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Divorce is hard, and the process may dredge up some toxic feelings. Depending on how everything shakes out, the experience can feel like a permanent brand you’ll never erase. But that doesn’t have to happen.
While challenging, some actions will help you bounce back and rediscover happiness. Just remember that recovery takes a lot of strength. You must face all the uncomfortable vitriol that builds up throughout a messy and contested divorce, such as when a spouse refuses to sign divorce papers.
This is challenging for even the most mature individuals since feelings of guilt, anger, and betrayal are notorious for sticking around. Here’s our advice for moving past these emotions and rediscovering your happiness.
Common Reasons for Divorce
The CDC estimates that 41 percent of first marriages in the US will end in divorce. This dismal number worsens for people heading into their second or third marriage. Not exactly a statistic that inspires much hope in anyone about to take the plunge.
Each marriage has unique circumstances, but many share similar reasons for the split. When asked to open-endedly explain why the relationship ended, most couples cited:
- Marital Infidelity (21.6%)
- Incompatibility (19.2%)
- Substance Abuse (10.6%)
Signs of Marital Infidelity
Everyone chases after the perfect relationship, but marital infidelity is still, sadly, one of the most common reasons for divorce. Paying attention to changes in your spouse’s behavior could tip you off to their cheating.
Spending More Time Away from Home
A changing schedule is a common symptom in adult life, but it could be concerning if your partner constantly finds new excuses to leave home. This will be one of the first signs of cheating and is typically accompanied by legitimate-sounding reasons like a new hobby or work commitment.
Sudden Accusations
Guilt has some strange effects. Often, cheating partners try to displace or assuage their guilty conscience by accusing their partner of something. They may even hope that their spouse is doing something just as wrong. If you notice increased paranoia or accusations, you’ll want to pay a little more attention.
Changes in Intimacy Levels
Many things determine how often we have relations with our partners. Age, energy, and mental state are important factors in whether or not we’re in “the mood” at any given time.
Sudden changes, positive or negative, regarding sex can point toward infidelity. Warning signs include:
- Lessened Intimacy
- Difference in Performance or Skill
- The Appearance of a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI)
- Increased Attention to their Appearance
Perhaps your partner is just putting more effort into your relationship or trying to recapture the initial spark with you. While this could be the case, it may also be a sign that there’s someone else in their life that they’re trying to impress. These signals could be anything from buying an entirely new wardrobe to dressing up more for work.
Even if you notice these signs, it’s best not to jump straight to confrontation. A paranoid mind can do much damage with just a few words. Have a conversation with your partner first, and don’t make any wild claims. There are any number of reasons for changes in behavior.
How to Catch Your Partner Cheating
If you still suspect your partner is cheating on you, then you can move on to finding proof. If one partner is proven guilty of an affair, it could affect the judge’s decision on how to divvy up the marital property.
Hire a Private Investigator (PI)
This is the most cliched route to go. It’s frequently used in media and usually involves a man sitting in his car at night with an “ultra-zoom” lens on his camera. The PI will tail your partner and obtain proof of their infidelity.
It’s important to note that hiring a PI is quite costly, and they may not find anything. This option should be reserved for when you’re sure your partner is cheating and only need to acquire hard evidence.
Install a Tracking Application on their Phone
Smartphones are helpful for a great many things, including tracking our significant others. These apps can mine data from a device’s emails, social media, and texts. This will give more than enough to prove if your spouse is cheating.
Change Your Routine
People who live together often know each other’s daily routines by heart. They know when their partner wakes up, goes to work, or goes to the gym. Cheaters rely on this information to schedule their infidelities, and making an unannounced change to your routine can catch them off guard.
How to Recover After a Tough Divorce
The divorce may not be your fault, but you owe it to yourself to move forward.
It’s normal to spend time blaming the person who caused the rift, but don’t fall into this trap. If you focus on laying on blame, then it’ll be even harder to live in the present and take steps to regain your life.
Accept Your Feelings
It’s okay to mourn a relationship—it doesn’t make you weak or pathetic. The same goes for feeling joy over its end. That doesn’t make you cold or callous. Learn to accept your feelings, and don’t trick yourself into trying to discern what everybody else expects.
Crying can help relieve stress and relieve some negative emotions you may have bottled up after the divorce. Don’t feel guilty about crying; it won’t make things any worse than they already are.
So, whether you want to cry, laugh, or scream, permitting yourself to express yourself will prevent any negative emotions from ruining your mindset for the future.
Seek Professional Help
Don’t put off seeking someone to guide you through your emotions. Many of us don’t understand ourselves as well as we think, especially after a tough divorce wrecks our self-esteem.
It’s normal to feel a complex cocktail of emotions like hope, grief, anger, and relief all at once. Understanding how to sort these feelings out demands more honesty and introspection than most are ready for.
Proper counseling gives divorcees the tools to recover some sense of normalcy. Looking up licensed professionals to get said counseling is a way to have a safe place to work through the reality of the situation and any underlying reasons that caused it.
Don’t wait until you feel ready or until your children are older, and don’t wait for your divorce to be final before getting help. You may not know what will happen in the future, but seeing a therapist now can only help in the long run.
Get Support and Vent Your Feelings
A divorce spells the end of one of your most intimate relationships, but your spouse probably wasn’t the only close bond you had. Lean on friends and family to get you through this time and be active in their lives.
Rekindling relationships that you’ve neglected during your marriage can be therapeutic. Go to a bar or do an outdoor activity while having a chat. Listening to the people who know you best can give fresh insight into your mental state.
Practice Self-Care
Don’t expect an immediate recovery after divorce. Newfound loneliness can plummet your mental health, so you’ll want to combat the warning signs as they come.
- Don’t get stuck in the past
- Don’t let your divorce define you
- Don’t let your divorce make you bitter
- Don’t put off seeing someone if you need help
Begin by caring for yourself physically and mentally. Make changes to your lifestyle and take advantage of your regained freedom. Alter your routine to match your hobbies rather than your spouse’s. Start exercising or singing to cope with grief. Prioritize the things that bring you little moments of joy.
This is a time for you to react without being swayed by others. However, blocking out others’ opinions can be challenging. You’ll want to make it a point to surround yourself with positivity.
This doesn’t mean you can’t feel sadness or regret at times, but it’s essential to recognize when you’re going too deep. It’s common to fall into depression after a traumatic experience.
Focus on the Children
A divorce may damage the children more than the adults. The National Library of Medicine reports that separations increase the risk of academic and mental health issues.
Having frequent conversations with your children is beneficial to both sides. You’ll be able to understand better how the children perceive the events. It’s common for kids to blame themselves for the breakup or become overly anxious about their changing lifestyle.
Don’t Bring Old Baggage into New Relationships
As you recover from your divorce, don’t let your negative feelings toward your ex-spouse or the relationship make you bitter. Negative energy can become infectious and color people’s first impression of you.
Wait to meet new friends and possible partners until you’re in a suitable headspace to act as your genuine self. If you feel bitter, try not to take it out on the people who love you most.
Take Care of Insurance
Going through a divorce is hard not only emotionally but also financially. There is no such thing called as divorce insurance coverage, but there are multiple insurance policies you can buy that secure your assets, cover lawyer fees, help with child support, pay for counseling, and cover other areas of your life in case you get divorced.
You should also make sure to remove your spouse from your car insurance if they will no longer be living with you or using your vehicle.
You should keep in mind that this is different from prenups and divorce settlements. Prenuptial agreements, as the name implies, are a form of contract signed by the couple before marriage that agree on the distribution of assets in case of divorce.
Settlements, on the other hand, are contracts written after divorce that allow the divorced couple to reach an agreement over fees and assets while moving towards ending their divorce.
Divorce Recovery Focal Points
Divorce is tough to recover from on your own. Having a solid support system to rely on is essential to maintaining the right outlook.
While there’s not much spare time during a contentious divorce, it’s best to make at least a few preparations for the aftermath. Looking up a professional therapist and sitting through a few sessions before the paperwork is filed can do wonders.
The most important thing to remember throughout and after the process is to be kind to yourself. Life goes on past your marriage.
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Ben Hartwig is a Web Operations Executive at InfoTracer who takes a wide view from the whole system. He authors guides on entire security posture, both physical and cyber.
This content is brought to you by Anne Davis.
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash