Posts by Dr. Karen Finn
The 5 Things You HAVE To Do To FINALLY Get Over Your Break Up
Because it takes more than booze and ice cream to truly heal.
It doesn’t matter if this is the first time or the hundredth time – break ups suck.
Logically, you know you’d never want a relationship with someone who doesn’t want you.
But logic isn’t where you go when you get the news that it’s over.
It’s just too shocking! Unbelievable!
How could they dump you after all you’ve done for them? Don’t they realize how much you love them?
You’re indignant.
In a short span of time you’ve already experienced the first two steps of dealing with grief after a break up – shock and anger.
But then something happens – you want to understand why it ended.
You quickly jump to the conclusion it ended because of you. You start thinking that maybe you aren’t good enough, or that you’re unlovable, or that there’s something else fundamentally WRONG with you. It’s the only thing that makes sense – somehow YOU must have screwed up for this amazing person to call it quits.
You start obsessing and over-analyzing your potential faults.
Maybe you ask your ex to tell you what you did to make them dump you so you can change and get the relationship back. Maybe you just start beating yourself up as you try to figure out exactly what you did to make them stop loving you and leave.
This is the real pain of a break up – dealing with feelings of inadequacy and sadness.
Dealing with grief after a breakup is a process and isn’t immediately solved with a pint of ice cream (or several shots of tequila).
You have to go through all of the pain before you’re ready for your next relationship.
But that doesn’t mean you have to wander in a sugar- or alcohol-laden wilderness of depression. There is a definite path you can follow to make your recovery process a whole lot easier.
Here are five steps on that path, to help you move past the grief and finally move on after your breakup.
Step 1: Know that it’s OK to feel sad.
It’s normal to grieve the loss of love. So let yourself experience the sadness.
That doesn’t mean you’re going to allow yourself to drown in it. It just means that you’ll allow yourself to experience the emotion instead of trying to lock it away and ignore it.
Step 2: Comfort yourself.
Yeah, this is when Ben & Jerry and Patrón enter the picture, but so do your favorite songs, pillow and anything else that helps you to feel better.
Do things that comfort you so that you know you’re OK despite the sadness you’re feeling after your breakup.
But comforting yourself doesn’t mean that you do it until you forget about your grief, just that you take the edge off it in the beginning.
Step 3: Shift your perspective.
After you’re feeling safer and calmer, it’s time to start bringing a bit of logic back to the situation and remember that you really don’t want a relationship with someone who doesn’t love you to the same extent that you love them.
You deserve a whole lot more than that.
And you know, the reason your ex broke up with you really is all about them. They made the decision to end things. You can let them own that decision as you own your decision to get over them.
Step 4: Spend time with your friends.
Reach out to your friends. These are the people who know how great you really are. They’ll know how to keep you from feeling too lonely and how to help you feel happy again.
Step 5: Build your self-confidence back up.
As you’ve worked your way through the previous 4 steps, you’ve been flirting with the idea that you’re pretty great despite getting dumped by your ex.
Now is when you begin accepting that despite what’s happened, you really are a fabulous and lovable person.
You might start by doing some Stuart Smalley stuff – corny, but it works at shutting down those negative comments that have been running through your head since the break up.
You might get back out there and start casually dating again. Or you might choose to do something between these two extremes as you finish getting your mojo back.
Getting over your grief after a break up doesn’t usually happen overnight, because getting dumped is horrible and heartbreaking.
But by going through these five steps, you’ll be on the quickest path to feeling better again.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who are struggling with divorce and don’t know how to stop the pain so they can move forward with their lives. You can join my anonymous newsletter list for free weekly advice. And if you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more support and ideas for feeling better after your divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Dealing With Grief.
This article originally appeared at YourTango.
5 Tips For Dealing With Anger Due To Grief About Divorce
Finally learning how to deal with your anger in a healthy way is an unexpected benefit of divorce.
Almost everyone who goes through divorce gets angry about it.
Your anger may only register as a sense of frustration, or it may be as overwhelming as rage, or something in between these two extremes. But that doesn’t mean that’s how it will feel tomorrow or even in the next moment.
That’s just how healing from divorce is – one unpredictable emotion after another.
Anger is a normal part of any grieving process and needs constructive expression if you’re going to avoid becoming bitter or enraged because of your divorce.
So, dealing with anger due to grief is definitely a skill you need to learn to get over your divorce.
However, before you can really deal with your anger you need to jettison the baggage about it that you’re carrying around. (Yes, you, like everyone else learned stuff that’s not all that helpful about anger.)
Maybe you believe that anger is bad and shouldn’t be expressed. So anytime you feel the slightest twinge of anger you suppress it. The problem with doing this is that the anger will fester and cause you both physical and psychological problems.
Or maybe you believe that it’s better to be angry instead of feeling vulnerable or hurt. Yet, when your marriage ends (especially when you don’t want it to), it’s a very painful experience. You have a right to feel hurt, vulnerable and out of control of the situation.
The truth is that anger is an entirely normal emotion in response to feeling wronged or having your plans thwarted. And if your soon-to-be-ex has decided they want a divorce, you absolutely feel wronged and that they have ruined all your plans for the future.
However, you don’t want to get stuck feeling angry. So you need a game plan for what to do when your anger emerges.
Game plan for dealing with anger due to grief about your divorce:
1. Acknowledge that you’re feeling angry.
This might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised by how many people who have developed the skill of ignoring their anger because of a belief that anger is bad.
It’s also important to recognize that you feel angry because it interrupts the emotion’s control over you which will give you a moment to choose how you will express it constructively.
2. Express your anger constructively.
After you’re aware of your anger, you need to let it out in a meaningful way. Some of the ways you might get your anger out include:
Calmly, directly, and respectfully say what you need to say to whomever you need to say it
Walk away
Scream into a pillow
Play music very loudly
Go for a run
Punch your pillows
Journal
Talk with a friend or helping professional about your anger
Take several deep breaths
Use humor
Go into problem-solving mode
But be careful to notice how you’re feeling when you use any of these methods because sometimes your anger will increase. If you get angrier, stop what you’re doing and choose another way to let your anger go.
3. Find your own meaning for what’s going on.
When you’re grieving the loss of your marriage, you’ll ask questions like “Why is this happening?” and “Whose fault is this – theirs or mine?” Wondering about these types of questions create frustration and anger because you feel helpless, powerless and abandoned.
It’s time to begin answering these questions for yourself from as kind and compassionate a place as you can. The intent behind the answers isn’t so that you can let anyone off the hook, it’s so that you can let go of some of the hurt and start to heal instead of being stuck in your anger.
4. Identity your triggers.
It might be that each and every single time you see your soon-to-be ex you become enraged. You might be facing what would have been your anniversary and feel really pissed. Or you might look at all the bills that have piled up because of your divorce and feel fury at having to deal with all of them on your own.
If you know what sets you off, you’ll find it easier to acknowledge, express, and change your story about it. And if you can do that you’ll move through the anger phase of your divorce grief more completely and quickly than if you’re unaware of your triggers.
5. Plan ahead for potentially triggering situations.
Whatever it is that triggers you, plan ahead for how you’ll deal with it. The more prepared you are for diffusing your triggers, the less anger you’ll feel when you do face them.
This 5-step plan for dealing with anger due to your grief about your divorce is a great place to start, but it won’t magically prevent you from ever feeling angry about your divorce again. Divorce recovery is a process and cyclical which means that chances are you’ll go through more than one anger phase.
But each phase should be less intense than the previous one because of all the work you’re doing to become aware of your emotions, identify why you’re feeling that way and then take positive action to address your triggers.
It’s by putting in this work that you’ll move through your divorce anger and grief and finally put the pain behind you.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who want support in dealing with the pain and frustration of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And if you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more ideas about dealing with anger and grief? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Dealing With Grief.
How Does An Unhappy Marriage Affect You?
It’s pretty scary what the stress of a bad marriage can do to you.
You got married because you fell in love and had dreams of living happily ever after. But somewhere along the way marital bliss turned to marital blah or worse.
You might even occasionally toy with the idea of calling it quits or half-heartedly attempt to work on your marriage. Instead of making any significant changes, what you end up doing is staying. You stick it out because the thought of doing anything different is just too big to deal with.
It might seem like this is the path of least resistance, but did you know the impact of your unhappy marriage is greater – a lot greater – than just feeling meh about your spouse? The stress of a bad marriage affects you physically, mentally and emotionally.
How does an unhappy marriage affect you physically?
- Weakens your immune system (source)
- Wounds are slower to heal (source)
- Increases you blood pressure (source)
- Increases your cholesterol (source)
- Makes you gain weight (source)
- Puts you at an increased risk for heart disease, cancer, arthritis, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and arterial calcification (source)
- Causes digestive disorders (source)
- Causes hormone imbalance (source)
- Causes poor sleep (source)
- Shrinks your brain (source)
- Kills brain cells and halts new brain cell growth (source)
Although these risks apply to both men and women they don’t apply equally. Around the age of 40, the impact of marital stress on a woman’s body is much greater than on a man’s.
How does a miserable relationship influence you mentally?
- Decreases your attention span (source)
- Causes memory problems (source)
- Puts you at greater risk for mental illnesses of all kinds (source)
- Makes it hard for you to think and make decisions (source)
- Increases your risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s (source)
How does a bad marriage impact you emotionally?
- Greater risk for depression (source)
- More feelings of anger (source)
- General feelings of anxiety (source)
- Mood swings (source)
- Impatience with yourself and others (source)
One of the biggest challenges everyone in an unhappy marriage faces is how to deal with it. Most people choose self-soothing activities like smoking, drinking alcohol, drug use, gambling, impulse buying and over (or under) eating to help them cope. The problem with this is that these behaviors exacerbate the risk factors that the stress of your unhappy marriage created in the first place.
The impact of an unhappy marriage on you is pretty scary. But your bad marriage impacts more than just you. It affects your spouse and your kids.
Hopefully, all this information is impactful enough for you to want to change things. But don’t jump to the conclusion that the only way to fix things is to divorce. Divorce is much more stressful than an unhappy marriage.
The place to start changing things is to get honest with yourself about what is and isn’t working in your marriage. Once you’re clear about this, you’ll also want to consider what you’re willing to do to change things.
After you know what you want (or at least have a better idea than you do now) and what you’re willing to do, it’s time to have an open, compassionate conversation with your spouse. The goal of the discussion is to develop a plan so your family can stop suffering from the mental, physical and emotional pain of an unhappy marriage.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach. I help people just like you who are struggling with an unhappy marriage. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And, if you’re ready, you can take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach by scheduling a private consultation.
Looking for more information about what to do if you have a miserable marriage? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Unhappy Marriage.
11 Reasons Why An Affair Is A Bad Idea
Having an affair is one of the worst decisions you can make for yourself – and your family.
You’ve been unhappy in your marriage for a while now. It seems that things will never change – that your spouse will continue ignoring your needs.
You’re tired of feeling stuck, ignored and unloved in your marriage. So when someone else shows you the attention you’ve been craving you’re naturally drawn to them.
But before you continue down the slippery slope you’re precariously perched upon, pause and examine why having an affair is a bad idea.
Affairs hurt everyone – not just your spouse. They hurt you, your lover, their spouse, your children, their children, your family, their family, your friends and their friends. That’s a lot of people.
And before you start wondering too much about what an affair is, know that anytime you feel the need to keep a relationship secret from your spouse – regardless of whether you’re having sex with this other person or not – you’re having an affair.
Just what makes infidelity so bad?
These are the biggest reasons why an affair is a bad idea:
- You’re choosing to live in fear of changing your marriage.
If everything was great in your marriage, you wouldn’t be tempted to deepen your relationship with this other person. Don’t let your fears of what could happen if you talk to your spouse about what isn’t working for you cloud your judgment.Find out if your marriage can be improved enough to bring you the happiness it did when you first married. You owe it to yourself, your spouse and your children to put in the effort to either fix your marriage or respectfully decide to end it.
(In case you’re worried about losing this new person, they’ll gladly allow you the time you need to deal with your marriage – that is if they truly love you. And if they aren’t willing to give you the time you need, you know that what they feel for you isn’t love.)
- An affair isn’t about love, it’s about betrayal.
You decided to have a monogamous relationship with your spouse. Anything you do to undermine that relationship is a betrayal – no matter how much love you might feel for and from the other person. - Lying doesn’t become you.
Infidelity requires secrecy and covering your tracks by lying. Despite the thrill you might have at first, the guilt, shame and worry will consume more and more of your thoughts.As you slide deeper into these thoughts, you start to feel poorly about yourself because you’re living a double life. In one life you feel alive, valued and loved. In the other, you feel the weight of the deception, your self-esteem plummets, and you feel more and more miserable.
- You’re increasing you chances of getting an STD.
The more sexual partners you have, the greater the chances are that you’re impacting your longevity – not just because of potentially contracting STD’s but because of other physical and emotional health issues. - It could be illegal.
Yes, there are some states and countries where cheating isn’t just a bad idea – it’s illegal. If you’re helping someone cheat, then you could be breaking the law and opening yourself up to a law suit if not something worse. - You’ll regret it when/if your spouse finds out.
Getting caught having an affair isn’t a pleasant experience. You will feel humiliated, embarrassed and ashamed when you’re exposed.If you’re lucky, you and your spouse will be able to work through things and come to a reasonable decision about how to move forward either by saving your marriage or by divorcing.If you’re not lucky, things will get ugly quickly and stay that way.
- Your spouse will have trust issues – maybe for the rest of their life.
When your spouse discovers that you’ve been lying to them and that they’ve believed your lies. They start to question reality and wonder how they’ll ever know if someone is being truthful with them or not.Their confusion and fear of trusting someone in an intimate relationship will cause them all kinds of pain whether your marriage can be salvaged or not. If they don’t receive the help they need to work through their trust issues, they could struggle with them for the rest of their life.
- You’ll be at risk for the judgment of others when they find out.People aren’t always kind when they discover one of their friends or family members has cheated on their spouse. In the worst-case scenario, your friends and family will give you a bazillion reasons why you never should have cheated in the first place and then ostracize you. In the best case, they’ll just laugh at you behind your back.
- Your children will be hurt.No matter how you look at it, having an affair is setting a bad example for your children. When they find out they’ll feel humiliated, confused, insecure, sad and angry that you could ruin their family. As a result you’ll lose moral authority with your kids.
- Discovery of your affair could lead to divorce.
Cheating doesn’t destroy all marriages. But for the ones it does, these divorces are generally more combative, bitter and drawn-out because of the emotions at play when the couple tries to negotiate a settlement. - You’ll have to explain your affair to anyone you seriously date in the future.
One of the most common questions people ask when they’re dating someone who’s been divorced is “Why did your marriage end?” You’ll have to come up with an answer if you care about the person asking the question.If your infidelity ended your marriage, you could choose to lie for the rest of your life. All this does is prolong the sense of guilt, humiliation and shame of your affair.
On the other hand, you could choose to tell the truth. And this will naturally cause the person you’re dating to wonder if you’re worthy of their trust or not.
Neither option is very appealing.
You might not agree with all 11 reasons why an affair is a bad idea, but you’ve probably found a few that make sense to you. Hopefully, the one that makes the most sense is the first one – your marriage isn’t fulfilling and you’re choosing to live in misery and fear of changing it.
The good thing about being tempted to cheat on your spouse is that it gives you the opportunity to address the elephant in the room – your marriage either needs to be fixed or dissolved. Instead of immediately succumbing to the attraction you feel for the other person, screw up your courage and address your marriage first.
It will work out better for everyone involved if you do – especially you because you’ll be able to move forward with your life and have your needs met without the regret of adultery.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who want support in dealing with the pain of affairs and miserable marriages. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more information about infidelity? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Surviving Infidelity.
How To Stay Sane When Your Spouse Has Filed For Divorce
Your old life is over. Here’s how to start your new one.
When you find out your spouse has filed for divorce, it’s pretty normal to feel disbelief – like there must be some mistake.
There’s no way they would just throw in the towel like that … would they?
Once they confirm that they do want out, you’re overcome with despair.
You wonder if you’ll survive this completely unwanted destruction of your life.
And as reality begins to sink in, your fears start to rise up. In the midst of your despair, you’re overcome with dread because you begin imagining what your life (and your kids’ lives) will become.
All you can see is misery, destruction, and legal bills.
Some of your fears are true.
Divorce will destroy your life, but only the life that was – not the life that’s ahead of you.
And believe it or not, despite how terrifying they are, your fears are actually trying to help you survive your divorce and create a new life for yourself that will really work for you.
Despite the terror they induce, your fears are warnings.
They are the absolute worst-case scenario and alert you to a risk or threat you’re facing that you need to do something about.
There are umpteen million years of evolution that also come into play when you’re afraid. So, you’re going to automatically react to each of your fears by freezing, fleeing or fighting because that’s the fear response taking control.
How to keep yourself sane, even when it feels like everything is falling apart:
The trick to maintaining your sanity through the overwhelming changes of divorce is to become aware of how you’re responding to each of your fears, and choose to respond in the most appropriate way to dispel the fear and protect yourself from the risk or threat.
Yes, that seems like a big task. But you can handle it.
For example, you might find yourself continuing to deny that your ex is really going to go through with the divorce despite their assurances that they are (and the letters you’ve received from their attorney).
You’re afraid to face the end of your marriage because the future is so uncertain and the divorce is so unwanted. And that is understandable.
But because you’re denying the situation, your automatic response to this fear is to freeze.
You’re hoping that by ignoring the threat that it won’t happen – that your ex will come to their senses.
Unfortunately, playing ostrich and sticking your head in the sand, isn’t the most appropriate response. And not the one that’s going to help you most in the end.
A more caring and supportive response would be to start getting into action.
But how?
Begin thinking about what you would like your post-divorce life to be like. These thoughts don’t need to be elaborate.
A great place to start is thinking about how you would like the pain of rejection to be less sharp in the future, and then go online to see what advice is out there.
Recognize that the most productive fear response isn’t a reflex, but a choice.
A choice to thoughtfully fight, to will take well thought-out action, in facing your divorce.
Unfortunately, recognizing that this is what you need to do doesn’t make it easy or natural to do.
So here are 3 tips to help you become more adept at changing your instinctual fear response:
1. Change the story you’re telling yourself.
Fears are scariest when you focus on the worst-case scenarios they conjure up – the negative “what-if’s”.
What if I wind up living on the streets?
What if I can’t find a job that pays a living wage?
What if the divorce destroys the kids?
What if I’m alone for the rest of my life?
What if I really am unlovable?
Dwelling on the negativity of all these fears isn’t going to help you beyond identifying what you need to reduce the threat of.
It’s just self-inflicted torture.
Instead, come up with 5 positive what-if’s for every negative one you’re struggling with.
For example:
What if I go to school to improve my skills? What if I work two jobs? What if I start my own business? What if I take out a loan to tide us over until I get back on my feet? What if I move in with my parents until I make enough?
These examples may not work for you and that’s OK.
Whatever fear you’re trying to disarm, just find some positive what-if’s that inspire you to act.
That way you can respond to your fears from a place of confidence, instead of victimhood.
2. Act to start making one of your positive what-if’s a reality.
There’s no one right answer here for what you need to do, in order to start making your positive what-if a reality.
You might choose to start creating a plan to achieve what you want, asking for help, or getting back to what you’ve already decided to do.
Once you get started, you’ll surprise yourself with how quickly you start to feel better.
Working to make what you want to happen a reality will decrease your fears more than you could ever guess.
3. Be thankful for what you do have.
You might think this sounds cheesy, but choosing gratitude for what you do have, instead of living in fear of what you don’t (or soon won’t) will completely change your mindset.
You’ll realize that you have a lot more than many other people do.
You’ll also realize that lots of other people have made it through divorce too. And with this knowledge it’s so much easier to be thankful instead of fearful.
You’re probably thinking that these tips sound like mind games.
And you’d be absolutely right.
The thing is that living in fear of what might happen because your spouse has filed for divorce is a mind game too.
A horrible mind game that will have you wondering if you’ll survive or lose your mind trying.
So, which mind game would you prefer – one that gives you hope and sparks the determination you need to make the rest of your life even more wonderful than the past or one that leaves you whimpering in fear and pain?
The decision to divorce may not be yours, but how you’ll let the divorce shape the rest of your life is 100% yours.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who want support in dealing with the pain divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And if you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more tips to make the pain of divorce stop? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Dealing With Grief.
This article originally appeared on YourTango.
How To Boost Your Self-Confidence (And Get Over Your Divorce Faster)
Use these 3 tips for building your self-confidence and get over your divorce.
Failure. That’s what divorce is. It’s the failure of a marriage.
Divorce is NOT your personal failure. Yet that’s what almost everyone who gets divorced struggles with – the belief that they are now and forever more a failure of the worst kind because their marriage went bust.
Despite knowing the logical fact that it takes two to make a marriage work and two to make it fail, it’s almost impossible not to fall into the trap of believing that somehow you’re more responsible.
And to go along with the guilt about being a failure, you’re probably comparing yourself to all those other people you know who are still married. It’s like you’re piling on misery on top of misery with no way out from underneath the suffocating weight of failure.
What you’re experiencing is normal. However, “normal” doesn’t really help you emerge from the quagmire of self-loathing. So how do you stop beating yourself up? How can you ever believe that you’re not a failure (and that you are worth loving)? By building your self-confidence.
Maybe this answer sounds trivial to you or maybe it sounds impossible. Either way, it’s obvious you’re not feeling that great about yourself if you’re feeling like a failure.
What if, just maybe, building your self-confidence could help you feel better? Isn’t that worth exploring – especially if you could do it easily?
Here are 3 simple ways to start rebuilding your self-confidence so you can get over your divorce faster:
- Talk to yourself (out loud and constructively). There are all kinds of studies that concluded talking out loud to yourself can make you smarter, improve your memory and help you focus. The key is to talk constructively and positively to yourself.Talking to yourself like this probably isn’t going to come naturally at first. So you’ve got to set up ways for you to purposefully do it.One of the easiest ways to begin training yourself to talk constructively and positively to yourself is to create a list of 10 things you like about yourself. These 10 things don’t have to be really big or amazing. Maybe you like the color of your eyes, or your sense of humor, or that you know how to make amazing chocolate chip cookies. Once you have your list, read it out loud to yourself with positive emotion periodically throughout the day.
- Turn down the volume on your negative bias. Humans have a tendency to focus on the negative. Unfortunately, when you’re going through a divorce that negative bias makes everything worse.Research has shown again and again in all kinds of different settings that it takes about 5 positive interactions to counteract a single negative one. What this means to you is that every time you have a negative thought, you can begin turning down the volume on it by choosing a positive thought and for every positive thought you heap against the one negative thought you’ll continue turning down the volume. The more you practice increasing your positive thoughts, the less impact your negative thoughts will have which means less suffering for you.
- Become more curious. Curiosity makes your mind active instead of passive so it enables you to find solutions to the challenges and unfamiliar situations you find yourself in as you go through divorce.The key to becoming more curious during divorce is to ask questions and keep an open mind. Now this is a little tricky because the most common questions asked during divorce are about the past and WHY the divorce happened. These questions aren’t truly helpful for developing curiosity because they keep you stuck in the misery.The kinds of questions that will help you increase your self-confidence and help you get over your divorce are about the present or creating the future you want and are focused on you (and your children) – not your ex.
Even though these tips for building your self-confidence are easy, they do take a little bit of effort to really put into play. It’s OK to ease into them. Feel good about every effort you make toward building your confidence because the more you praise yourself for your efforts the more likely you are to continue making the effort. (Oh yeah, and the more confident you’ll feel.)
And the more you continue feel good about yourself, the faster you’ll get over you divorce because you’ll realize that you’re not a failure. It was your marriage that was a failure.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who are struggling with divorce and don’t know how to stop the pain so they can move forward with their lives. You can join my anonymous newsletter list for free weekly advice. And if you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more support and ideas for feeling better after your divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Dealing With Grief.
This article originally appeared on DivorceForce.
How To Recover After Divorce
These 19 tips will help you heal from your divorce so you can move on with your life.
Divorce knocks you down in just about every way imaginable. Along with losing your marriage, you lose your lifestyle, the goal of raising your children in an intact family, and all the other dreams you had for the future. Each loss feels like another blow that takes you lower and lower into the depths of divorce despair.
Although you know there are plenty of people who have made it through divorce, you wonder what they knew about how to recover after divorce that you don’t. And then you think maybe your divorce is so much more horrible than what others have gone through that what they did won’t work for you.
And so your torturous thoughts turn as you wrestle with worries about how to get over your divorce. The problem is that the more you worry about it, the harder it is for you to recover which throws your thoughts back to thinking that your divorce is just so much more horrible than anyone else’s.
It’s a vicious cycle that keeps you stuck.
But you can break out of it. You can stop the self-destructive thoughts. And you can get on with your life.
All it takes is a willingness to work mentally, emotionally and physically to achieve your goal of getting over your divorce.
This is how to recover after divorce:
- Know that getting over the end of your marriage is supposed to be hard.
Divorce hurts everyone involved just in different ways and at different times. You can easily know the truth of this by the amount of divorce information you find on the internet, the number of songs written about the end of relationships and the number of TV shows, movies and books about divorce.Because divorce is difficult, be gentle with yourself. Showing yourself compassion as you work your way through the depths of your divorce despair will help you get through it a whole lot more quickly than if you’re impatient with yourself.
- Allow yourself to grieve, but don’t regularly throw yourself pity parties.
Being compassionate with yourself does include allowing yourself to feel sad about all your losses, but it doesn’t mean that you should focus on what is no more. Giving excessive attention to what you’ve lost only serves to keep you stuck.
- Ask for help.
Going through a divorce is one of the most difficult things you can do. There’s no reason why you should go through it alone. Ask for help. Ask Google. Ask your friends. Ask helping professionals. Build a support structure for yourself with the goal of helping you recover from your divorce as thoroughly and quickly as possible.
- Don’t dwell on the past.
There are three thoughts about the past that typically trip up people healing from divorce. They want to understand exactly why their marriage ended. They beat themselves up for what they could have, should have or would have done. They blame their ex exclusively for everything that happened.Dwelling on the past keeps you there. Just like you can’t drive a car forward by staring in the rearview mirror, you can’t move your life forward if you’re focusing on the past. You can’t change the past. The best you can do is learn from it.
- View the failure of your marriage as simply an important lesson about relationships.
You and your ex were in a relationship that didn’t make it. The relationship failed and you can learn from it – if you choose to.Once you decide to learn from your failed marriage instead of labeling yourself as a failure, you will regain confidence in yourself and your ability to have a successful relationship in the future.
- Stop viewing yourself as a victim.
It’s so easy to feel like a victim when you divorce. Yet that’s the worst thing you can do. (I struggled a lot with victim mentality when I got divorced.)When you view yourself as a victim you deny yourself the strength and power you have and need to get over your divorce. Change your story and take responsibility for what you did (or didn’t do) that contributed to the end of your marriage.
- Neutralize toxic people.
It’s often your ex who’s poisonous, but there are plenty of others who can be toxic too. Learning how to step away from their drama (and hatred) is one of the most important ways you can move beyond your divorce. - Embrace change.
There’s no two ways about it: Divorce = Change. The longer you fight the necessary changes, the longer you’ll stay stuck.This doesn’t mean that you should just roll over in your divorce negotiations. You should fight for what’s important, but who gets the music in the iTunes account isn’t worth fighting over.
When you look at the necessary changes as necessary and just your starting point for where you’re going to go from here, life will become easier for you.
- Accept the emotional mayhem of divorce as normal.
Nobody likes to feel out of control of their emotions and unable to predict how they’ll feel one moment to the next. But that’s how divorce is.No matter how it feels, you’re not losing your mind. You’re just dealing with a tremendous about of stress. And stress does strange things to people.
- Take time to relax.
Because divorce is so difficult, you need to make sure you take time to relax. Relaxation is not the same thing as feeling too depressed to move. Relaxation is about purposefully taking time out of your day to chill and put everything else on pause. - Exercise.
One of the best ways to deal with stress (and the situational depression of divorce) is to exercise. Your exercise can be as easy as taking a walk or as extreme as training for and competing in an IronMan Triathlon. - Get enough sleep.
Yeah, sleep is one of those pipe dreams when you’re in the throes of divorce. But the more you can get your sleeping routine and schedule back to normal the better you’ll deal with the stress of your divorce. - Limit caffeine.
This can be really difficult to do when you’re not getting enough sleep, but too much caffeine can overstimulate you – all of you. You’re already stressed out enough dealing with the divorce and adding the fuel of caffeine to the already raging fire of stress isn’t in your best interest. - Develop a strong, positive and flexible mindset.
This is the real goal of everyone who truly wants to learn how to recover after divorce. They know (just like you do) that it’s the habitual thoughts and inflexibility that will keep you stuck. - Choose to work on your divorce recovery daily – no matter what set-backs may happen.
When you really want to achieve something, you set aside time to work on it daily. Do the same thing with your divorce recovery. The more focused time you spend on doing things to help you feel normal again, the faster you’ll feel that way. - Become emotionally intelligent about yourself and others.
The better you become at recognizing what’s going on with your emotions and why you feel like you do, the more quickly you’ll be able to calm down the emotional rollercoaster ride you’ve been on.And the better you become at understanding the emotions of others, the easier time you’ll have avoiding their triggers.
- Develop your confidence.
Divorce has a way of corroding your confidence. Regardless, you still have tremendous qualities that you can and should feel really great about. Figure out what you really like about yourself, remind yourself of these things daily, and you’ll be well on your way to building your self-confidence. - Don’t wait for an apology to forgive.
One of the toughest parts of divorce recovery is forgiving both your ex and yourself for everything that contributed to the end of your marriage. The stumbling block that most people hit is equating forgiveness with either forgetting or approving of what happened.That’s not what true forgiveness is. True forgiveness is all about you releasing the past so it doesn’t control you anymore. You need to remember what happened so you can learn from it and make better choices in the future.
- Remember why you’re putting so much effort into learning how to recover after divorce.
You’ll have some days when all you want to do is stay in bed, pull the covers over your head, and let the rest of the world continue without you. In these moments, if you can remember why you want to get over your divorce, you’ll start to stir the motivation you need to get through another day – no matter what you’re facing.
These 19 tasks are the basics of what it takes to deal with the end of your marriage. You’ll find that some days it’s easier to tackle the tasks than others. And that’s completely normal because divorce recovery is a process.
As you continue working on these tasks, you’ll discover that they’ll gradually become easier and that you aren’t wrestling with as much worry as you were. Once you start putting the worry about how horrible your divorce is/was behind you the more quickly you’ll rise from the blows divorce dealt you and embrace the new life that’s ahead of you because you’ve discovered how to recover after divorce.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who want support in dealing with the pain of divorce and creating a post-divorce life you’re happy with. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And, if you’re ready, you can take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach by scheduling a private consultation.
Looking for more ideas about how to thrive after divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Healing After Divorce.
What You MUST Do If You’re Co Parenting With A Toxic Ex
These 6 tips will help you become a better co parent despite how poisonous your ex is.
People call their ex toxic for a lot of different reasons – from anger about the divorce, fear about their ex’s parenting abilities, abuse, narcissism, alienating the children, and addiction. This wide range of descriptions makes it really difficult to find reliable information about co parenting with a toxic ex.
This confusion, on top of the already unwanted and tumultuous emotions of divorce, is the last thing you need.
Although the tips below will help you co parent regardless of the poisonous nature of your ex, they will be most helpful if your toxic ex behaves poorly toward you (and, at times, your children). If your ex’s toxicity is due to something more severe, you may want to have more specific help. (Here are some resources to help you get more pertinent information about co parenting with an abuser, an addict and a narcissist.)
- Get clear about what’s most important to you as a parent. The most important thing to any parent is taking care of their children. Putting your kids and their needs front and center will help you focus and more easily navigate the poor behavior of your ex.
- Know what triggers negative reactions in your ex. You probably hoped that once the divorce was final that you wouldn’t have to continue tip toeing around your ex’s moods. But as long as you’re co parenting with a toxic ex you’ve got to be aware of what sets them off so you can have more control over how they will respond to you.
- Only engage in communication about what’s important for raising your children. It’s way too easy to get into conversations (or shouting matches) about unfinished issues from your marriage. Despite how painful and frustrating these issues are, they have nothing to do with parenting your children today – except making it harder.
- Never speak negatively about your ex when your children are around. Your kids love both their parents. If they hear you speaking poorly of your ex, they’ll start to feel that they can’t be honest about their feelings for their other parent when they’re with you. And that’s an unfair position to put them in.
- Encourage your children’s relationship with their other parent. Kids need both of their parents. And because your ex isn’t an addict or abuser there’s really no reason not to foster their relationship with their other parent.
- Maintain appropriate boundaries around your personal life. One of the most difficult parts of co parenting is knowing what is and isn’t appropriate to share with your ex. The reason for this is because co parenting requires a lot of communication to work. If you remember that what gets communicated is all about the kids, then it’s a bit easier to know where to draw the lines.
Starting a co parenting relationship is really tough. You’re still struggling with the emotional upheaval of the divorce and yet you’re supposed to be able to keep all of those emotions out of parenting and build a new relationship with your ex. It’s natural for it to feel like you’re co parenting with a toxic ex.
That’s why it’s important to know what kind of toxicity you’re dealing with. If you’re lucky enough to only have to deal with your ex’s (and your) very normal yet very unsettling emotional turmoil of divorce, then these tips will be just what you need to start taking the poison out of parenting with your kids’ other parent.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are struggling with coparenting after divorce. You can join my anonymous newsletter list for free weekly advice. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Looking for more support and ideas for co parenting with a toxic ex? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Coparenting.
5 Ways To Boost Your Self-Confidence Post-Divorce
Doing these simple things can make a BIG difference in how you feel about yourself.
When I got divorced I thought it was painfully obvious to everyone who saw me – like there was a capital “D” tattooed on my forehead to announce my personal shame and failure without my ever saying a word.
Obviously, there was no tattoo. But everyone who saw me could tell there was something just not quite right.
What they were picking up on was my lack of confidence.
I was floundering. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore if I wasn’t a wife. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from my life now that I was on my own. I wasn’t even able to confidently make my own decisions about my personal life.
Simply put, I lacked confidence in my value as a human being outside of what I could (and did) do for others.
Now I hope your divorce hasn’t knocked you down as low as mine knocked me. And even if it hasn’t, chances are that your self-confidence has taken a hit.
To help you regain and maybe even boost your self-confidence, here are 5 simple tips for you to start using today:
- Look others in the eye and smile. When you consider yourself equal to those you meet (i.e., just another human being) you’ll easily be able to look them in the eye. Smiling is the icing on the cake because it lets people know that you like you – even if sometimes you have to convince yourself that you really do.
- Take care of your mind, body and spirit. Take the time to get good nutrition, exercise and sleep. Read and watch positive things. And of course prayer and meditation are great places to start building your spirit back up.
- Talk positively to yourself. We all have a virtually non-stop dialog in our minds and the surprising thing is that it’s usually a critical dialog about ourselves. But by choosing to talk positively to yourself periodically throughout the day you’ll naturally begin to feel more confident.
- Don’t confuse memory with fact. Everyone’s memory of the past is fallible. That’s because we all remember things in ways that support our beliefs. The longer you persist in thinking about the past, the longer you’ll sap your confidence which makes it really hard to move forward with your life.
- Choose to see the end of your marriage as an opportunity to learn. Most people see divorce as a personal failure. If that’s your viewpoint, you’re choosing to label yourself negatively. It’s pretty hard to think well of yourself when you’re doing that. Instead, realize that the failure of your marriage has a lot to teach you and start looking for those lessons
As you put each of these tips into practice don’t expect to all of a sudden have the self-confidence of Lady Gaga. What you’ll have instead is the beginnings of the new, confident you who is emerging from the ashes of the end of your marriage.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach helping people just like you who are struggling with getting through their divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And, if you’re ready, you can take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach by scheduling a private consultation.
Looking for more tips for navigating your marriage challenges? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Healing After Divorce.
This article originally appeared at DivorceForce.
Moving On After Divorce Without Losing Your Kids
You can have a great life after divorce AND still be a great parent too.
Divorce forces loss after loss after loss – loss of your marriage, loss of your home, loss of your lifestyle, loss of your future together, and loss of your kids. Well, maybe you don’t really lose your kids, but it sure feels that way when you don’t get to see them every day.
When you’re used to being there for your kids and knowing everything that’s going on in their lives being without them is devastating. So, you do whatever you can to make the time you do have with them count more than ever. But when they’re with their other parent, you’re lost.
You know that it’s time to get on with your life, but the simple thought of moving on after divorce brings up fears of moving on from your kids and leaving them behind so their other parent can raise them. These terrifying thoughts are so crushing and abhorrent that you struggle to function.
So, you don’t move on. You continue to cling to your children and only really come alive when you’re with them.
The problem is that living only for your kids isn’t fair to your them. They notice that you’re not really living your life and they can tell that you’re becoming more and more insecure.
This is not the parent you want to be and it’s not the parent your children deserve.
You don’t have to choose between having a great life after divorce and being a great parent.
Moving on after divorce doesn’t mean that your new life doesn’t allow you to continue being a great parent.
The first step to moving on after divorce is to do your divorce recovery work. That means that you dig into the emotions you’ve locked away and grieve the losses. You accept that you had a part in the demise of your marriage and figure out what you can or should do differently in your next relationship. And you plan for and create a life that you love.
(Admittedly, healing after divorce is much easier to read about than to do. Most people benefit from working with a helping professional – therapist, divorce coach, clergy member – to fully heal.)
The second step to moving on after divorce is to figure out new ways to connect with your kids. This requires that you ask yourself, “How can I be just as involved with them as I was before the divorce?”
You might make more time to go to their games or recitals. You might have lunch with them at school. You might teach them about the new hobby you’ve found as part of your healing process. You might take them and their best friends out on some adventure. The possibilities really are endless (and much easier to see when you’re over your divorce).
What you choose to do now to connect with your kids will differ from how you connect with them in the future because they’re growing up. So, your job as a parent will continue to change and you’ll be challenged to discover new ways to build your relationship with them just like you were before the end of your marriage.
Your divorce has already forced you to make a bunch of really tough adjustments and the thought of making even more changes is probably a bit discouraging.
But this is the home stretch of the adjustments you’ll need to make because of divorce and these changes are for your kids. Knowing that should be great motivation for you to build a life after divorce that works not only for your kids, but for you too.
And the best part is that when you’re living a happier life that includes focusing on building your relationships with your children, you’ll realize that your fears of losing your kids once you moved on from your divorce were just a sign that you had an opportunity to become an even better parent than you already are.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and life coach helping people just like you who are struggling with the loss of their marriage. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And, if you’re ready, you can take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach by scheduling a private consultation.
Looking for more tips on getting over your divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Healing After Divorce.
This article originally appeared on The Goodmen Project.