If you are divorcing: How to take care of yourself
No one argues with the fact that a divorce - a serious and often difficult event in the life of any person. At this time, we are not just losing our partner and our former way of life - the way we look at ourselves also changes. At the first stage, self-esteem can be greatly reduced - this complicates an already difficult period of life. We tell how at this time to maintain a sense of self-worth and self-worth.
Speak to understanding people
A psychotherapist, a closed group on Facebook, a company of girlfriends who are completely on your side - you need support and a place to speak out. Ideally, there will be several such places, since you will probably want to speak out often, and you shouldn't abuse the attention of people who treat you well. Often, people hold all the experiences in themselves, because they are afraid to annoy others with "whining." This is a clear feeling: divorcing, and so feel abandoned and left without support. The fear that friends and acquaintances will turn away from them is natural.
You can come up with the appropriate rules for your company. Someone arranges "whining parties" and warns those present in advance that he wants to talk about the former or former and the parting. You can agree that at a meeting you spend half an hour or an hour on the story of your experiences, you will scold your former spouse or spouse - and then you will leave this topic and discuss the affairs of the rest of the crowd. It is very useful to tell your friends about your doubts: “You know, you are my close person, and I want you to listen to me (s). But I am afraid you will get bored”. It is perfectly normal to agree with a friend, friend, sister that they will tell you when they are emotionally tired and want to change the subject.
Do not satisfy idle curiosity
Divorce is an emotionally charged topic. When it becomes known that you are getting divorced, there will be a mass around you wanting to talk about it. They will ask questions, often tactless or, at least, not supportive. You should learn to distinguish between people who are interested in your life and your condition, from those who are curious, and close the last access to your personal experiences.
Criteria can be, for example, such: did you share your personal life with this person before? If not, his question goes somewhat beyond the usual relationship. But even if the questioner is your close friend, relative, in a word, the person with whom you usually share something important - you don’t have to answer if you don’t want or don’t feel like talking about divorce.
Feel free to pin up boors
If a person has already behaved tactlessly - devalued your feelings, suggested that all the blame for the divorce lies with you (or just began to look for the guilty), asks about the things that you consider intimate ("Perhaps you didn't have enough sex in marriage?" ) - safely bind him. Disintegrating marriage is an already traumatic event to waste your energy on those who are not at all careful with you.
It is definitely worth to distance oneself from those who ask for details, despite the no once said, or gives you unsolicited advice (no matter how to restore the relationship or how to live further), or whose questions cause you to be shocked and willing to close ("A what are you going to live on? "). In short, if someone's intervention, words, comments make you feel worse - tell the person about it. If he does not understand, increase the distance.
Do not hide the divorce from loved ones
Divorcing spouses usually choose the moment that is suitable for “disclosure”: for someone it is filing a divorce petition at the registry office, for someone it is the time when the couple leaves. But sometimes people are ashamed or afraid to talk about parting and choose not to tell anyone and keep up the appearance that they are still in a relationship. As a temporary solution, this can save you from additional burdens - inquiries, discontent of the parental family, and so on - but when this situation drags on for months, it becomes unhealthy.
Firstly, it takes a lot of energy to maintain the appearance of a marriage. Secondly, it seems to keep the spouses as “underexposed”: you have to come together for a visit, tell your family how he or she is doing. In this state, it is impossible to completely separate from the former partner: the secret makes this connection strong. And finally, divorce is a social fact, and to announce the environment about the new status is its natural consequence. Think that scares you. Are you afraid of judgment or disapproval? Or that this will be the "last point" in marriage? Do you think that people will look at you differently when they find out that you are divorced? When you find the answers to these questions and analyze them, it may be not so scary to tell about the breakup.
Separate work and personal areas
On the one hand, it is important not to hush up your feelings and the fact of divorce. On the other hand, it is important to separate different areas and leave personal in the confines of personal communication. Work, a wide range of distant acquaintances and other distant relationships - perhaps not the best place to fully disclose the soul and frank. Keep yourself from giving details of the divorce to everyone in the first days and weeks. First, a person in stress and grief (and divorce, of course, is both) often confuses and violates boundaries. If such frankness was not accepted with your colleagues, fellow practitioners and other acquaintances before, the interlocutor may increase the distance, protecting himself from too personal, in his opinion, information - and you will get an additional injury and feel rejected.
Secondly, it’s good to keep one or two areas (work, training seminars, something else) where your identity will not depend on your marriage or its absence. Parting is such an emotionally strong event that it sometimes seems as if it absorbs everything. And at this moment it is very good to have some kind of space where you will not be a “divorced person”, but a competent specialist in your field, an intelligent student or just the soul of the company.
Think about yourself
There are a lot of stereotypes about how women behave who have just been divorced (for some reason, there are less such men, and they all boil down to alcohol or short bonds without obligations). It is believed that they tend to change their hairstyle and style of clothes, to go to a new job (or just to work if they have never worked before), to start playing sports, to do manicures more often and to take care of themselves more. In these stereotypical patterns of behavior there is a rational grain: women begin to think more of themselves and rely on themselves.
Divorce is a difficult period when we can feel much less valuable and important. And it's very good to think about how to take extra care of yourself. And even better, if you remind yourself that this is a good habit, you should definitely keep it and take it into new relationships in the future. It is not so important what this concern will be: a hike for a massage, a new haircut, a request for a raise, an evening in private with TV shows and the rejection of an unpleasant meeting - it is important that these actions help you feel a little more comfortable or more confident.
Do not grind out a positive
There is no greater violence against yourself than to portray that everything is beautiful and you are happy with all the changes that are happening to you. Sure, you can see something positive in a divorce, but you now have, by definition, a difficult period in which a lot of bitter and difficult. It’s better not to go to companies, communities or groups in social networks where people support the discourse “to be positive, in spite of everything”.
For example, divorced people are often advised "not to think about the past and move on." How is it - not to think about breaking up with the person with whom you have lived for many years? And how to go further, if so far the whole future is in a fog and in general it is not clear what to expect now from life? When your friends say that you are “strong and you can do it,” it may be worth explaining to them that these words are in no way capable of supporting (unless they really support you, this also happens). And do not think that your "sour face" will spoil someone's mood - this is not your responsibility. You have the right to be sad as long as it takes.
Come up with a beautiful metaphor
People who have abandoned abuzz relations often feel like survivors on the battlefield or warriors fighting for their lives. Those who built joint plans with their spouse, and then found themselves in a divorce, say that it seemed that they suddenly ended up in an unfamiliar territory on which they are not yet oriented. A divorce may be similar to a parachute jump from a burning plane, or to how you almost got stuck in a swamp, but got out.
Metaphor is not just beautiful words: it influences our sense of self and as if draws a picture around us - through it we interpret what happens to us. In some periods, the metaphor of divorce and how you feel yourself in it can be very gloomy: the burnt down, standing on the ashes, a bird with broken wings. It is not necessary to force yourself to invent another, "more fun": if you feel that way, then this metaphor is for you now. But once a month, for example, you can consult with her, asking: "Do I still feel as if my wings were broken? Or has the picture changed a little differently?"
Photo: Aviate Press, IURII - stock.adobe.com, vitalily_73 - stock.adobe.com
