Designing Your New Life After Divorce
How do you start over in life after a divorce? There are numerous choices you are going to have in the months and years ahead while you are in the process of separation and divorce. This is a really great time to evaluate why and how you make the decisions you do. Creating a life after divorce should center around the things that are most important to you. Here are some of the things you might want to ask yourself or consider:
Ask Yourself, “Do You Know Who You Really Are?”
When you come out of a long marriage or relationship you probably have an image of who you are in your mind. But has it occurred to you that this version of you that was in a 10-year relationship is maybe not your true self? When I ask who you are, I’m talking about the person who doesn’t have the influence and voice of your spouse in your head telling you that you should probably do things a certain way.
It’s embarrassing to admit but during the time that I was married, nearly every single neural pathway and thought that I had would lead back to my husband. I had trained myself that well. So much so that it took well over a year for me not to automatically think of him when I saw something I knew he would like. Your brain is going to repeatedly try to use these same shortcuts and connect the dots as it always used to…lucky thing is that you can rewire it through repeatedly asserting your true self. It will take a lot of conscious effort at first, but over time it will become second nature.
How Do you Want to Spend Your Time?
Even when I was in the full limbo of divorce purgatory during the 3-4 years of our relocation matter playing out, I knew that I needed a new routine and that I wanted to attempt to freelance so I could spend time with the kids at home and still take them to school. Question your routines and experiment with new ones. With everything changing as much as it does during periods of divorce this is a good chance to play around with your schedule and figure out new ways of doing things. The act of creation and design is enhanced by experimentation.
What are Things that You Want to Add?
When I got divorced, I had no idea how much travel would feature into my life. It was not even an option when I was married. I hope it will continue to be a regular part of my life now. On a smaller scale, new activities like tennis and salsa dancing provided entertainment and something to look forward to during the week as well as socializing opportunities.
In your new life, what are some of the things that you are looking forward to implementing or adding more of that might not have suited your previous married life?
What are Things You Want to Let Go of?
Of course, if you are planning on adding things, it’s probably a good idea to let go of other things. We only have so many hours in the day and financial resources. I let go of a strict cooking and cleaning schedule, and frankly many of the other typical ‘mommy’ activities like planning parties and decorating the home.
I try to outsource as much of that as possible, so we might go to a Christmas lunch at a hotel one year, go to the city to soak in the holiday atmosphere since I don’t really do much decorating. It helps in several ways, yes, it can be pricier than doing it at home, but the time of creating everything, storing the decorations, and then the clean up afterward…I much prefer to go somewhere and enjoy this and then come home and be done. It helps that I know they are having a much more traditional experience at their father’s house, so I don’t need to play that role anymore. And, for me, it was always a role and not my true self. If the decorating and the cooking is still a true representation of what you love to do, by all means, keep it!
This is about adding and subtracting things based on what is genuine for you, and not what you’re ‘supposed’ to do as a wife, mother, or homemaker.
Who are the Core People in Your Life Who You Want to Remain in Touch With?
This might be tricky to navigate, especially if you were a couple with many other couple close friends. But early on, you’ll probably learn who is there for you and who might need their space during your divorce. As I mentioned in another blog post about losing friends, they have their reasons to create distance and it’s okay. The genuine friendships will make themselves apparent and hopefully you can prioritize cultivating these relationships.
What are Some Ways that you Can Grow a New Community?
One of the tough parts of divorce as a couple is the possibility of losing the sense of community you had. Maybe you were enveloped into your partner’s big family once you got married, maybe they had a large social circle or work circle that you happily joined in on when you were together. Once a split happens it can mean losing these different communities in your life particularly if they were you partner’s groups of friends of family before you got together. If this is the case you’ll want to venture out and create a solid community for yourself.
Some of the ways you might do this is through joining new activities or clubs, maybe taking classes or going back to school, or even spending time with friends of friends to expand your social circle.
The period of divorce is the perfect time to look at your life as a blank canvas where you can create whatever life you want. If you are intentional about the important things you will have the makings of an incredibly solid foundation.