Coping Skills: How to Cope with the Pain of Grief During and After Divorce

It's common in popular culture now to hear talk about "moving on" after divorce.

The press is filled weekly with stories of actors and singers ditching or divorcing their wives or husbands or partners and rushing to date, cohabit with or marry new lovers. Often, of course, the new lover was lined up well before the divorce.

Kelsey Grammer's recent high profile example of infidelity (and instability) saw him getting engaged to his new young lover and impregnating her while he was still married to the mother of his two small children. Already responsible for a young family, Grammer was off recklessly creating a new pregnancy before he'd even got round to divorcing the betrayed wife of his newly broken family.

Men like Grammer, Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen seem to move on without giving a whole lot of thought to the chaos they generate around them. Their wives and children inevitably suffer as broken homes, second marriages, new half-siblings, divorce settlements and court cases replace the once-stable family they'd known.

Those on the other end of infidelity and disloyalty - the wives and husbands who are betrayed - do not move on so insouciantly. And shouldn't try to.

If you're going through a divorce, or have been through one already as a result of your husband or wife's infidelity, you know what it is to find yourself reeling at the destruction of your marriage. Many betrayed wives and husbands feel that they can't cope with the grief and won't survive.

Daily life becomes an ordeal where you have no peace of mind, the present seems intolerable, the past seems invalidated and the future is unimaginable.

While there are many practical aspects of divorce and its aftermath to consider, the hardest part of rebuilding is often overcoming the emotional and mental pain - the grief of divorce.

One of the first things to realise is that what you're feeling is normal considering what you're going through. Although you may experience feelings that seem unbearable and that you've never known before, they are - believe it or not - perf'ectly normal. So don't be terrified of them. Feelings of humiliation, helplessness, anger, even hatred for your ex-wife or ex-husband are very unpleasant but part of the unavoidable process of coming to terms with divorce. People going through divorce often ask: "Is it normal to think about revenge? About hurting my ex?" The answer is that it is pretty normal. You can safely indulge the thoughts but don't act on them. The same goes for suicidal thoughts. When you feel abandoned and betrayed, suicide can seem like a reasonable option to deal with the grief. Again, thinking about it is very common but don't act on those thoughts. You don't actually want to die. You want to be happy again and you don't believe you ever will be. But you will be - it's just going to take quite a lot of time.

The fact that it takes time is exactly why you need to know that the despair and grief are normal and are part of your recovery progress. It doesn't seem like it at the time but you have to go through it. Accept that you can't take any shortcut to recovery and rebuilding your life. Realise quite consciously that you can't go round the painful feelings or blot them out. You have to get through the grief. Often once you realise that, it's easier to cope with the pain because you can, as they say, 'sit with it' a bit, let it wash over you and know that it's your brain's way of adjusting and your heart's way of healing.

Never try to "move on" quickly. It won't work. You wouldn't put your weight on a broken leg and you shouldn't try to hurry a broken heart either. Dating when you're not ready will be a disaster. So will attempts to block out your grief.

Do as much thinking and talking about your divorce and the loss of your marriage as you need to. Friends will tend to get fed up with hearing about it before you're ready to stop discussing it, so find one reliable person who will listen as long as you need them to. (Your mother? your sister?) You may also find online forums where you can write about your story, seek advice or just rant about your ex. That's perfectly valid.

In the early stages, focus simply on surviving - not recovering or rebuilding. You're in shock so it's not the right time to make major decisions or think about the future. Don't take any irreversible decisions until you've begun to adjust to your new situation.

Don't expect too much of yourself. Again, think of yourself as in shock or even temporarily ill. You need to care for yourself as well as you can, including eating properly and sleeping properly. Accept that the divorce - and your partner's infidelity most likely - are life events over which you have little control for the moment. Yes you can perhaps influence the divorce settlement or custody arrangements, but you have no control over your partner's decision to end the marriage and no control over the fact that he or she has stopped loving you. What you can control is your own behaviour and your choices and decisions, so concentrate on those.

Just as you shouldn't "move on" (move carefully forward instead) you shouldn't "get stuck" in your grief either. The chances are that you'll know if you do. Everyone's timeline in dealing with divorce is individual. The longer your marriage lasted, and the deeper love you shared, the longer it may take to recover and start rebuilding your life. It's perfectly normal to take many months, or several years, to restabilise yourself. But if a sneaky voice in your head tells you you're stuck in your grief years after divorcing then you may need to give yourself a shake or get professional help.

The key to coping with marriage breakdown and divorce in the early stages is to realise there are no quick fixes to getting through the grief. Once you really grasp that, you won't worry quite so much about the turmoil in your head and heart. You'll understand that you're going to move forward slowly and that recovery will come in incremental stages. It won't be linear. You'll have times when you feel you're right back at square one and other times when you feel you're completely through it. You gradually get through the grief that way - with steps forward, back, and sometimes sideways.

As Winston Churchill said: "When you're going through hell - keep going."