It Comes in Waves: Coping with the Emotional Effects of Divorce

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Divorce is always a challenge for your emotional wellness. Yet, if you don’t know how to treat your emotional turbulence properly, you will end up failing to manage your marriage termination and its post-effects efficiently.

Learn more about how divorce emotion may influence your life and ways to deal with it so that you can move on to a happy and independent future without remorse.

Emotional Divorce Effects

If you are not a cold stone, expect to go through emotional rollercoasters before, during, and after marriage termination. The emotional stages of divorce are similar to the five stages of grief and include the following:

Denial

If you are not the spouse initiating a cheap divorce online, you will probably be the one to get into denial mode. Since you didn’t expect the end of divorce to come, your protection mechanism is on and you don’t accept the reality. You pretend that your relationships are normal. You have no marital troubles. So you don’t respond to the divorce initiative of your partner yet.

Anger

When the hidden emotions you ignored during the denial stage fill you up to the brim, anger comes. It may be fueled with rage, bitterness, offense, and so on. This is the worst time to make crucial decisions and agreements. Anger-driven actions and choices are going to ruin the relationships with your children and soon-to-be-ex and may spoil the divorce outcomes significantly.

Bargaining

This is the stage of getting back and forth with your divorce-related decisions. You are overwhelmed with guilt and doubt about whether you approach your marriage hurdles correctly. Plus, since managing emotions during a divorce is frustrating and unpleasant itself, you question the worth of undergoing similar tension and stress and wonder whether there is a point in reversing everything.

Depression

This is usually the longest and the darkest divorce-related time. When you finally realize the inevitability of your marriage coming to an end, it overwhelms you with the toughest emotions to withhold. It is best when you have your support team and therapist by your side during this stage. If you fail to deal with all the complications of post-divorce depression, they can poison your life for a long time afterward.

Acceptance

You may still feel the bitterness and loss of your failed marriage and experience waves of emotion, far from positive ones. But this is when you find peace at last with the acceptance of your divorce being a real and necessary step for your relationships. Although you will not feel happy right at the beginning of the stage, you will feel hope for the future to come and bring positive changes.

Ways to Cope with Emotional Effects of Divorce

No matter what kind of marriage termination you have, you cannot ignore the effects of divorce on your emotional wellness. Here is what you can do to prevent and overcome any related complications:

Feel It Fully

Don’t ignore or hide your emotions. If they overwhelm you, feel them fully. But don’t let anyone except your support team witness your weakness. If you don’t process your emotions on time, they will amass and suffocate you later all at once. The results will be far from pleasant.

Nurture Emotional Wellness

As long as you are to experience negative emotions during divorce, you should balance them with positive ones. Read your favorite book, find time for coffee in silence, and go shopping for clothes. Do anything that can lift your mood up and bring you a little bit of happiness so that you can make it through a divorce without harm to your mental health.

Work Out

Physical exercises will deprive you of overthinking and grant you a chance to let any negative emotions out. Plus, working out or doing any other preferred sports is reported to reduce stress levels and make people feel relieved and happier.

Visit Therapist

If you are either stuck at any of the stages of divorce or feel your marriage failure has affected you much, you should ask a therapist for help. A relevant professional or group therapy will assist you in sorting things out and moving on during and after divorce with no complications.

Let Go of Expectations

You shouldn’t stick to any expectations. Even if your experienced friend or divorce lawyer has already explained what waits ahead, there are no guarantees you will undergo a completely different scenario. Be open to opportunities, flexible for changes, and cope with the troubles as they appear but not imagine and fear distantly probable ones.

Have Fun

Taking things with humor and having fun in the darkest time of your life is not shameful or outrageous behavior, it is a great way to protect yourself from any negative impacts. Get a vent with your friends, watch comedies and cartoons, and feel happy and grateful for the little things you have in your life.

Move on

When you are done with any emotions of divorce, don’t hang on to it any longer. Let your past go and move on to your prosperous future. Be optimistic about the upcoming changes and challenges and things will grow better in the end.

Rachel Crib
Rachel Crib
Rachel has lived in Lancaster her whole life. Trish has worked as a journalist for nearly a decade having contributed to several large publications including the Yahoo News and the Lancaster Post. As a journalist for The Tiger News, Cristina covers national and international developments.

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