Divorce: getting through the separation for yourself

1. Before you begin

There was an announcement, or a long wearing down, or one crisis too many. Since then, your life has been under construction. You have to find somewhere to live or share the home you have, tell the family, organise the children, understand what will happen to the money and the property, make an appointment with a lawyer. And in the middle of all that, you still have to go to work, do the shopping, sleep.

People talk to you a lot about the children, the process, the division of assets. They rarely ask how you are.

Three things, right away.

What you are going through is among the most gruelling events of adult life. If you feel exhausted, confused, irritable, sad one day and relieved the next, it is not a weakness: it is the expected reaction to an upheaval in every area of life at the same time.

Most people are doing well a few years later. Studies that followed divorced adults over time show that a majority regain a satisfying life, and that some are better off than before the separation. A minority remain in great difficulty, and this guide also looks at what makes the difference.

You do not have to sort everything out at once. Getting through a separation takes months, often a few years, for the emotions as much as for the practical matters. Each week's goal can stay modest.

2. What separation puts you through

Several losses at once

A divorce is not one loss, but a series of losses that arrive together:

• A person who was, for years, the closest to you.
• A daily life: habits, a bed, a home, rituals.
• An imagined future: growing old together, watching the children grow up under the same roof.
• Part of your family and friends: the in-laws, shared friends who drift away.
• A status and an identity: you were "married", "a couple", "the X family".
• Material security: often a lower standard of living, at least for a while.
• Time with your children, for many parents.

These losses are not replaced all at once. Each one requires its own adjustment.

A bereavement without a death

People readily speak of grief for a divorce, and the word is right: sadness, anger, nostalgia, thoughts that keep coming back, a sense of unreality. But this grief has a particular feature. The person you have lost is still alive, often still present: you cross paths at the children's handovers, you receive their messages, you watch them rebuild their life. The grieving has to happen without the relationship ending completely.

A stress that touches everything

Separation puts pressure, all at the same time, on housing, budget, work, health, family organisation and your social network. That is why you feel overwhelmed so quickly, and why simple tasks become difficult. Tiredness, trouble concentrating, forgetfulness and irritability say nothing about your abilities: they say how heavy the load is.

Emotions that contradict each other

On the same day, you can feel love, hatred, relief, fear, nostalgia and hope. These movements follow no order. They come back in cycles, sometimes triggered by a simple message or a date. Not knowing what you feel is one of the most common states, and one of the most exhausting.

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