Coping with Divorce

Suddenly, you are alone. The kids are grown and gone or maybe you don't have children. At any rate you suddenly find yourself alone. After your work day, after your outings with friends or family you are most definitely alone. The way I experienced the aloneness seemed to come in three major steps, although, there could and probably will be many, many side steps and sub-levels also. Still, there will be three major steps you will have to work through.

First, you will have to go through the waiting. This is the worst part I think, at least it was for me; waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for a knock at the door, waiting for night to fall, waiting for the sun to rise. Finally, you will grow used to the silent phone and you will no longer get up to look every time the dog barks and you will start sleeping again.

Second, you will have to go through the flashes. The sudden, unpredictable stabbings brought on by the simplest things. Things like the smell of a certain cologne or the sound of a certain song. The sunset. The sunrise. The morning, the afternoon, the evening. But you will become skilled at hiding this pain even though, sometimes, it will almost knock you down. Eventually, these flashes will die down and come with less frequency and with less power.

Third, you will have to go through the getting-on-with-it. The things like erasing old messages from the answering machine and deleting old numbers from the auto dial on the phone. Bundling up the letters and photos and putting them somewhere, anywhere, out of sight. And so you get on with it. On with your work, on with your goals, on with your life. And the steps which were so hard to take in the beginning will become easier and the feet that were as heavy as wet cement become much lighter. Your shoulders straighten up and you no longer feel so weighted down, so slumped. The fog begins to clear, slowly at first but then faster and faster until you find yourself standing, once again, in the full light of day.

It happens at different times for everyone but mostly it happens when we are willing to let it. When we let go and roll with the changes. It is normal to go through these steps and to feel all the mixed up, confusing and painful feelings but you can cope with them if you are willing to let them happen and roll with the changes.