If you're one of the many couples who have spoken about divorce or who are actually in the process of filing for divorce, the one thing I can tell you right now is that you will be all right. It may not seem like it but you will.
Having been through the process twice, I know that these next few weeks or months will be, very likely, shrouded in anger and hurt, and accompanied by a seemingly bottomless bucket of resentment.
The divorce process has a habit of bringing out a not-so-nice side of you that you didn't even know existed such as a burst of creativity in finding ways to hurt your ex emotionally and mentally and feel nothing... for a while.
If you didn't initiate the divorce, then you're a couple of steps behind your soon-to-be-ex in terms of accepting that the relationship is indeed over which will in turn hurt you or confuse you even more as you wonder, how come they are managing so well!
Well, the reason for that is that they have already done some processing of the situation while still married to you. There was a time they were where you are now.
You will do certain things believing deeply that they are in the best interest of the children like telling them that it's really your partner's fault that the family is breaking up and you would never do that to them.
If you're going through solicitors (have you considered family mediation?), you will at some point, confuse them for a therapist and pour your heart out to them not caring that you're then, at that moment, paying them for a service they are not qualified to handle.
If you have lived for months in denial that this day will come, accepting that it's here, that it is what it is, feels impossible to do. You go through moments of thinking, "I'm sure I can rescue this," only to realise that you can't, which immediately makes you jump back on the ever rotating wheel of very powerful negative emotions.
When it comes to the children, you swear that you will get full custody of them because, suddenly, in the space of what seems like 24 hours, your soon-to-be ex has become the most incompetent parent you have ever encountered! Even when someone explains to you that there is no such thing as full custody in the UK, you believe deeply that that is not fair and you will change the law if need be to "protect your children."
When it comes to friends and relatives, you prefer, in the beginning at least, to consult with the ones who will not only listen to everything you say, but that they also back you up so much that they, and you, don't realise that they are only fanning the flames of your anger, hurt and resentment. Who wants to speak with the objective, sensible ones?
Also watch how friends will fall away like autumn leaves, especially the ones whom you believed would be there for you.
When this happens, don't worry too much about it, you will deal with it later on down the line. For now, just know that they would have fallen away anyway at a later date in time divorce or not.
You're probably beginning to think about all the meaningless sex you're going to have with everyone and everybody because you haven't had it for such a long time!
You begin to hope that the guy who works on second floor will finally ask you out because now you can say yes, skip dinner, coffee and straight to his/yours. Or you start planning how you will finally get to tell Susanna in Planning Department how much you're hurting in the hope that she will take you home and look after you.
If you have recently decided to separate, you will be going through this and a whole other lot of emotions including fear, shock and a whole lot of loss of actual memory, which is quickly replaced by a whole lot of selective memory.
The next few weeks, months or even couple of years will not be easy but I promise you that you will get through this tunnel.
Divorce, unfortunately for some of us, is truly part of our life's journey. You're going through it now but it doesn't need to define who you are just like being laid off work, which also brings on fear, shock and a sense of loss, doesn't define who you are for the rest of your life.
You will find love again.
You will laugh again.
Your children will be fine again.
And your life will go on again.
If you allow it....
Hugs,
Soila