In modern relationships, you can’t really win when it comes to ending a relationship. There’s a stigma associated with divorce (“how selfish of you”) and there’s a stigma associated with staying in a relationship that doesn’t make you happy (“you must have low self-worth”). Despite what outside messages you might receive, there does not have to be a villain in your story to justify divorce and divorce does not mean you are a failure. I want to clarify that I do not try to persuade anyone to get a divorce. Rather, I am invested in helping people see they have options and helping people create clarity and confidence in the decisions they make. If you are considering divorce or going through a divorce, my hope is to offer you new ways to think about your divorce and guidance on the first steps to move forward.
5 constructive ways to think about divorce and next steps—other than failure
1. You are not your relationship.
Your relationship might be a big part of who you are, and towards the end of the relationship your world might revolve around what to do about your relationship, but there is still more to who you are as a person.
When people first introduce themselves in therapy, they tend to describe what they do for a living and their marital status/how many kids they have. Socially, I think career and family are two of the biggest parts of our identity, which explains why we feel so disoriented when one area is not up to par or disappears altogether.
In some relationships, the self completely dissolves to make room for the other person. When the relationship is over this person struggles to know who he or she is anymore (likes, dislikes, interests, etc.). When your relationship feels like your entire identity, it can feel way too threatening to let the relationship go or evaluate it. The good news is you can always add more parts to your identity! Your relationship alone does not have to define you.
However, I do argue that this part should be given the appropriate attention. There is a lot of value in exploring and understanding the relationship. It’s not enough to label it a mistake and banish those years of your life. Any part of yourself that you attempt to disown will show up again later in life (this is how people become their parents). You don’t have to continue building your life around the relationship once it is over, but you do have to acknowledge that the relationship existed. Whatever is left unrepaired, gets repeated. Don’t attempt to erase history!
2. The way you view your relationship and your ex will change many times.
This can be due to new experiences, new revelations, time, etc. but I would argue that at the beginning your view will mostly shift due to emotion. Part of the reason humans are hard to study for research is that our memories are very fallible. Emotions shape our present experience which in turn influences how a memory is stored. Then current emotions influence how memory is retrieved.
Over the course of therapy, I often see people vacillate between anger towards their ex or themselves, sadness and disappointment that the relationship is over, and relief and optimism about the future. All of these emotions create a different lens for viewing your relationship and your ex so it’s important to try not to lock yourself into one version of the story. Any and all versions can be true. There isn’t one real story.
When looking for what went wrong, individuals unintentionally look for who to blame. This can lead to more confusion as you vacillate between whose “fault” the divorce is with each new discovery in therapy. For example, someone might come to discover “I shouldn’t have expected him to change, that was my fault” and “He was capable of making the changes I asked for, but he didn’t care enough to make them”. Both are true. There was most likely something both partners contributed to the relationship dissolving and both partners are necessary to keep a relationship together. In therapy, you learn what those contributions were.
3. Divorce is not a competition.
Indifference does not equal winning.
First, I think it’s helpful to set realistic expectations. When relationships are in distress, individuals tend to expect something different from each other but actually receive more of the same. When distress increases, our needs increase but our defenses get stronger. This means if your partner struggled to connect with you emotionally throughout the relationship, you might crave acknowledgment or validation now more than ever but you are less likely to receive that from your ex. I encourage you to be cautious about what you tell yourself this means. The lack of emotion you observe and receive from your ex is not always an indication of who is handling the divorce better.
Moving on is not a race.
I also encourage you to try to avoid the comparison trap. For one, we can’t really know how someone is doing based on social media or perception. Forcing yourself to date before you are ready or trying to quash your emotions is not going to help you. We all process experiences at a different pace. Your personal goals should not be in reaction to your ex’s perceived state. For example, the goal should not be to move on quicker than your ex. Instead, the goal might be to grieve what you need to so you can experience a fuller life in the present. Another potential goal could be to learn what you need to so that when you do move on you are equipped for a successful relationship in the future.
4. You can’t kill your ex, but you can wish they were dead.
Death meaning nonexistent.
By definition, divorce is the termination of a marital union. So it makes sense that most people filing for divorce are anticipating the relief of being done with a marriage that was unsalvageable. The reality is that divorce can be a lengthy process. By the end of it, some people are hoping they never have to see their ex again (even if they know that’s not possible).
It can be very uncomfortable to have to share custody, share friends, share a world with the person with whom you decided to terminate contact! Not to mention, how strange it might feel to see this person in a completely different light. Which leads me to say, you are not insane for wishing your ex had died so that you don’t have to see them again. However, this type of fantasy speaks more to the difficulty of learning how to co-exist after divorce and the desire for ease and closure than actually wishing someone was dead.
Death meaning ill will.
Then there are those that truly wish their partner was dead. If this is you, let me make myself clear, it is not ok to physically harm others. However, it is ok to explore those thoughts and feelings. If you find yourself wishing ill will upon your ex, know that therapy is a safe place to explore and understand these thoughts and feelings. More often than not, this fantasy stems from anger. The more we can explore this anger freely, the easier it is to let go of it.
Anger keeps you connected. Harriet Lerner explains that we often have this fantasy that if we just hang onto our justified rage, the other person will finally get it. When we let go of ruminating anger we also give up the fantasy of obtaining justice and a fantasy of the future. However, what we gain is the ability to live in the present and move on in a real way.
5. Divorce is a loss. Every loss sets the stage for a new creation, or gain.
With any loss, there is a grieving process. One of the hardest parts about grief is how lonely it feels, especially if nobody else knows that you are grieving. In the time leading up to the decision to divorce, many individuals grieve silently. Then during and after the divorce, grief might come in waves as the effects of the divorce begin to permeate different areas of your life. Each wave is not a setback. Even if you know the divorce was for the best, you can still feel sad about losing your partner and the life you had together.
Initially, your experience of a favorite meal or a favorite TV show might completely change. You can give yourself permission to take a break from those activities and try new things instead. Your spouse doesn’t win everytime you adjust your life to meet your current needs. I am not saying to hide or avoid every little reminder, but I am saying you don’t have to suffer unnecessarily to prove a point. YOU win when you meet yourself where you are at and allow yourself to heal.
Eventually, you can reintroduce those things and create a new association with them. When you are ready, you might deliberately reclaim and reintroduce happiness to the activities and places that you once shared with your partner. Whatever your current experience might be, it won’t stay this way forever.
With practice (ideally in therapy), time, and intention you will learn how to manage your emotions when the unexpected occurs, you will learn how to ask for help when you need it, and you will rebuild. You can create new parts of your identity that better serve you and the things you value in life.
If you’ve been thinking about divorce for a long time, divorce itself can actually be a relief. You might find that gaining joy and/or peace was unexpected. When this occurs, you don’t have to punish yourself. You are allowed to recreate and gain.
How do I stop thinking of myself as a failure?
I wish I could say believing you are not a failure is as easy as hearing me say it, but unfortunately that’s not the case. You can’t just read it, hear it, think it, or feel it. You have to experience that you are not a failure. There are a lot of different ways that we slowly chip away at this idea in therapy. The overarching theme is that your marriage failed or you failed at marriage. Failure in some form is inevitable in life, but you (as a person) are not a failure. When we start to externalize failure, the idea of failure becomes more tolerable and can even be a conduit of growth.
Tools for identifying areas of guilt, shame, and disappointment
1. Identify the emotion. Put simply, guilt says “I messed up or I did something bad” and shame says “I am bad”. Disappointment ensues when things don’t turn out the way you had hoped they would. Guilt and disappointment can actually foster resilience since these emotions keep us accountable and motivate us to be better people. Shame, on the other hand, drives secrecy and isolation and is linked with a host of negative outcomes including addiction and eating disorders.
2. Identify the patterns of emotion and how you respond to them. As we explore these different emotions in therapy with compassion, identifying specific emotions gets easier. Then you can start creating more awareness around when each of these emotions comes up for you. Over time, clients tend to notice patterns. These patterns become somewhat predictable and therefore a source of security. For example, you might not know how every family member is going to respond to your divorce, but you can somewhat predict how you will respond to feeling judged, rejected, or accepted.
3. Know where you stand. If you are looking for other people to validate that you made the right decision, you might find yourself confused and deflated. Everyone has a different opinion about relationships. You can respect other people’s opinions and feelings without changing your own. Therapy is a good place to process without judgment and to develop your own voice. This is your life after all.
4. Develop internal and external resources. I’ve elaborated on this more in previous blog posts, but suffice to say self-care is extremely important during the transition of divorce. Some examples include connecting with people that support you, time to sit and reflect (perhaps through yoga and/or meditation), better daily habits, and (of course) therapy.
How does therapy help you process your divorce and take the next step?
In addition to discussing the points in this article and developing tools to create resilience and clarity, therapy is often an anchor during the storm. When your life feels like it’s been turned upside down by an impending or recent divorce, you need someone to help you understand and someone that can hold the hope for you when you feel hopeless. You might also need assistance in connecting your mind and heart so you don’t feel like they are at constant war with each other. My belief is that time alone does not heal wounds. It’s ok to need help getting to the other side.
Feel free to learn more about the variety of therapy I offer at the links below or contact me directly with any questions:
