Getting a Divorce

Rebuilding Your Self Esteem after a Divorce

Most people going through the divorce process feel weighed down by negatives…an extreme sense of failure, sadness over lost dreams, and a paralyzing case of “If I woulda, shoulda, coulda. That reminds me of a blues song. I would have…” Those thoughts are pointless, depressing and probably wrong. It happened. Now it’s time to begin rebuilding your tattered self esteem. Try these six easy steps, giving you positive stepping stones to help you climb slowly and steadily out of the Pits of Divorce.

Keep a “Thumbs Up” journal. Every day write down something positive about yourself. On good days that might include the completion of a successful ad campaign at work. In more challenging times it may simply be that you have well preserved legs! Some notations can be things you’re good at, have accomplished, or that are simply part of you. Set a specific time of the day like after dinner or when the kids are asleep to write in your journal, commit to not skip a day if you can help it!

Sign up at the local gym or purchase an exercise tape.

Set one realistic goal for yourself each week. In high stress periods this may be nothing more than eating three fairly nutritious meals a day. In more moderate periods it may involve signing up for an enjoyable evening class or joining a divorce support group.

Making someone else feel good always has a boomerang effect! So, compliment someone else. Make it a sincere compliment – not a phony one. How often have you thought: nice dress, or good work, or you’ve got a great smile? Well, don’t just think it, say it.

Honor the Positives. List the reasons you’re a great human being. (If that phrase made you wince, you may need help with your list!) Include things you do well, like gardening, auto repair, software development, writing, child care, knitting, etc.

Develop and repeat affirmation several times a day. I’m as important as everybody else. (Sometimes it’s very hard to convince yourself of that!) I am a deeply good and loving person.

I am capable of handling my own life.

I am a loveable person. I am strong enough to ask for help when I need it.

Accept that you are NOT the mother or father of the world. It’s not your responsibility to make everyone else happy all the time. In the first place, nobody appointed you God. (I’ll bet you never thought of it that way, did you?) In the second place, you do not have the ability to make anyone else content. In time you’ll come to value yourself more and to put your needs on a par with other’s. And as you cope better each day with starting over, you’ll increase your self-esteem immeasurably. Just remember to apply frequent pats on your own back!

We’ve all heard it before. “Forgive and forget.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” “To err is human, to forgive divine.”

This is all well-intentioned advice, I’m sure. However, while it might look good on paper, or sound good in a sermon, forgiveness is not that simple for mortal human beings. Nike’s slogan of “Just Do It” may work on the playing field, but it does not work in the field of human relationships, especially when dealing with divorce.

1. THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTY IN FORGIVING YOUR EX

I don’t know about you, but when I got divorced, these socially appropriate prescriptions for what I “should” do could not have been further from my mind. I felt angry, resentful, abandoned, apprehensive, disconsolate, frightened, furious, hurt, and overwhelmed, among others. Well-meaning advice telling me simply to forget it, forgive her, and move on was silly. However, that was all I heard!

Divorce, including recovery from divorce, is a life transition. It takes time. Likewise, letting go of our attachments to how things used to be takes time. This includes our attachments, both positive and negative, to our ex. Letting go of the emotional ties to another is not an act of logic, and can’t be accomplished by making a rational decision.

2. A MORE HELPFUL,AND HUMANE, APPROACH TO FORGIVENESS

Then I ran on to a book by two educators and psychologists, Sydney and Suzanne Simon, entitled How to Make Peace with Your Past and Get on with Your Life. This book puts a human touch to forgiveness. It removed my guilt about not being able to make the simple decision to “forgive” my ex. For the first time I had a way to think about forgiveness that was truly useful. Their book laid out what forgiveness is, and what it is not, and in the process, pointed out the way to let go of the past so we can get on with our lives.

3. WHAT FORGIVENESS IS NOT

Simon and Simon point out that what all major religious traditions tell us about forgiveness is not scientifically true. That is, forgiveness is NOT (1) a Clear-Cut, One-Time Decision that is usually communicated by some form of (2) Public Pronouncement, preferably to the ex, in which we acknowledge a degree of (3) Self Sacrifice by promising to (4) Forget what was done to us, and offer (5) Absolution to the perpetrator, while in the process giving the impression that we actually (6) Condone what they did.

4. WHAT FORGIVENESS IS

On the other hand, they tell us that Forgiveness IS (1) the By-Product of an (2) ongoing, internal Healing Process in which, over time, (3) we Let Go of the Intense Emotions attached to incidents from our past with our ex.

Some outcomes of this “letting go” include the recognition that we no longer need our grudges, our resentments, our hatred and self pity. In addition, we no longer want to punish our ex who hurt us because we realize that nothing we do to punish our ex will heal us. That is, it is an “inside job.”

5. WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU AND ME

Some consequences of treating forgiveness as the by-product of an ongoing healing process include: (1) Don’t expect forgiveness to come all at once. The negative feelings will linger until they are “dissolved away.” (2) We must take personal responsibility to engage in the healing process. Time alone will not do it. Making a public, or private, declaration will not do it. (3) Well-meaning people will tell you to do stuff concerning forgiveness, and how you should feel about your ex, that is just plain wrong. We must courteously ignore them while we go about healing ourselves.

The good news is, if we “do the work” required to heal from the pain of the divorce transition, one day we will wake up and realize it has been days or weeks since we had any strong feelings about our ex. This means forgiveness is complete.

So, what is “the work” we have to do? What does this “healing process” look like? Where can I go to get it started?

Divorce recovery takes time. This is a fact of divorce. The real question is, “How long must I endure the upset and pain of adjusting to my divorce?” While specific time predictions are not possible, we can make choices that reduce recovery time from several years to a few months.

1. What Do We Mean by “Recovery?”

Successful recovery from divorce can mean different things to different people. By “recovery,” I mean that we are no longer haunted by painful memories of the relationship. We can talk about our ex and talk to our ex without negative emotions. We can wish our ex the best in their new life. And we can go for days with even thinking of our ex. In other words, we feel content with our current life and excited about our future without our ex being an integral part of it.

2. Slaying the Myth that Time Heals Everything

Accepted wisdom tells us that “time heals everything.” Tell that to my former sister-in-law. I met Faye before I met her sister, Anne, who I eventually married. At this time Faye had been divorced five years and every reference she made to her ex was critical and painful. Sixteen years later Faye died of cancer and to her dying day, her references to her ex remained critical and painful. Twenty-one years should have been enough time to heal her divorce wounds IF “time heals everything” were true. It isn’t. Time, by itself, heals nothing.

What IS important is what we DO during that time.What are our choices for “what to do?”

3. What Can We DO to Recover from Divorce?

Our two main choices are: 1 – DO NOTHING and let “Time and Sympathy” cure our pain and, 2 – Use a “TARGETED PROGRAM” specifically designed to change the attitudes and behaviors that keep us stuck in our post-divorce pain and dysfunction.

I do not address generalized therapy because of the nebulous nature of the process. Some, if not most, talk therapies, both individual and group, provide little more than a safe place to vent feelings and perhaps receive “advice.” Other therapies, like the divorce-specific behavior therapy program of Wanderer and Cabot, provide the client with a specific, behavior-focused program specifically designed to deal with the unique issues of divorce recovery. The first kind I lump in with the “Time and Sympathy” strategies. The second I include in the “Targeted Program” strategies.

4. Recovery Time Using “Time and Sympathy” Strategies – About 3 Years

If you do nothing, that is, if you use the “Time and Sympathy” strategies, it will take years for you to recover. Just how many years is unclear. Reports vary. Some say 1 year, others say 2 years. Some predict 1 year of recovery for each year of marriage, while others say 1 year of recovery for every 2 years of marriage.

Two major research projects generally confirm these estimates. Hetherington’s study puts this time frame at 2 to 6 years. Wallerstein and Kelly found that the average time after a divorce for women to reestablish “inner equilibrium,” “external stability,” and “a sense of continuity in their lives” was 3 to 3½ years.

Any way you cut it, if you depend on “Time and Sympathy” to provide your recovery from divorce, you are looking at a long time.

Is there a better way? Can you recover from divorce sooner? Answer: Yes!

5. Recovery Time Using “Targeted Program” Strategies – About 3 Months

Targeted Programs” are behavior-focused and attitude-focused, structured programs that walk the divorced client through the unique issues and challenges of the divorce-recovery process. Two examples include the Divorce Recovery Behavior Therapy Program (Wanderer and Cabot) and my Smooth Divorce Recovery Coaching Program (JW Young). Even though the programs come from related, but different, theoretical approaches (behavior therapy versus transition management and dissolving resistance to change) their results are quite similar. Both programs estimate it takes approximately 3 MONTHS (not years) to recover from divorce.

In my divorce-recovery coaching experience, the shortest recovery time was 6 weeks for a person who had had two previous “let’s get divorced” decisions followed by reconciliation. The longest was 5 months for someone who was stuck in the past and dealing with gut level anger at being betrayed. The typical client took 3 months of weekly, 2-hour sessions, to walk through the program, during which they dropped their fantasies of revenge, saw clear hope for the future, and were able to wish their ex well.

Recovery from divorce is hard. The good news is YOU CAN DO IT. In fact, with some focused effort and a little help, you can recover from divorce faster than you ever thought possible. Making a successful recovery from divorce requires both insight and action. The following tips highlight the most important insights and actions necessary.

TIP #1 – You are not unusual – You are not alone.

Statistically, there are a lot of us. 40% of first marriages and 60% of all remarriages eventually end in divorce. Emotionally, everyone is pretty much in the same boat. Ambivalence rules the day. Roller coasters are the preferred method of emotional transport. Realistically, anyone you know whose has gone through, or is going through a divorce, can identify with the reactions you are having. You are not alone.

TIP #2 – You can make a successful recovery from divorce because you have done it before.

You say you haven’t been divorced before? Doesn’t matter. All transitions force us to go through the same process of change – whether it is losing a job, getting married, starting a family, death of a loved one. Whatever. What we’ve learned from these life experiences we can apply to making it through our current transition through divorce.

TIP #3 – You already possess all the personal resources necessary to recover from divorce.

Confidence, a sense of direction, and hope seem to be the first to go when trying to recover from a divorce. But, not to worry. You already have the ability to deal with it. More specifically, we gain confidence from successfully navigating past major life transitions. We find stability of direction from our unique set of personal principles. We obtain courage to press on from our personal sources of hope. And, we obtain reassurance that we are on the right track through a sense of gratitude for the good present in the current situation

TIP #4 – You need to recruit at lease one “Change Buddy” for social support and feedback.

We need to find people (or at least one person) we can lean on for emotional support and count on for objective feedback while we make our recovery from divorce. These folks must have two important characteristics. They must have no personal agenda and they must be able to be honest with you. Only then can you count on their feedback as being objective.

TIP #5 – You can and must dissolve the massive resistance to change that comes with divorce.

Fear, loss, and uncertainty about what to do next sabotage our efforts to make a victorious recovery from divorce. However, we can handle our fear of the unknown future if we have a plan. We can let go of how things used to be – even the good stuff – when we realize there is even more good stuff in the next chapter of our life after divorce. And, we can resolve our rational reservations for making a recovery with old-fashioned problem solving.

TIP #6 – You can and must use what you have learned from going through the divorce process to make your recovery successful.

Only by using your experience to clarify your future requirements, needs, and wants for our life after divorce, can you capitalize on the great opportunity divorce offers. These learnings apply to your entire life including finances, health, relationships, and self expression.

TIP #7 – You must lay the groundwork for the many changes that must occur in order to make a successful divorce recovery.

Divorce brings change in our relationships, our health, our financial situation, and our opportunities for creativity and self expression. A successful divorce recovery demands that we attend to and plan for this wide range of changes in order to fully and joyously embrace the next chapter in our life after divorce.

Recovery from divorce is bathed in ambivalence. We wish it weren’t so. We assume we will shed the past, much like a snake sheds its skin, and get on with our life after divorce without looking back. However, it just doesn’t work that way. A judge’s signature on a piece of paper does not make our hopes and dreams for what we wanted our marriage to be simply disappear in a sudden “poof” like blowing on a dandelion. Ambivalence is our hopes and dreams telling us that they still want to come true.

1. Recovery from divorce is bathed in ambivalence.

We wish it weren’t so. We assume we will shed the past, much like a snake sheds its skin, and get on with our life after divorce without looking back. However, it just doesn’t work that way. A judge’s signature on a piece of paper does not make our hopes and dreams for what we wanted our marriage to be simply disappear in a sudden “poof” like blowing on a dandelion. Ambivalence is our hopes and dreams telling us that they still want to come true.

2. Everyone Has Uneasy Feelings about Ambivalence

We all experience ambivalence at one time or another. Sometimes we feel embarrassed or ashamed when we feel ambivalent. Often we are confused when positive thoughts about our marriage creep in even though we know it was in our own best interests to end it. This is normal. It is OK to feel this ambivalence. Everyone has it to one degree or another.

3. Everyone Has Reconciliation Fantasies

We experience ambivalence in our reconciliation fantasies. Even when we wanted the divorce and are looking forward to getting on with our life without our ex, we still have bouts of ambivalence. We hear the tape recorder in our head say such things as, “Did I do the right thing?” “What if we got back together, would things be different? Would they be better?” “Wouldn’t our kids be better off if we reconciled?”

4. Every Marriage Creates Both Good and Bad Memories

No marriage is 100% bad. No marriage is 100% good. There were good times and there were bad times. There were positive things that initially attracted you to each other. Even though there were the bad times that led to divorce, you also created some good memories. We like to remember the good times. It reassures us we made a good decision to marry in the first place. This is good. These good memories often surface as ambivalence.

5. Every Hope and Dream Lives on in the Picture Album in Our Head

The day you first felt that “special something” with your ex, you started a picture album in your head in which you began collecting pictures of your hopes and dreams for the relationship. Just because the marriage ended does not mean your hopes and dreams evaporated. They didn’t. They still live on in your head. They revisit you as ambivalence about getting divorced.

We tell ourselves, “I don’t want to lose my hopes and dreams! Maybe I should try to reconcile.” This is normal. This is painful. And here is the best part: This is unnecessary because you only lost a spouse. You did not lose your hopes and dreams. They did not go anywhere. You still have them. You can still work to realize them. This is a good thing. The only difference is the person with whom you assumed you would achieve them will not be there. If you choose, you can find someone else whom you love and who loves you to help make your hopes and dreams come true.

Such is the wonderful promise of a successful recovery from divorce.

“Divorce recovery” gives rise to thoughts like, “I never thought I’d have to do this. I’ve never been in this predicament before.” Or, “Everything is new and threatening. I feel lost and afraid things will never get better.”

These reactions are normal. Recovery from divorce is difficult at best. It is not something we have done all our lives and feel competent at. However, it is important to realize that you already possess all the personal resources necessary to recover successfully from divorce.

What are these resources, you ask? In order to travel the path to a successful recovery from divorce, we need confidence we can do it, a sense of right direction in the midst of emotional chaos, the courage to press on when things seem unclear or even hopeless, and reassurance that we are on the right track during the process.

OK. But, if I am supposed to already have them, where the heck are they? Let’s take them one at a time.

1. CONFIDENCE – Gain Confidence from Our Past BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE

We’ve all “been there, done that” when it comes to surviving unwanted change successfully. Whether it is getting over our awkward first love affair in junior high school, making a comeback after getting fired, or dealing with the illness or death of a friend or loved one, everyone has gone through unwanted change. Eventually, when we have come out the other side, we can look back and find some good that came from the experience. A call this a “Blessing in Disguise.”

Acknowledging a blessing born by change gives us confidence to face future change, including recovery from divorce. Even though we may not have been through divorce before, all life changes follow the same transition process. Therefore, what we learned from previous changes we can apply to our divorce recovery. Blessings in disguise are tangible proof that we can do it again because we’ve done it before.

The key to finding the confidence to confront divorce recovery is simply to identify our blessings in disguise. They are tangible proof that we can do it again because we’ve been handling change successfully all our lives.

2. DIRECTION – Find Direction from Your Set of PERSONAL PRINCIPLES

Going through a major life change, like divorce recovery, is like driving down the interstate in a fog. We try our best to keep the car in the road. However, when we drift too far to the left or right, we hear and feel the thump, thump, thump of the shoulder telling us we are drifting off course. Our personal principles are the washboards that give us the thump-thump-thump warning we need when we start to drift off our desired path through divorce recovery.

Some principles will be especially important to maintain. Some of those important principles will be threatened by the divorce recovery process. Successfully navigating your recovery from divorce will require you to first identify your core personal principles and then protect and use them when making the hard decisions of your divorce recovery.

3. COURAGE – Obtain Courage from Your Personal Source of HOPE

It takes courage to go through divorce recovery. Hope gives us that courage. The more we believe in the potential for good, the less daunting are the fears of an uncertain future and the less paralyzing the pain of loss. Staying focused on the hope for good offered by divorce recovery allows us to thrive, rather than merely survive. Possessing an internal belief that some good exists in all situations allows us to use our recovery from divorce as positive growth. Hope strips away the chains of fear and loss.

Your particular source of hope may be found in a solid belief in yourself, an unwavering trust in others, comfort from philosophical writings, awe at the natural universe, or faith in spiritual/religious beliefs. The source you use does not matter so long as it is meaningful and powerful to you. What does matter is you must take active steps to avail yourself of hope’s courageous promise.

4. REASSURANCE – Get Reassurance You Are Doing the Right Thing from GRATITUDE

Being reassured we are on the right track is essential, especially during the difficult times of divorce recovery. Gratitude lies at the heart of accepting change and gives us that reassurance. We can observe how gratitude helps give reassurance and comfort to the grieving family of a deceased loved one when they say such things as, “Thank goodness, he’s in a better place now” or, “I’m so glad his suffering is over.” Finding gratitude for the good in your divorce recovery affirms the fact that you are making progress. Gratitude opens us to be more receptive to accepting change and using it for good.

Know that you can relax in the knowledge that confidence, direction, courage, and reassurance are constant companions in your efforts to make a successful recovery from divorce.

Recovery from divorce requires us to make changes in our lives. Lots of changes. No big surprise here. For example, divorce almost always forces us to make changes in our relationships, our finances, our living arrangements, our health-related activities, our self-development, and our recreational and social activities.

The logical prescription to speed our transition from being unhappily married to happily unmarried is straightforward: make the necessary changes ASAP! No problem. Why, then, don’t we do it? Why are we universally reluctant to do the obvious and make the changes that would improve our life after divorce?

The answer? RESISTANCE TO CHANGE! Resistance to change is our reluctance to make a positive change because of personal reasons.

1. A Personal Example

What I did when my first marriage ended is an example of how resistance to change prevents us from making a swift and smooth recovery from divorce. After eight years of marriage, my wife and I agreed it was over. We had tried several things to save it – couples counseling, communication training weekends, couples retreats, individual therapy. These efforts only served to reinforce our belief that a divorce was the right thing to do. Even though a judge had not signed any paper yet, the harsh reality was the marriage was over.

2. Three Ways Resistance to Change Can Ruin Your Divorce Recovery

Three things prevented me from moving on and making my recovery from divorce.

(1) FEAR – I was afraid of an unknown future.

(2) LOSS – I did not want to lose my “perfect life fantasy” of being married “til death do us part” with a loving wife and living with two wonderful daughters.

(3) SKILLS – I did not believe I had the ability to live successfully as a single man. These three things illustrate the three causes of resistance to change, which had me firmly in its grasp.

3. Cause #1 of Resistance to Change – Fear of an Unknown Future

I could not guarantee my future would be happy. I could not guarantee that I would meet someone new. My disaster fantasy was that I would never find true love again and would live alone and lonely the rest of my life. This fear paralyzed me and prevented me from moving into the next chapter of my life.

4. Cause #2 of Resistance to Change – Distress Over Loss

Moving on meant I would lose daily access to my two daughters. It also meant I would lose the stability of a daily living routine. But most importantly, it meant I would lose the hopes, dreams, and assumptions about our family I had been collecting ever since my wife and I met.

For example, I had hoped my family would last forever. I had assumed I would be involved daily in my daughters’ lives. I had dreamed of growing old with my wife. My parents were married 67 years, so why not me too? Taking the active steps to recover would force me to admit that these hopes, dreams, and assumptions were shattered. The loss seemed more than I could handle. Hence, I put off moving on and thereby delayed my recovery from divorce.

5. Cause #3 of Resistance to Change – Uncertainty over the Operational Aspects

Logic-based resistance to change reflects our reluctance to make a change because we do not understand or agree with the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and/or How of the change. My logic-based resistance was based partly in my uncertainty about some How’s and Who’s of dating.

I had not dated for over nine years. I was convinced I would not be able to date without thoroughly embarrassing myself. I was stuck on such issues as ‘ “How do you date?” “Who will I date?’ “Where will I find people to date?” As long as I pretended I did not have to take control of my divorce recovery, I did not have to confront my ineptitude with dating.

6. So How Can You Use This?

One fact exists, resistance to change happens to EVERYONE. It will happen to you. Be aware of its causes and be alert to your fears, your reactions to loss, and your confusion over the operational nuts and bolts of making a recovery. It’s all about taking the next step. Making the next change. You can be paralyzed by resistance to change as I was, or you can confront the resistance and dissolve it, thus enabling you to get on with the next chapter in your life.

Some questions to ask yourself that will help guide you on your recovery might include – What about the future do you fear today? What about “how things used to be” are hard for you to give up? Are you confident that you have the skills and knowledge to make your recovery?