Life after divorce

I didn’t think I would end up right here. I’m a 28yr old, attractive, gainfully employed female, still young by the way, and I’m divorced. I’m not gonna spend all day talking about what went wrong because, quite frankly, I’m afraid I’d wear away my fingers before I finished. What I will tell you is that I didn’t know the man as well as I thought I did until after the honeymoon was over. He was not somebody that I would want to spend the rest of my life with, and I’m pretty sure that that life would have been shorter if I had stayed. Now comes the hard part, life after divorce.

We had been married about five years before the split happened, so it was a big change to suddenly be single again. The first thing I did was to distance myself from things that reminded me of our time together. Pictures, wedding videos, even sheets that had too many memories had to go. Then, I decided to reconnect with some of the people that I had pushed into the background. I didn’t think it would be helpful to surround myself with happy couples, particularly ones that had been friends to both of us. Many people talk about joining a support group or something like that to survive life after divorce. Well, my friends were my support group. They reminded me of who I used to be and who I still was. I needed that.

Next thing I did was to tell those friends I reconnected with to shut up. Sorry, I don’t subscribe to the whole “the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else” point of view. I decided to spend some time by myself to figure out what I really wanted out of life. I figured that if I wanted to be happy with myself and my life after divorce, then I would have to learn to just be happy in the first place.

The last thing I did was to accept my part in the failure of my marriage. It’s easy to blame everything on him. It’s harder to accept the blame that I have too. When I was ready to, after I let the anger fade and before I went back out into the dating arena, I took stock of what happened and actually faced up to what I did wrong. All of this is in the past. What’s in the present is my life after divorce, with me feeling better about myself and learning that, while I made some mistakes, I’m a great catch. I have learned not to push a guy’s buttons until he loses it. I have learned to step back and assess the situation, and if it was worth the arguments that I had.

I have also learned that no matter who you marry, some changes in that person are inevitable after marriage. Accept it. They will not be 100% what they were when you were dating. I wish I would’ve known those things earlier, but it’s ok, it’s not the end of the world. I have moved on, but I am here for any woman who has had a divorce to let her know it’s ok, life can and will go on. If you need any help, please feel free to contact me.

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