A Man’s Guide To Survive A Divorce
Divorce is a distressful and confusing process which is applied to poorly defined problems. The largely unpredictable outcome requires education, effort, patience and rigorous attention to details.
A few things you might think about doing a good Life after divorce :
Write out for your kids, the complete story of your marriage, how you met, your dreams and hopes, the good and the bad, the sacrifices each of you made, and how -beyond either of your capabilities to control – the marriage just came to an end…
Write out in precise detail what is making you angry, and why. Put it in letter form to your ex-wife and really tell her everything that has been, and is bothering you… Let her know that you are a person with wants and needs too… Stand in front of a mirror and “rehearse” an angry confrontation with your ex-wife and/or anyone else involved.
Make an appointment with a counsellor your local priest or minister;or find a friend who’ll listen as you explain the frustration, hurt andfutility you feel.
Regardless of how you do it, it is an absolute necessity that you let it all out. This anger and bitterness you feel is like a poison that you must cleanse from your soul. The sooner you get rid of it, the sooner you’ll be able to get on with your life -regain your mental health and position yourself for happiness.
Finally, there’ll come a day when you’ll no longer be bothered by thoughts of your ex-wife. It won’t even bother you when you see her with another man, and that’ll be the day when you’ve finally accepted the fact that you marriage to her is really over. You will have truly let go of her, and will be ready for a new try at real happiness.
Your progress from being rejected by your wife, to acceptance of the fact that you don’t want her if she doesn’t want you, and positioning yourself for a second chance, won’t come easily. In fact, it will take you about two and a half to three years. You must understand the damage you’ve sustained, the healing that’s required, and the time it’s going to take to get well. Too often, men still in the recovery stages of a divorce, jump into a new marriage efore they’re ready. And when the “bomb explodes” the second time, the trauma is more painful and the recovery even harder than the first time.
It’s imperative that you “cut yourself off” from you wife as quickly as possible. It’s just as imperative that you immediately set about analyzing what it is you want out of life, what you need to do in order to get what it is you want, and then take the necessary steps towards achieving whatever it is you want.
First, you have to KNOW what it is you want. Then, you have to know what you HAVE TO DO in order to get what it is you want.
And finally, you have to START MOVING in the necessary direction to end up with what you want. In other words, if you don’t know what you want, nor how to get it, you’ll be without purpose or direction in life.
This is ”goal-setting,” and unless you set goals for yourself, you’ll just be allowing yourself to be pushed through life by whatever happens next. Use this “terrible time in your life” as a time for introspection and a new start. Think about yourself, and start taking the “baby-steps” necessary to making you proud of yourself. Stop ourning the loss of your marriage; pick yourself up, and determine within yourself that you’re on your way to bigger and better things – total happiness and love!
Rebuilding your self-esteem – your ego and how good you feel about yourself – is one of the first steps you must take. There are many ways to move in this direction…
You might buy a new suit; paint the inside of your home; take a trip to someplace you’ve always wanted to visit; go to see a special movie or any number of other things. The important thing is that you do something that makes you feel good.
From there, comes the introspection of where you are, and what you’re going to have to do in order to survive. Plan it all out on paper, and then do what you have to do in order to make it come out as you’ve planned.
Most important – don’t be afraid of making mistakes or of “falling down” once or twice along the way. It’s just as if you were eighteen year old again, and just beginning a life on your own. It’s like when a baby learns to walk – he’s going to stumble or fall a couple of times, but by continuing to try, he eventually not only walks but finds he can run as well.
So it is in rebuilding your life after a divorce.
It’ll be hard, but the sooner you start dating, the easier it’ll be for you to regain your emotional well being. At first, even though you have to force yourself, you should just go out and associate with other people. See for yourself that other people don’t “immediately recognize you” as a divorced man – a loser, or a failure.
In the course of recovering from a painful divorce, it’s not unusual for a man to go through a number of brief sexual affairs. With some, there’s a flurry of sexual activity -followed by periods of celibacy – and maybe a “special steady” for awhile. This kind of activity is really sometimes necessary, and definitely a part of the healing process as some men rebuild their self-esteem.
Almost all people who have gone through a divorce, go through at least one transitional partner during their healing process. This is a person that seems to be the answer to all your dreams – they’re the “special girlfriends” that ease a divorced man through the trauma – they’re good for them; they listen to them; they’re sensitive to their needs but never demanding; and they fulfill their sexual hunger.
It’s great to “find and use” such a transitional partner, but be aware of your own situation and their usefulness to you, and don’t allow yourself to end up marrying them. You may care about them a great deal, and feel sure that they’re the answer to all your dreams – that they have all the love you could ever ask for – but don’t marry them – what you’re feeling is only the peace of an oasis in the middle of a desert. And don’t feel badly when eventually you break off such a relationship. Some people are born to nurture others back to good health, and seeing you on your feet again, and on your way to real happiness is the only reward these people really want. Then too, who’s to say that you won’t someday be a transitional partner for someone who’s hurting just as you once did…
Finally, there’s the problems of boredom and loneliness. In order to eliminate boredom and loneliness from your life, you must first understand that both of these problems are self-induced. That is, if you are bored or lonely, it’s because you are allowing yourself to be…
Boredom is generally a form of emotional anethesia brought about by the person who is bored, because he doesn’t want to experience his own feelings. It’s also a form of mental laziness which keeps people from changing and growing.
The bottom line is simply that people are accountable for their own boredom, and – if you feel bored, then you had better remember that boredom breeds even more boredom.
Whenever you think of yourself as being bored, get involved in something. Don’t allow yourself to sit and do nothing. Write letters to relatives or friends. Clean your garage or visit a neighbor. Get out and spruce up your yard or take a drive and see what changes have taken place in and around the area in which you live. Join up with a Singles social club and attend some of their functions; enroll in a self-improvement course or two; visit a trade show and find out about some of the new products being offered for sale.
To alleviate boredom, you have to do something that might stimulate your interest. Thus, if you don’t want to do anything other than what you’ve been doing – if you’re waiting for a bolt of lightning to spark your interest in something – you’ll continue to be bored.
Loneliness is basically a different form of boredom. A person feels lonely when they can’t think of anything they want to do, and thus, they begin feeling sorry for themselves because no one cares about them.
In order not to be lonely, you have to start thinking of things you might enjoy doing with other people, and then invite other people to join you in doing those kinds of things. Really, it’s just as simple as that – take a trip to one of your shopping malls with a friend and do some window-shopping; meet a friend for lunch or dinner at a new restaurant; or invite a friend to join you to see a move, a play, or even a concert.
So long as you shut yourself away from other people, and do not get out into the world amongst people, you will be lonely. To be happy, enjoy life, and know love, you have to make yourself available to other people.
To recover from the trauma of divorce, you have to understand the injury - apply the proper medicine – allow enough time for the healing process to be completed – and all the while, be positive that tomorrow will be a happier day for you. It’s a kind of recovery therapy that only you can apply and control -the results are up to you.
The Basic Steps To Recovering From A Divorce
When you’ve been the ”victim” of a divorce, the first thing you MUST UNDERSTAND and BEGIN BELIEVING is that YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DIE BECAUSE OF IT- Regardless of how badly you feel, you must realize that it has happened to millions of people before you; it is happening to countless people every day; and it will continue to happen to millions of people so long as there is love, marriage and divorce.
Although you may never have felt such pain in your life before, YOU WILL GET OVER IT. It takes time, but you will recover and find love again. It’s imperative that you understand this, and believe it, even if you have to write it in big letters on your bedroom mirror, type it out on a 3 x 5 card you carry with you in your wallet, or say it aloud to yourself every hour on the hour.
You must at the same time, understand that people suffering from divorce go through certain predictable phases of thinking and acting as they begin to recover. In order to cope with the insecurity, uncertainty, and emotional damage you’ve suffered, you should understand that it’s only natural that you go through each of these phases, and that as a result, you will again be a happy person.
Perhaps the second hardest thing the person who has been “victimized” in a divorce has to do is let go. It’s vitally important that you immediately let go of the other person; realize that the marriage is over, and begin setting your own life in order.
Of course all of this is much easier said or written than done, but these things you must do, and you must do them – or get started on them – immediately.
You’ve got to think about yourself - finding some sort of work with which to support yourself, and maybe your kids; writing out a plan for the management of your money; figuring out your transportation needs; and what you’re going to do to fill your spare time.
You cannot allow yourself to just sit and waste away! You’ve got to take hold of yourself and go on living! You can do it, and you must!
The best way is to busy yourself with all the planning you’ve got to do, and all the things you’ve got to do to make those plans pan out.
Sit down with paper and pencil immediately, look at your situation as it really exists, and lay out a “road map” of things that you’re going to have to do in order to survive.
In the meantime, the pain will still be there but you’ve got to keep forcing yourself not to think about it or dwell upon what was yesterday. The more you think about the past – what went wrong and why it happened to you – the worse it’s going to hurt, and the longer it’ll take for you to recover.
What has happened to you can be likened to a cut on your hand: It hurts, and you bleed, but you wash it off, perhaps apply some medication, then a bandage and allow time as well as the healing processes of the human system to make it all well again. So it is with the dissolution of a marriage, but the bottom line is still: You must cure yourself of the hurt before you can be happy again.
You’re going to feel lonely, lost and deserted. You’re going to grieve. You are going to mourn the loss of your loved one. You’re going to deny that it’s over, and think of it as a bad dream. You may fall into a state of deep depression and pretend that it’s only a game that will soon end.
In order to counter these feelings, you must try to keep yourself busy
- cleaning the house, washing your car, writing out a budget, studying and/or working – you must force yourself to “keep moving and working” on the kinds of things that make you self-sufficient as well as a person that can hold his or her head up in any crowd or situation.
You’re going to become so angry that you’ll want to do things “just to spite” your lost loved one. Some in particular, have a difficult time coping with the anger phase. They become bitter because of the rejection they feel, the abandonment, and what they consider the lack of honesty on the part of their former partners. It manifests itself as a result of final property settlements and child support agreements. They sometimes dispute or withhold visitation rights with the children in order to punish or get their point across.
You must understand that anger is the process of projecting onto another person, your own sense of hurt and frustration.
Anger is a natural feeling in a stressful situation. Regardless of how it’s done, you must express the feelings of anger you’re carrying or they’ll “eat you alive!” The important thing is to understand that it’s a natural feeling as a result of a divorce, and that you have to let these feelings out – get rid of them -before you can truly go on to become a happy person.
The best way to deal with anger is to know precisely what you’re angry about – write it down on paper – and then pick the most appropriate method as well as time, to express your anger to the person that has made you angry.
Another phase you’ll be going through is one of all-consuming guilt feelings. If I hadn’t of, or if I had done this or that differently, or if only I had been a little more understanding. The more you dwell upon this kind of thinking, the deeper you’ll fall into the trap of self- martyrdom which allows you to think of yourself as a loser, a failure, and not deserving of happiness.
You must drive those feelings of guilt from your mind as quickly as they appear! Simply tell yourself that it didn’t work out; it’s over, and you’ve got to things to do in order to survive. Understand and believe that you will recover; then plan what you’re going to do, and start moving in that direction.
Still another phase you’ll experience, is one of reconciliation. This is when the victim calls the lost loved one on the phone or writes letters, expressing undying love – acceptance of all the blame for the divorce – and promising to change to fit the needs and demands of the other person. This is when the victim disregards all his or her own needs and reaches out for the other person without pride.
Remember this: If your lost loved one does not want you, then you must cease to worry about him or her. You must take hold of yourself – your own ambitions for happiness and the kind of love you want – and first plan how you can attain these things, and then set about towards the eventual achievement of these goals.
You must forget about your ex just as quickly as you possibly can!
You must immediately see yourself as someone who’s self- supporting and the only person on the face of this earth with the final say about how happy you can be. Difficult, yes – but the sooner you realize this and take charge of your own life, the sooner “what once was” will be forgotten and You’ll find happiness again.
No one should throw themselves at the mercy of someone who doesn’t want them. Each and every human being in this world is ruled by personal pride in themselves. To “give up” one’s pride is to give up one’s life. Compromises and promises to make changes – followed by sincere efforts to do so are necessary to the ability of “couples” to get along with each other. But to disregard one’s personal pride, is to become a non-entity.
The final phase you’ll be going through will be one of acceptance.
This is when you are no longer bothered by thoughts of your lost loved one all day long; when you’re able to talk about them without a tug at your heart, and when you’ve accepted the fact that your marriage is really over: This is when you say to yourself that if they don’t want me, than I don’t want them. This is when you’ve got a handle on what you have to do in order to rebuild your life and get on with it, and you’re doing just that!
As human beings, all of us have a brain. Because each of us has a brain, we all have feelings that manifest themselves emotionally in one form or another. No one is perfect, and thus, though we usually try with everything we’ve got to handle our problems with expertise, we usually fall down at least once or twice along the way. It’s important to understand one’s self as a human being, and to try to get a handle on our ambitions for true happiness – but if we should fall down along the way, we have to pick ourselves up and try again.
This is likened to a baby learning to walk – they may take a small step or two, and then fall down, but unless they pick themselves up and try again, they’ll never learn to walk.
Don’t be afraid of being alone! Think about your own ambitions, and the kind of happiness you’d like to enjoy.