7 Helpful Things To Do When Dealing With Grief After Divorce

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October 15, 2018

Despite how overwhelming your grief is now, you can make your way through it and feel better again.

Dealing with the difficult process of grieving a failed marriage is one of the most traumatic life experiences you’ll ever undertake. Your grieving will begin long before you ever get to the divorce decree and will probably last well beyond it too.

Yet the difficult process doesn’t mean there aren’t things to do when dealing with grief before, during and after divorce.

You don’t have to remain mired in your misery over the end of your marriage and the life you knew. There are things you can do to help you heal and move through your heartache, so you can feel better.

In fact, here are seven things to do when dealing with grief to help you heal:  

1. Research the stages of grief
   
   Learning about the different stages of grief will help you heal from divorce because you’ll have an idea of what to expect.
   
   You won’t necessarily go through all of the stages in the same order as someone else. However, the knowledge you gain by this research will help you know that what you’re experiencing is normal and allow you to focus less on fear and…
   

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12 Tips For Coping With Grief After Divorce

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August 26, 2018

These practical tips will ease the struggle you face in coping with grief after divorce.

Coping with grief after divorce is not unlike coping with grief after death. Both death and divorce are “loss of life,” whether life in the physical realm or life as you know it.

In terms of coping with grief after divorce, it really matters very little who initiated the split. Even the reasons for the split have little bearing on the journey through grief.

Sure, there are situations and violations that will naturally cause greater pain and more intense feelings than others. But the stepping stones of grief will be the same, as will the recommendations for coping with grief after divorce.

First and foremost, acknowledge that there is going to be a grieving process. By giving yourself permission to experience grief — with all its ins and outs, ups and downs, messiness and unpredictability — you can come through with a new and hopeful lease on life.

So get ready to feel, and trust that the feelings themselves carry sage insight and benevolent gifts for your future. You are entitled to your feelings — all of them — just as you are entitled to the blessings stored in them.…

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How To Help Friends Dealing With Grief Over Divorce

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October 10, 2018

These 8 suggestions will help you know how to help your friends dealing with grief about divorce.

Many of us struggle to know how to help friends dealing with grief over death. Knowing how to help friends dealing with grief over divorce can be even more challenging. And yet, while the circumstances of the loss may be different, the compassion called for is the same.

Advice on going through the grief process of divorce usually starts with defining the grief process itself. And whether the griever is mourning the loss of a life or the loss of a love, the stages are still basically the same.

Divorce, like death, has effects that ripple outward like a pebble thrown into still water. You expect the disruption to the immediate family, but there is always a broader circle that feels the effects. Those on the outskirts of the divorce experience their own loss and shift in normalcy, and these can affect their responses to those divorcing.

Knowing how to help friends dealing with grief over divorce can be tricky if you let your own feelings or judgments get in the way. It is common to intellectualize a divorcing friend’s emotions, or to try to make the friend happy…

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7 Signs Of Grief After Divorce

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July 11, 2018

How to find your finish line for dealing with grief after your divorce.

The signs of grief after divorce really aren’t that different than the signs of grief after death or any other major loss.

And that shouldn’t be surprising. Divorce, death and other forms of loss are all permanent departures from what has become your norm, your rhythm...even your security. The unraveling, the unfamiliarity, the aloneness, the emotional upheaval — it can feel like a 24/7 bad dream in a foreign language.

No matter how you got to this point or who did what, divorce sucks. It hurts. It drains. It confuses. And it can even catch one of the spouses off-guard, with no time to plan an emotional response.

While the signs of grief after divorce are listed in a tidy, logical order, your experience won’t be so tidy. Trust me on this one. The stages of grief have minds of their own and a full tank of gas...and they like to take the scenic route! Knowing this as you navigate your divorce experience can save unnecessary heartache when you start recognizing landmarks you thought you already passed.

Let’s explore seven distinct signs of grief after divorce.

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