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A Message For Those Who Are Feeling Hopeless
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When the Divorce Doldrums Collide With the Winter Blues
Divorce is difficult no matter when it occurs. Yet somehow the cold, dark days of winter seem to amplify its effects. A perfect storm forming when the outer world reflects your inner one and when hibernation tends towards isolation.
If you’re having trouble navigating your divorce while dealing with the seasonal blues, check out these survival tips to get you through until winter.
You Are Not How You Feel: 8 Ways to Create Space With Your Emotions
It’s been a tumultuous week in this country. Emotions are running high and are leaking out like steam under pressure, burning those caught in its path. Anger, fear and doubt are butting heads with celebration, optimism and certainty.
The yoga class I attended this morning ended with a lovely meditation on loving detachment. We so easily identify with our feelings. “I’m scared, therefore this must be dangerous.” “I’m sad, so this loss must be catastrophic.” “I’m angry and you must have done something to provoke that.”
Yet even though we feel these things, we are not these things.
And just because we experience these feelings, it does not mean that they are true.
When we are too close with our emotions, we become perceptively impaired, listening to what is bubbling up from within rather than observing what is around.
Great peace can come from taking a step back, creating space between you and your feelings. Not to deny them or to judge them, but to notice them and accept them.
It’s the difference between standing out in the storm and watching the deluge through the window.
Here are ten ideas on how to come in out of the rain:
1 – Write From a 3rd Party Perspective
When big life stuff happens, we often identify with it. Allow it to curl up and nestle in our hearts like a cat by a hearth. We become that thing that happened. The betrayed. The abandoned. The lost.
I felt all of those things at first. Saw myself as all of those things. And I was tired of it. In a moment of desperation, I turned to my journal and wrote my story, not as myself, but as a 3rd party looking in.
The shift of perspective meant that I couldn’t describe the feelings, only the physical manifestation of the emotions. Instead of waxing on about the pain, I could only comment on the anemic and hollow look in my eyes.
The exercise was so effective at separating me from the overwhelming emotion that I turned to it often during that first year. It was a powerful way to remind me that even though I felt these things, I was not these things.
2 – Pay Attention to the Physical Sensations
Emotions can be elusive. Trying to identify and name them can sometimes feel like trying to catch smoke with a butterfly net. It’s often easier to pay attention to the physical manifestation of certain emotions. The tightness. The shaking. The exhaustion. The upset stomach. The headaches.
Strive to become an expert at recognizing and interpreting your own body’s way of communicating with you. And if that underlying emotion is still too much to face, try addressing it indirectly by attending to the physical manifestations. It’s amazing how much interfering with that feedback loop can help.
3 – Remind Yourself of the Fallibility of Your Emotion
Have you ever been completely worked up about somebody’s response before you even initiate the conversation? *raises hand with a sheepish smile* Your emotions running as wild as a two-year-old on a sugar high? And then the conversation happens. And maybe the response you expected occurs or maybe it doesn’t. But you find, with surprise, that you’re not nearly as reactive as you anticipated.
In some ways, our emotions are quite smart. They prick up their ears when something doesn’t feel right, giving us a warning of impending and subtle danger. They buzz with uneasy energy when things are off kilter and vibrate with anticipation when things are in alignment.
Yet in other ways, our emotions have the intelligence of a guppy. They don’t always learn from experience and they fail to temper their intensity with reason.
In those moments when you’re codependent with your emotional state, remind yourself of those times when your emotions were not an accurate representation of reality and allow yourself the idea that perhaps they are exaggerating now.
4 – Practice Mindfulness
Meditation. Prayer. Repetitive exercise. It doesn’t matter the modality as long as the intent is to practice being in the moment and learning to become at ease with stillness and the twinges of discomfort.
Mindfulness teaches us that emotions come and go. It helps to promote an acceptance of the limitations of control. It reminds us that even though we have limited domain over what enters our mind, we can choose to be a quiet observer. It teaches us to focus on one breath at a time, using rhythm and repetition to soothe. Mindfulness trains us to find the center of calm in a mind wracked with storms.
5 – Name Your Feelings
Once you name something, you have gained a level of understanding of that thing and a sense of perspective. When you’re standing in an emotional storm, seek to identify and name the feelings that you’re having. Not in a judgemental way, but more out of quiet detachment – “Oh, this is loneliness.”
You don’t have to do anything with the feeling. Just recognizing it helps you to see it as a separate entity and it promotes a greater sense of control.
6 – Find Your People
When my divorce happened, I remember believing that I had to be the only person with this experience and with these feelings.
Oh, was I ever wrong.
I felt misunderstood in my usual group of friends and family because there, I was the only one with this particular tale. So I cast a wider net, looking for others that had been through the same. Looking for my people.
And I found them. Unfortunately, more than I ever imagined.
By listening to and reading their stories, I learned that these emotions that seemed so personal were actual a common reaction. And I found comfort in those stormy days in the thought that others had felt this too.
7 – Make Lighthearted Fun
Humor has an immense power to disarm even the most potent foe. When your emotions are beating you down, try making fun of them in a lighthearted way. It shifts your mind and reminds you that it’s usually not all that serious (even when your emotions are trying to tell you otherwise).
8 – Talk it Out
When we try to hide all of our emotion, to lock it away in a deep, dark cupboard, we send ourselves the message that our feelings are something to be ashamed of. And shame is a powerful and malignant force.
Bringing your emotions to light in a safe space helps to provide some distance between you and your feelings. You are no longer responsible for trying to keep them hidden away. Instead, you can let them out where the illumination helps to promote understanding.
Remember, you are not the storm.
You are simply the observer.
The sun is always there within you.
6 Encouraging Ways to Take Back Your Power After an Unwanted Divorce
I’ve never felt so powerless.
I had no money because he had taken it all.
I had no voice because he left with a text and refused any contact.
I had no information because he had taken important files and changed account passwords.
I felt like he called all the shots and I was left with nothing but shrapnel through my heart.
At first, I felt helpless. A victim of his choices and his actions. Wounded and weak.
And then I got angry. Furious that he would and could make decisions without me that had such a devastating impact on my life. Fuming and ruminating.
And finally, I got busy. Learning and working to move beyond his behaviors. Motivated and determined.
It’s not easy to regain a sense of power and control over your own life when you have been the recipient of an unwanted (and perhaps tsunami) divorce.
Here are six encouraging ways that you can take back your life:
Gather Information
Part of what makes an unwanted divorce so scary and leads to a sense of helplessness is a lack of knowledge. When my ex left, I had no information about divorce laws in my state. I didn’t know anything about the legalities of debt and home ownership. I was ignorant about the resources available from the IRS for innocent spouses.
I knew nothing. And, as a result, I feared everything, often catastrophizing every situation.
So I read. I listened. I studied. And I learned.
And with each piece of knowledge, even those that were contrary to my desired answers, I felt just a little bit calmer. A little bit more in control.
Start researching. Learn everything you can. Let knowledge be your shield, your sword and your security blanket. We often avoid what we’re afraid of. But that only makes it worse. Face it and learn about it. Knowledge makes every obstacle a little less daunting.
With an unwanted divorce, you feel as though you’ve been kept in the dark. Which makes accumulating information a great source of power. The more you know, the more options you have.
Brainstorm Options
It’s hard to let go of the life you thought you had. We all get stuck in a track of expectations. When my ex left, I was left stuttering over my future. I kept trying to see how things were going to work out and I kept hitting walls.
Until I realized that I needed to tear down those mental walls that were keeping me enclosed in the remains of the life I had. Instead of trying to stay within the constraints of my former life, I allowed myself to mentally fly beyond.
And I dreamed big. And wide. Some of those options were pretty inconceivable, but I didn’t censor them. I simply explored them in my mind and in my journal.
I composed if…thens… that addressed every possible move I could envision him making. Some were overzealous. Some were absurd. Some were even illegal.
But they all made me feel better.
You cannot control what happens to you, but you can always chose how to respond.
Explore your options. Don’t worry if they seem impossible. Right now, it’s only a mental exercise. Let your imagination carry yourself far beyond your walls.
When divorce happens to you, it’s easy to feel as though a huge roadblock has been plunked down in your life. Which means exploring side paths is a tremendous source of power. The more options you have, the more you can influence.
Create a List
It is easy to focus on the things you cannot control. I remember wishing that I could make him talk to me. Make him accept the help he so obviously needed. Make him admit responsibility and express remorse.
Of course, I could do none of those things.
But that didn’t mean that I was entirely helpless.
I could reach out to friends and family for help. I could find meaning and purpose through those relationships and others. I could start to date again and learn to trust again. I could reevaluate my priorities and restructure my life to fit my goals. I could find a way to transform the pain into a positive movement that could bring comfort to others.
Create a two-sided list. On one side, list all of the things you cannot control. Those are the things to work towards letting go. On the other side, list all of the things within your sphere of influence. No matter how small. Those are the things to focus on cultivating and nurturing.
With unwelcome divorce comes an overabundance of things you cannot control. Which means that enumerating that which you can influence is a great source of power. The more influence you have, the more freedom you gain.
Accumulate Funds
An empty bank account is a great source of vulnerability and impotence. I’ve never felt so small as when I couldn’t even pay for lunch. Although I was fortunate enough to have my own source of income, it was greatly outweighed by the debts he saddled me with.
And that lack of financial freedom and flexibility was a huge source of fear and helplessness.
I vowed to take control of my own finances. Here are the steps I took. And with every dollar of debt paid down or with every penny put into savings, I gained just a little more control over my future.
An uninvited divorce often brings with it a financial crisis. Which means that every step you take towards financial independence brings with it a sense of power. The more freedom you gain, the less dependence you have.
Compose a Letter
The unfairness of it overwhelmed me. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that he could cause so much harm and then slip out through the back door like a thief in the night. I had so much to say (okay, scream) to him and I had so much that I thought I needed to hear from him.
I thought my voice was stolen.
And although I couldn’t force him to listen or require him to speak the words I wanted, I could compose them myself. I know it seems a bit silly that writing unseen words can release some of the pain. But it can. I know it seems strange that writing the words that you want to hear can help you soften. But it can. Here are 6 letters to write after divorce.
It’s an empowering feeling not only taking back your voice, but using it to make yourself better. Don’t wait for somebody else to listen or to speak. You have the words you need to hear and you can express what you need to say.
The words you say to others have influence. The words you say to yourself have power.
With unwanted divorce, the discussion is often left unfinished. Which means that each word you express and release brings with it a sense of power. The less dependence you have, the more space you’ll find.
Practice Mindfulness
In the beginning, I embodied the pain. I couldn’t tell where the agony ended and where I began. I felt like I was at the mercy of my thoughts, triggers unmercifully bringing images and emotions that overwhelmed me on a daily basis.
I tried blocking them out, refusing them entrance. They laughed at my feeble mental barricades. I tried ignoring them, distracting myself through work and dating. They snuck in around the edges, overtaking me like a leak in a canoe.
And finally, I just noticed them. Accepted them. But refused to entertain them. A new meditation practice allowed me to find space between my pain and me. In time, the thoughts grew weaker and I grew stronger.
Find your own form of mediation, of mindfulness. Learn to be in the moment. To be free of judgement. To be aware of your emotions without the need to chase them down.
With divorce, the pain is often pervasive and overwhelming. Which means that as you learn to create space between you and your pain, you find a sense of mastery of your emotions. The more space you find, the more powerful you will be in your own life.
Why “How Could You Do This to Me?” Is the Wrong Question to Ask
I was a playlist on repeat.
“How could he do this to me?” I wailed to my dad as he made sure I was restrained by the seatbelt before racing off to the airport to escort me to the ruins of my once-placid life.
“How could he do this to me?” I cried to my mom, recalling how she always stated she found comfort in knowing that my husband looked after me.
“How could you do this me?” I whimpered on my husband’s voicemail as he continued to avoid my calls. I screamed it into the phone hours later.
“How could you do this me?” I carved into my journal imagining I was carving into his flesh instead.
“How could you do this to me?” I keened silently from the cold courtroom chair as I scanned his face for any sign of the man I had loved.
It seemed like the most pressing question. Holding an elusive answer just out of reach that, once found, would make sense of the senseless pain. I struggled to comprehend how someone that had only recently professed his love could instead act with such apparent malice.
The question consumed me. Engulfed me. Propelled me.
But all along, it was the wrong question to ask.
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It’s a normal question. We personalize. Internalize. When we’re feeling the impact of somebody’s actions, we can’t unfeel them. And those emotions are struggling to understand as our expectations are rudely slammed into an undesired reality.
It’s also a pointless question. One that rarely gets answered and even more infrequently, answered with any truth and clarity.
Because the reality is that the person didn’t act with the intention of doing this to you. Instead, they acted for them.
And you just happened to be in their way.
Here are the questions to ask instead:
What did they have to gain by doing this? What discomfort did they seek to avoid?
I was actually relieved when I discovered that my husband had committed bigamy. It was the first moment when I realized that his actions said way more about him than about me. It gave me a glimpse into his hidden world, where he was trying to escape the shame of a failed business and was trying to create a fictitious world where he was successful. Yes, he lied to me. But he lied more to avoid facing the truth himself. I was able to see his actions from his perspective, each choice either serving to bring him enjoyment or to offer him relief.
People act to move towards pleasure or, even more frequently, to move away from pain. Take yourself out of the picture for a moment. What did they have to gain from their actions? How did their choices help them avoid discomfort?
Yes, it’s selfish to act for your own benefit without considering others. And being selfish may be their character flaw. But selfish is a sign that they acted without regard for you not that they sought to do this to you.
Understanding their motivations goes a long way towards releasing the anger. It doesn’t excuse their choices. But it does help to unravel them and in turn, release you.
Why did I not notice? Why did I allow this?
Disorienting is an understatement. I stood in the property impound room beneath the police station as the policeman pulled out my husband’s everyday workbag. Inside, there was a wallet I had never seen filled with cards that were foreign. A camera soon followed, a duplicate of the one he had in his other life. The entire bag was a mix of the achingly familiar and the shockingly new.
I was confronted with the reality that my husband had been living a duplicitous life for years. Maybe even ALL of our years. And I had been clueless.
His actions were his problem. My ignorance was mine.
If you were decieved and manipulated, dig into the reasons that you were blind to reality. Like me, were you too afraid to face the truth and so you didn’t look too closely? Or were you pretending that all was okay and distracting yourself to maintain the illusion?
If you knew that you were being treated badly, why did you tolerate it? Had you been taught in childhood that you were lucky to receive any attention, even if it was negative? Were you afraid of being alone, opting for the devil you know?
These are big questions and ones often rooted in childhood or in trauma.It’s worth spending time here (maybe with the help of a counselor), especially if you want to avoid a repeat.
What am I feeling now? Is it all directly related or is some of it associated with past trauma being triggered?
I was on a mission. Needing information, I ran background reports. I combed through scraps of paper and old pay stubs looking for any relevant information. Driven, I triangulated his whereabouts using our checking account and used Google Earth to get a street view of his other wife’s home. I had one goal – to see him face the legal consequences for his actions.
It was all ultimately a distraction. If I focused on the detective work and the state of the pending legal action, I didn’t have to focus on me. On my pain. And on what I was going to do about it.
Are you focusing in the wrong direction? Maybe you’re busy attacking the other woman instead of looking at your marriage. Perhaps you’re busy going on the offensive for your day in court so that you don’t have to look within your own courtyard.
Be with your feelings. All of them. Even the ugly ones. Listen to them and then you can send them on their way.
Once I invited my feelings in, I was surprised to realize how much of my pain was only tangentially related to my husband’s disappearance. And how much was related to my own father’s perceived disappearance many years before.
It was an opportunity. A crossroads.
I could either ignore this triggered response only to have it return later.
Or I could address it. And work to understand how it impacted my adult choices and behaviors.
Stuff was done to you. What you do with it is up to you.
How will this impact me going forward? What do I need to do to move on?
“I need to find a way to make some good come from this,” I stated in a moment of profound clarity on the day I received the text that ended my life as I knew it. I had no idea how I was going to make that happen, but I knew on some level that creating something positive was going to be my key to survival. To thriving.
I had no idea just how hard that road was going to be. That even seven years on, I would still struggle to differentiate between true threats and echoes of the past. I have had to become an expert on my own healing, learning my triggers and becoming a master at disarming them.
Become a specialist in you. Explore your trouble spots and experiment with ways to strengthen them until you find what works. Be attentive to you. Be proactive. And most of all, be determined.
This is a defining moment in your life. You decide what it defines.
How can I avoid being in this position again? What are my lessons I need to learn?
A part of me – a BIG part of me – was surprised to see my fairly new boyfriend at the airport to pick me up. I had assumed that since my husband deemed it suitable to abandon me while I was visiting family, a recent beau would certainly follow suit.
I was operating from a place where abandonment was presumed. And if that mindset persisted, so would the discarding.
Instead of focusing on what happened, shift your attentions to what you can learn from what happened. They’re hard lessons, I know. The most important lessons always are.
Your power comes from choosing how you respond. And every bad moment is an opportunity to learn to respond a little better.
How can I turn this into a gift?
When I look at my life now, I am profoundly grateful for what happened years ago. I’m thankful for the shock. For the pain. For the confusion. And even for the anger. Because all of that has led to a much better place – a much happier place – than I could have ever imagined.
This is a hard question. Perhaps the hardest.
It seems impossible when you’re choking on the pain that it can actually help you learn to breathe. But it can.
Be patient. And be persistent.
Because finding the gifts hidden beneath is the best gift you can give yourself.
So that one day, instead of saying, “How could you do this to me?” you can say –
Thank you for doing this to me.
And mean it.
Lessons From the End of a Marriage 