4 Restorative Things To Do After a Divorce
Whether it feels like it was a long time coming or came out of the sky like a thunderbolt, it is a change, it hurts and it's disruptive to every aspect of your life.
Nobody goes into a marriage considering divorce. Couples that live together, weathering life’s episodes in synergy with one another, put down roots together, and to divorce is to rip the entire situation up from the roots.
Whether it feels like it was a long time coming or came out of the sky like a thunderbolt, it is a change, it hurts and it’s disruptive to every aspect of your life.
Restorative Things to do After Divorce
Look After Your Emotional and Mental Health
Emotional health deals with how you cope with and manage emotions. Mental health involves managing emotions as well as the ability to think clearly and make good decisions. A divorce can facilitate feelings of overwhelmedness. Decision fatigue occurs when a person is forced to make too many decisions in a small amount of time which can lead to poor, rushed decisions or an acute inability to make any decisions at all.
Paying attention to your mental and emotional health means reflecting on the divorce. To do this, you’ll need to work through bad feelings, like anger, blame, and self-loathing. The goal is to arrive at a place where you can view the divorce, your ex, yourself, and your current situations with an objective, even a hopeful, eye. It’s not uncommon for recent divorcees to seek therapy to help unravel their feelings.
Get Your Affairs in Order
Of all of the logistical disruptions caused by divorce, the financial changes can be alarming and, potentially, life-altering. Often married couples are joined not only in matrimony but also in banking. As these accounts dissolve, there are other changes and costs. Couples with mortgages are sometimes obliged to default because they won’t be living in the same abode and they won’t be able to afford a mortgage when both will have new bills to pay. It can just get financially messy and confusing. Yesterday you may have been looking at an inground swimming pool while today you’re packing your things.
Legal fees will add up, as well. The cost of renting a new place to live, moving and all the other expenses that come with this sort of massive change add up quickly and though these bills augment, you probably don’t get a complementary raise at work. It could behoove you to visit a financial planner.
Be Active
After a divorce, there could be a tendency to retreat into yourself or to refuse to put yourself out there. This will only compound negative feelings because you’ll be consistently subjected to your own echo chamber, falsely reminding you that you can’t maintain relationships and pointing out whatever other reasons you are alone.
Being active means getting out of the house and inserting yourself back into society. This could look like many things, from going out with your work friends to going dancing to joining a dart, trivia, or softball league. Even if your hobby is a quiet one, like bird-watching, get at it. You might plan a trip to the Everglades or the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge or some other bird-watching hotspot.
Being active also means employing a kinesthetic element. Exercise can have profoundly powerful effects on your psychological health and overall health. Walking, cycling, jogging, swimming, and weight training can all help you look better and feel better. Joining a gym could lead to meeting new people, perhaps other divorcees.
Lean On Your Loved Ones
Family and friends don’t want to see you suffer but they’ll be there for you if it must come to pass. They’ll listen to you when you need to talk and offer you a shoulder when you need to cry. Even better, they’ll offer you distractions and lots of potential for reinvesting in fun, happy activities.
Divorce is a difficult experience. The pain and hurt feelings don’t end when the papers get signed. Taking steps to take charge of your health and finances is tantamount to setting your life back in order. Investing in the people and activities around you can help you pick up the pieces.
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