Why Is it So Difficult to Recover From Being Cheated On?
How to Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself (and Start Feeling Better) After Divorce
Do you relate to any of these feelings after divorce?
“It’s not fair that my family has been torn apart!”
“This sucks! I hate having to start over at this stage of my life.”
“My ex seems to be doing just fine. Why am I having such a hard time of this?”
“Nobody else gets this. They haven’t had to deal with the stuff I’ve been dealt.”
I felt all of those and more during those first dark months. There were many days that seemed hopeless and the lonely nights stretched into eternity.
To the public, I put on a hopeful face. While behind closed doors, I threw myself quite the pity party after my ex husband cheated and then left the marriage.
The theme of the shindig was simple – innocent woman victimized by malicious husband. I resisted mailing out invitations, yet I encouraged others to attend by sharing the sordid details of what he did to me. The playlist featured various versions of, “It’s not fair,” stuck on repeat. The space was decorated with reminders of my former life, strewn about like fetid petals clinging to the floor.
This pity party went on for far too long, until its motif grew dull and everyone, including me, tired of its lack of momentum. And more than anything else, I became tired of feeling sorry for myself. And so I decided to crash my own pity party.
I found the following techniques helpful to stop feeling sorry for myself after divorce:
1 – Fire the victim and hire the hero.
In the beginning, I focused on what was done to me. I was the object of the actions, the victim. Eventually, I grew weary of that role. After all, it really is quite limiting. I made the decision to fire the victim and hire the hero, taking charge of my own life from that point forward. This reframing of your role has to come before you can begin to make changes in your situation.
2 – Depersonalize the situation.
Part of my “poor me” came from my early belief that my once-loving husband had somehow morphed into some malevolent creature worthy of a Marvel feature. I saw him as the weapon and me as the target. With some time and consideration, I began to realize that his actions had little to do with me. I just happened to be in the way. It still stinks to realize that you’re collateral damage, but it’s easier than accepting that you’re the hapless prey.
3 – Put it in perspective.
Even to this day, when I reflect upon my divorce, I have a tendency to be overdramatic and claim that I lost everything. Yet even though it felt like all was gone, that wasn’t quite true. I still had family, friends, career and hope that I could rebuild again. Resist the temptation to sensationalize what happened. The dry facts are often much easier to swallow.
4 – Use anger as fuel to motivate action.
“It’s not fair!” became my go-to phrase. And it was accurate. It wasn’t fair. But it was the reality. So I bundled up all of that rage about the unjustness of it all and I used it as energy to write my story and to make changes in my new life. Instead of wasting the energy of the anger on your ex or your divorce, try funneling it into the creation of something better. Even if you have a, “I’ll show them!” attitude while doing it.
5 – Edit your personal narrative.
I used to say, “I was abandoned” when speaking about my divorce. And with every repetition of that phrase, I felt even more discarded. Once I realized that I was self-inflicting further trauma with my words, I shifted to, “My ex left,” which left me feeling much better. The words we say to others have influence. The words we say to ourselves have power. Be intentional with the words and phrases you repeat to yourself.
6 – Avoid pity party attendees.
Living in the South, I probably heard, “Well, bless your little heart” dozens of times a day during my divorce. At first, I accepted those words and the pitying embraces that accompanied them. I felt comforted. Validated. But then as I started to find my voice and embrace my inner hero, those words began to chafe. At some point, those that continue to pity you will begin to hold you back. Avoid them and instead seek out those who inspire you.
7 – Remind yourself that it could be worse.
My ex left me holding the debt he incurred while building his other life (and while courting his other wife). As I made those painful payments every month, I reminded myself that at least I could pay off that balance, even if it meant living lean for a few years. Whether considering your own situation or comparing it with others, remember that it could always be worse than it is. And be thankful that it’s not.
8 – Keep a daily gratitude journal.
My journal was my savior that first year. It didn’t judge my anger, censor my pain or question my fears. But perhaps its most important role was to help train me in the art of gratitude as I made an effort to consider something I was thankful for each day. It’s hard to feel sorry for yourself when you’re busy being grateful. Whether on paper or on an app, try jotting down one to two things you’re thankful for every day.
9 – Ban the words, “I wish” and “Why me?”
I spent some time wanting things to be different, falling down a rabbit hole of “how?,” “why?” and “I wish.” Every time I indulged those words, I felt worse. Hopeless, even. Those were thoughts anchored in hopes. Instead, I replaced them with views leading to action – “I can,” “I will” and “I have.” By making this switch, you shifting your focus from what happened in the past to what you can control in the future.
10 – Call in reinforcements.
Of all of the people in my life during the divorce, surprisingly the policeman who arrested my husband became one of the most important. As an officer, he had seen it all and so he was largely immune to the shock of my situation (although he still says it’s the story he tells the most!). His matter-of-factness and lack of effusive sympathy was exactly what I needed. Seek out people who help lift you out of feeling sorry for yourself through a combination of encouragement and butt-kicking. It may not always feel great in the moment, but it will pay dividends later.
11 – Build your confidence.
Part of my self-pity was anchored in a feeling of weakness and apprehension. I felt small and broken, impotent against insurmountable odds. So I started to challenge myself, to build my strength, baby step by baby step. I faced my fears – the small ones at first – and tested my beliefs about my limitations. Self-pity thrives on unease and frailty. As you begin to build your confidence, you starve out pity.
12 – Learn from fictional heroes.
I became obsessed with the True Blood books during my divorce. Not only was the series light and easy to follow, I envied Sookie Stackhouse’s can-do attitude no matter what disasters befell her. I even found myself thinking WWSD (What Would Sookie Do?) throughout the difficult days. Find a particular character that embodies who you want to be and channel their energy on the days when you don’t feel strong enough on your own.
13 – Consider the role model you want to be.
I remember looking out at my class of eighth graders one day as the court date for my divorce rapidly approached. I was scared. Frightened of what would happen. Anxious about what would come next. And then I looked at those kids, who were looking to me as a role model. And I decided that I wanted to show them courage and perseverance, not fear and self-pity. Who are you a role model for in your life? What do you want to teach them by your reactions?
14 – Replace pity with compassion.
Part of my pity party was a cry for compassion, both from myself and others. I wanted the pain to be heard. To be recognized. With pity, the pain is nurtured whereas with compassion, the pain is acknowledged and then the person is nurtured. Compassion accepts the suffering and also advocates the overcoming of it.
15 – Fake it until you make it.
At work, I spoke confidently about my plans for my future. With my friends, I expressed unbridled interest in dating. Yet at home, once the sun went down and I was in the safety of my bed, I still wondered why I had to endure this. And the strangest thing began to happen. The more I practiced the brave, “I got this” face, the more I began to believe it. And as my faith in myself fueled my progress, I began to experience surprise when people expressed pity for what happened.
Because at some point, the worst thing that had ever happened had become a turning point that led to the best days of my life.
The best way to stop feeling sorry for yourself is to create a life that you love.
How to Rewrite Your Divorce Story
With personal life events, the facts matter less than your interpretation of them.
I wish I had known that in the year following my own divorce. Instead, I chased down the facts like a terrier after a rat, convinced that as soon as I had assembled all the particulars and made sense of the information, I would find peace.
The exercise was one of futility and failure. No matter how much I questioned or how hard I looked, there were certain things that would remain unknowable. My need to comprehend became obsessive, consuming my thoughts and breaking me down in the process.
In my unease with those voids, I filled them with my assumptions and reactions, feelings acting as the mortar between the bricks of what happened. And I assumed the worst, as we often do. I believed that my ex acted out of deliberate malice with a personal and directed attack. I eagerly assigned him the label of “sociopath” in an attempt to understand his actions. And I held tight to the facts I did know, using them as an excuse both inwardly and outwardly for my response.
And instead of finding relief, I only felt worse.
Time moved on and with it, the clarity of some of details faded. The facts muddied as they tumbled through my thoughts with my perceptions, like whites thrown into the wash along the darks. As first I panicked, afraid that I would forget the reality of what happened. I went through old emails, pulled out worn files in an effort to remind myself of the facts.
I was startled to realize that they no longer mattered. And even more importantly, I realized that the emotional stories that I told myself to fill in the missing information had more staying power and influence than the facts themselves.
On that day, I made a decision to actively reframe all of my earlier assumptions and conclusions surrounding the known facts of my divorce. Instead of believing that my ex acted out of malevolence, I decided to believe that he was scared and seeking to alleviate his own pain. I replaced “sociopath” with “depressed” and “addict,” both of which elicited empathy more than hatred. I reframed his ongoing lies as desperate measures in an effort to regain control of a life spinning out of hand.
I actively worked to excise the emotion of my earlier reactions. With each remaining fact and facet, I made the effort to assume the best possible motivation and intention. The mental exercise was like pouring Tide into the tumbler along with the facts, brightening the facts and softening the harsh edges.
And I found relief.
Those facts are still stored in my brain and on some hard days, one will rise to the surface and cause my breath to catch in my throat with the intensity of the memory. But for the most part, when I think about my own experience, I see it through the lens I crafted. The reworking of the facts that allows me to feel empathy instead of rage, peace instead of rejection and pity instead of betrayal.
Because when it comes to personal life events, the facts matter less than your interpretation of them.
If you want to rewrite your own divorce story, these are the steps you need to take:
- Recognize your assumptions. We all have a tendency to take people’s words and actions personally when it is often not about us. Strip away all of your beliefs about why something was said or why a certain behavior occurred.
- Write the facts and only the facts. Keep it simple and keep it brief. There is no need to focus on the nuance; you only need to capture the broad strokes.
- Pretend these same facts were presented about somebody you feel kindly towards or written about a positive character in a book. What conclusions might you reach about why these things happened?
- Shift those beliefs to your own situation. Be persistent – your earlier and more emotional reactions will fight you for dominance.
- Notice how you feel as those positively-spun stories start to resonate. Are you breathing a little easier? Feeling a little lighter?
Your divorce and perhaps your ex have already hurt you enough. There is no reason for you to allow your thoughts to hurt you even more.
Playing Make-Believe With Your Healing Progress
“I just want to be healed already!” I said out loud to myself once I closed the car door. I had just finished a Sunday afternoon run where I was caught off guard by tears that came uninvited. Feeling defeated, I let the sobs overtake me as I slumped over the steering wheel. “Great,” I thought, “I was a failure as a wife and now I’m failing as a divorcee.”
A mere hour later, showered and presentable, I responded to a friend’s inquiry about my well-being.
“I’m doing great actually. I barely even think about it.”
Of course, that wasn’t really accurate. I said it because I so desperately wanted it to be true.
To some extent, I think we all play make-believe with our own healing progress at some points. Whether driven by internal motivators or because we fear external judgments, we pretend to be further along than we actually are.
So why do we pretend to be over it when we’re still in the thick of it?
We pretend to be healed because we want to leave it all behind us.
We know that when we’re going through hell, we’re supposed to keep going. But the temptation is strong to try to simply close the door on that hell and pretend as though it never happened. We tire of being known as “the divorcing one,” we groan whenever the lawyer’s missives intrude and more than anything, we just want life to be normal again.
We pretend to be healed because we feel pressure to move on from others.
In the beginning, the sympathy and concern pour forth with abandon. And then the empathic and inquisitive words begin to wane until they are all-but absent. Our pain, so prominent and attended-to int he beginning, has been tossed aside like yesterday’s news. It’s not that others no longer care, it’s that either they have reached compassion fatigue or they are unaware of how long it can take to heal.
We pretend to be healed because we are impatient with the healing process.
Healing from divorce is a marathon. No, scratch that. It’s an ultramarathon. It goes on and on and on. And every time you think you’re over it, the finish line seems to have moved just a little bit further away. All of that is not even taking into account the Chutes and Ladders nature of healing, where every arduous climb can seemingly be undone in an instant.
How to Be Patient With a Procrastinating Healing Process
We pretend to be healed because we feel ashamed for still struggling so much.
“It’s been five years and I’m still really struggling,” the voice whispers to me over the phone on an introductory coaching call. Unspoken, but evident behind those words was, “I’m ashamed that I’m still struggling so much after all this time.” A shame that had led this particular person to pretend to be “over it” with everyone around them. It was only to themselves on the long nights – and now to me – that they could admit that healing was still ongoing.
We pretend to be healed so that we can adhere to some prescribed timeline.
We have a tendency to put too much importance on anniversaries – assuming that as soon as some arbitrary date rolls around, we will have magically shed our pain. You wait for that date with anticipation, as though it’s a graduation and you will receive your freedom. And then when the day passes and the relief hasn’t come, you decide to simply pretend that diploma stating your completion of healing.
Healing does not speak calendar.
Lisa Arends
What’s the problem with pretending to be healed?
When we don’t give ourselves the space or the time to heal, we risk stalling or even complicating the process. Much like with a wound to the flesh, ignoring it or sealing it in without first washing it out can lead to a larger problem than the initial injury.
Furthermore, when we are playing make-believe, we are preventing others from being able to render aide and we are closing ourselves off from receiving help. It can be scary to admit that you’re not okay. But often the only way to get there is by first admitting that you’re not.
There are no “shoulds” when it comes to healing. You’ll get there on your own path and on your timeline. Be patient enough to take the time you need. Be brave enough to speak your truth. And be humble enough to admit when you need help.
6 Powerful Ways to Create Your Own Closure After Divorce
I was seeking closure within hours of the unexpected text my husband sent informing me that he was leaving. Feeling powerless at the lack of communication and information, I sat in front of the fire pit feeding photos, notes and letters into the hungry flames.
I hoped that the ritual would help me find acceptance that it was over.
But my pursuit for closure had only just begun.
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Months before walking out on me, my husband ended a job. He gave them two weeks notice, had a sit-down meeting with the owners where he explained his reasons for leaving and he maintained open lines of communication so that business matters could be transferred smoothly.
I received none of that courtesy. And for the better part of a year, I fixated on that fact, convinced that I needed him to provide explanations and even excuses that would allow me to close the door on our marriage.
I became obsessed with understanding the “why” behind the marital explosion, certain in my belief that this was key to moving on. I played around with labels – narcissist, sociopath, addict – in a bid for understanding. But none of those designations brought peace.
I was frustrated. Furious, actually. I felt as though he had stolen my voice by sneaking out without contact and that he carried my chances for closure with him. It was the heartbreak that kept on giving.
Finally, I grew tired of the snipe hunt for closure as the legal proceedings wound down without any real answers or resolution and he continued to act as though our marriage had never happened.
And so I shifted my focus, putting my energy into me instead of funneling it into the black hole that he had become.
And the strangest thing happened.
I found peace.
And isn’t that what we really mean by closure?
Closure is an acceptance of what has happened, a sense of power over ones own well-being and a feeling of moving on.
And none of those require the participation of the other person.
You have everything you need to create your own closure. Here’s how –
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Understand the Limitations of Explanations
It’s easy to get caught up in the belief that as soon as you receive an apology, you’ll be able to move on. Or that once you hear that you were the love of their lives, you can let go. Be honest with yourself. Is thereanythingthat they can say that will erase the pain? Are there any words powerful enough to bring everything to an emotionless close? The words you seek are the ones you need to hear, not the ones that they need to say. Once you accept the limitations of any explanations that your former spouse can give you, it’s easier to move on without them.
You Don’t Need to Understand in Order to Move On
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Find or Create Meaning
We naturally seek to find order and purpose in our surroundings. And so when something, such as divorce, is discordant, it causes pain and confusion. Look within the ruins of your marriage for some hidden gifts. Maybe you now have an opportunity to move back to the city that always felt like home. Perhaps you’re finally getting in touch with who you are. Or it could be that this rock-bottom is turning out to be an impressive foundation for a new and improved you. If nothing is immediately evident, create purpose in your post-divorce life. When something has meaning, it’s easier to accept the changes that had to place to get there.
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Write the Letter You Want to Read
I know this sounds strange, but I promise it is one of the most powerful exercises you can do. Write a letter from your ex-partner to you, saying all of those things that you need to hear before you can move on. Don’t censor yourself, allow the words to flow and probably the tears too. And once it’s written, read the letter. And then read it again. Keep reading it until you believe the words within. After all, what you’re looking for is really just proof that you were loved, that you will be remembered and that you are worthy of love again. And you don’t need anybody else to tell you that.
Powerful Ways to Use Journaling After Divorce
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Start Your Next Chapter
Life isn’t like a book; you can start the next chapter even while you’re still wrapping up the one before. Don’t fall into the trap of waiting to live until you’re healed. Invest your energy into your life and allow the healing to happen alongside. A big part of closure is releasing some of the pain from the past. And a great way to lessen pain is to focus on cultivating joy.
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Don’t Obsess About Closure
Are you stalking your ex’s Facebook page in a quest to see them looking miserable? Are you endlessly dissecting the end of your marriage looking for explanations and reasons? Are you giving the detritus from your marriage more power than it deserves, destroying pictures and hiding trinkets? This obsession with finding closure will only serve to delay it. Closure comes from living in the present, not from being consumed by the past. If you’re struggling with this, try instituting boundaries – delete social media accounts, have a plan for distraction when your mind wanders into dangerous territory and redecorate your space to create a clean slate.
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Don’t Take it Personally
I eventually realized that my own roadblock to finding closure was that I was taking my ex’s actions personally. He not only did these things, but I was convinced he did them to me. Because of me. Over time, I started to understand that I was just collateral damage in his own battles, not a target to be obliterated. And that was a powerful realization. When it’s no longer about you, it’s much easier to let go and to move on.
You have the power to flip the sign on the past to “closed” as you step powerfully into your new life.
And on the other side, here are three times where you shouldn’t seek closure.
Lessons From the End of a Marriage 