Holding It Together Pre-Announcement

Some people, in the heat of an argument, will blurt out they want a divorce.

If you haven’t figured out by now, I’m not that type of person.

Giving myself the space to feel comfortable with the decision and do some of the pre-planning items on my list was a big reason to keep things under wraps as long as I could.

This is so much easier said than done.

If there is any lag time between when you decide you want a divorce, and when you actually tell your partner… I am so sorry for the distress you may be feeling right now. If you’re someone who is used to being very transparent, like I was, keeping this big of a secret can be excruciating.

I had about a month and a half where I knew and had to hold it together. The experience for me was one of the most uncomfortable of this entire experience that I felt it was important to bring up here in this blog if only just as a small feature.

There may not be a lot that I can say to comfort you at this time but a few things that helped me were:

1.       Remembering why you’re keeping the news under wraps

I knew that all of it was helping me bide my time until I was ready, and I could make this decision on my own terms. I decided that in order to keep things under the radar I needed to act and do the things I would normally do even if they seemed ridiculous to me now with this new sense of clarity. It feels particularly cruel to practice kindness toward someone you realize has been less than fair over the decade you were married but that was no matter. So, I played the role I needed to, and you may need to for a short while as well.

2.       Staying Task Focused

It’s impossible NOT to think about the impending divorce, but going over the same scenarios repeatedly can do your head in. I found it better, especially when talking with friends, to discuss things I needed to do to be more informed or place myself in a better position when the time did finally come to break the news.

3.       Being Busy

The thing that got me through was just taking one day at a time:

Reading in the morning and evening was a welcome distraction.

Exercise was energizing.

It also helped that I had a small baby to take care of and kept me busy and pre-occupied.

I remember creating little art projects here and there as an outlet, but not ones that explicitly gave away my thoughts…I was desperate, okay? 😂

This is definitely one of the hardest parts of the process but it won’t last forever.