.
I was even more astonished at my lack of emotional residue after awakening. Because the last time he visited my dreams, I woke up feeling physically ill and emotionally traumatized. Not to mention completely repulsed at his image imprinted on my brain.
But these recent dreams have been different. In them, he approaches me calmly. Like a normal human would, no longer wearing the monstrous skin he donned when he vacated the marriage. And I respond to his advance like a normal human. No shaking, no emotional tsunamis, no reaction at all really.
There are no words exchanged in the dream that I have been able to recall. And the only touch that I remember was his hand on my shoulder in that way that you do when you’re trying to provide comfort to a relative stranger. Which I guess we are.
I wonder why he is appearing in my dreams now after being absent for so long? Perhaps the significance of a decade apart is tugging at my brain? Or maybe the resolution I’ve had in my waking life for some time is finally settling in to my unconscious brain?
But there’s another explanation that I like the best. It’s silly, really. Not based in scientific reality in the slightest. Yet it somehow feels right. Maybe, just maybe, he’s coming to me now as a kind of peace offering, a sign that he’s in a good place and ready to both acknowledge and learn from the past. These visits are his energetic way of honoring what we once were to each other and offering a blessing to where we are now.
Silly? Yes. But I still accept the peace offering. Even if it’s only in my own head.
I became conditioned to be afraid of the mail. And the ringing phone. Even email had the ability to send my stomach plummeting down towards my feet. Because each intrusion had the potential of bringing new information about my ex husband to light.
In retrospect, the pattern was quite clear:
Stage 1 – Status Quo of Healing
Doing okay despite the major upheaval of my life. Possess a sense of confidence that I was going to be okay and that this tsunami divorce was not going to remain the defining factor of my existence. Feeling like I could handle whatever emotions my mind decided to deliver.
Stage 2 – Body Slammed
“Who was I kidding? I’m far from okay,” I would think as I learned some tidbit of new information from the external world. It could be anything from a blog post from the other wife mentioning a sweet gesture to a bill from the utility company in his name. Instantly, I travelled back to the shock and dread of the initial discovery, my mind convincing me that this new information changed something vital about my ability to heal and move on.
Stage 3 – Processing and Assimilating
After obsessively turning over the new information in my mind for several days, it began to feel less foreign and less threatening. Often, I discovered that it wasn’t really new after all, only another piece of data simply confirming what I already knew. Finally, I would file this recently learned fact alongside its brethren and start to find a sense of status quo again.
Well, that is, until the next piece of new information dropped unannounced into my lap. At which time, the cycle would begin all over again.
Healing is not linear. As new information comes to light, we have to mourn, accept and adjust all over again.
It is completely normal to experience setbacks in healing after divorce when you receive new information. Each discovery pierces the newly-formed healing skin and threatens to bring new blood to the surface. It’s a new pain upon a known wound.
Be patient with yourself and your reactions around these events. You may seem to be overreacting, but that is because you are responding to so much more than simply this one piece of information. You’re struggling to process an entire pile of garbage and the addition of one more piece can feel overwhelming and ominous.
Whenever possible, limit your exposure to new information while you’re still feeling raw. You may be curious to know what your ex is up to, but you’re often better off remaining in the dark. Set boundaries, both digital and with people in your life, to filter what information makes it through to you.
Finally, give it time. In the beginning, every new piece of data is like shot coal burning you as you take it in. In time, the coals turn to ash, still not palatable, but no longer so painful or damaging. Additionally, your confidence grows with each new exposure as you learn to trust in your ability to handle it.
And that’s what it really comes down to. We fear new information because we worry that we can’t deal with its reality. Then, we struggle with the knowledge because it feels so heavy and oppressive. Once we learn how to take only the parts we need and to discard the rest, we can remain calm and confident no matter what new information comes our way.
It is completely normal to be plagued with negative thoughts during and after divorce. It’s a challenging time where you’re facing loss and uncertainty and your prior coping strategies may not be quite up to the task. Here are some actionable strategies that you can employ if you’re struggling with any of these common negative thought spirals after divorce:
Negative Thought – “I’m not good enough.”
This negative thought can arise from any divorce, especially since the end of a marriage often brings with it a sense of failure. It is especially common when there was infidelity or abandonment, as those actions are easily internalized.
If you’re struggling with feeling like you are not enough, try some of the following:
Gather up old letters, cards, emails, texts, etc. from people who love and care about you. Assemble these into a “smile file” (this can be tangible or digital) and set aside a few minutes a day to look at it to remind yourself of what others see in you even when you’re having trouble seeing it in yourself.
Build up your physical strength or endurance. The interaction between the mind and body is completely amazing. When you begin to feel the strength and capability in your body, you will also begin to believe in your mind.
If your ex’s voice is in your head saying negative things about you, take pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and refute each and every one of their claims about you. This exercise can help to remove the power that their words have over you.
Volunteer. Time spent giving back to others is also time that you’re out of your own head. Additionally, you’ll benefit from seeing the positive impact that you can have on others.
Limit your social media exposure. It has a way of bringing anyone down.
Negative Thought – “I wish things could be different.”
This is a persistent negative thought for many people. Some wish they could go back to the way things were (or at least the way they thought things were). Others direct their energy towards trying to get their ex to act or respond differently (which is a frustrating and ultimately fruitless exercise).
If you are ruminating on the past or wasting energy trying to change your situation, try some of the following:
Start a daily gratitude practice. I like to use an app for this purpose, but you can also use a journal or even an audio or video recording. These can be brief (1-3 things each day) and simple. They are a powerful reminder that even though you’re dealing with unwanted change, there is still good in your life. And whatever you nurture, grows.
Take a piece of paper. Divide it into two sections and label them “Things I CAN change” and “Things I CAN”T change.” Then, brainstorm at least 5-6 entries for each. Commit to spending your energy only on the items in the first column.
If you have a tendency to reach out to your ex when you shouldn’t, make it more difficult to contact them. Remove their number from your phone. Block them. Lock your phone in your car when during those periods when you’re more vulnerable.
Negative Thought – “I can’t move on without closure.”
The search for closure keeps many people stuck after divorce. We tell ourselves that we need resolution and answers before we can let go and move on. Yet often, those wished-for accountabilities never appear.
If you’re having trouble accepting a lack of closure, try some of the following:
Start a journal. Focus your entries on those questions that are still haunting you. Explore some likely explanations. Keep going until you land on something that feels like truth. Once you find it, accept it in.
Create your own closure ceremony. Perhaps you burn old photographs or repurpose your wedding dress. Take something that had meaning in your old life and metaphorically (or literally) bury it.
Complete this sentence, “Because this happened, I have learned…” Once you can identify what you have learned from an experience, you have moved forward from that experience. The lesson IS the closure.
Negative Thought – “I’ll never be happy again.”
Divorce can be a heavy, dark cloud obscuring any hope for happiness. It’s easy to buy into “the good old days” and assume that the upcoming moments will continue to be bathed in darkness.
If you’re mourning the loss of the life you had and wondering if you can ever be happy again, try some of these:
Spend time in nature. It has an amazing way of reminding us that death and renewal are natural cycles. Marvel at the new growth fed by the decaying matter. Delight in the sliver of sunlight peeking through the clouds. Soak it in. All of it.
Set yourself up for laughter. Go see live comedy (even if you’re by yourself). Rewatch your favorite funny movies from your youth. Try puppy yoga (seriously, it’s impossible to keep a stoic demeanor). If you prime the pump for levity in these small ways, you’re setting the stage for something bigger.
Schedule smiles. Put one small thing on your calendar every week that you look forward to. Every 1-3 months, schedule something bigger that you enjoy. Don’t allow yourself to talk yourself out of these. It’s easy to get caught up in the, “I won’t have without my partner.” But that sentiment is only true if you allow yourself to believe it.
Have conversations with an elderly person who has a positive outlook. Ask about their experiences. Most likely, they have endured several upheavals in their life that they worried they wouldn’t recover from. And yet they did.
Write down the expectations you had for your life that you now fear are gone. Analyze them. How many are TRULY out of the realm of possibility now? I bet it’s fewer than you thought.
Negative Thought – “Why did this happen to me?”
When life throws curves that cause us to careen off course, we often wonder what we did to deserve such fate. It feels unfair as blows reign down on our unsuspecting frame.
If you’re feeling victimized or consumed by thoughts of rumination and self-pity, try some of the following:
Read either fiction or memoir that features people overcoming obstacles. Not only is it motivating, it helps to remind you that bad stuff happens to good people all the time and that people often overcome great obstacles to become great.
Identify a way that you can create some purpose from the pain. Can you reach out and help others that are experiencing similar? Are you able to apply your knowledge and skills to assist people that are also facing this situation? Maybe your gift comes with an artistic bent, using this to fuel your creative endeavors.
List your particular traits that make you better able to handle this situation than somebody else. Are you a good problem-solver? Maybe you’re amazing at networking and bringing people together. Whatever your strengths, focus on how they can help you now.
Occupy your mind. An idea mind often wanders to the past and gets lost there. Put structure in your days to limit your down time. Add activities that keep you busy and keep you moving.
Negative Thought – “This is too overwhelming.”
Moving on from the pain of divorce and rebuilding a new life are huge undertakings. If we had the means, I’m sure we would all love to hire an entire team to help. But more often than not, we’re left to do it alone.
If you’re feeling paralyzed by the sheer enormity of the challenges in front of you, try some of the following:
Identify a very small step that you can take immediately. And then, before you have a chance to overthink it, act on it. Inertia is a powerful force, yet it only takes the smallest nudge to upset it.
Channel your stubbornness and determination. Find a picture of you that represents your inner strength to you. Put it where you can see it along with a promise that you WILL recapture that spirit again.
Create accountability in your life. Enlist technology to remind you to tackle the small tasks and friends to ask if they have been crossed off the list.
Link things that you have to do with things that you want to do. Make all the calls to your lawyer with your favorite cup of coffee in your hand or only wear your favorite socks when you’re on your intended walks.
Create a doable, but challenging goal for yourself. There is great power in a finish line as it provides both a needed distraction and the motivation to keep moving.
Lessons From the End of a Marriage 