Going through a divorce is well known for being 80% emotional and 20% legal. It is up there in the top five most traumatic events anyone can face in life. It’s disruptive, can fill you with fear for the future as well as grief from the past. Negative emotions will surface during a divorce, there’s no way around that. At One Life Coaching, we have never come across a couple who did not marry for life so divorce is never on the cards as an easy way out for anyone we have ever met. Finding yourself in this situation is one of the hardest places you will ever find yourself to be in. It can drain you financially, emotionally, and physically as well as negatively impact your self-esteem.
The good news is that there is life after divorce – there is joy, there is happiness and there is balance. At One Life Coaching, we are here to help you get back your self-esteem so that you live your best and most authentic life. Here are just a few tips on your way to finding happiness in your new role as a divorcee and/or single parent.
Stop thinking of your divorce as a failure
It’s a common myth in many societies to view divorce as a failure – let’s let go of that. A positive and successful marriage is indeed a blessing but these are not the marriages that end up in divorce. Usually, divorce is the “end result” of an unhappy union. You will probably have tried everything and anything to make this marriage work before you ever talked about divorce but it may simply be that in the end that you were an unsuitable match, making each other more miserable by the day. It happens. It’s not “divorce” that has made this marriage a failure, you probably have been struggling with it for a very long time before you ever got to Divorce. Looking at this split from this different perspective helps: we have all been blessed with one life and one life only – our mission should be to honour this life and try our best to succeed at it by being the best version of ourselves. That might mean letting go of failed dreams but it also means honouring the life we have been blessed with by learning from our failures, refocusing our attention on new dreams and embarking on a new path with wisdom and lessons learnt. Your marriage ran its course. That does not mean you failed. Instead of viewing your marriage as a failure, consider the fact that you found the courage to leave an unhealthy relationship. This is a transition phase in your life.
Grieve your loss
The loss of a marriage elicits the same emotions as the passing of a loved one so it’s important to grieve the loss of your union, be it grieving your spouse, grieving past events of your marriage or grieving future plans that you now will no longer have. Take time to work through the five steps of grief – denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance, remembering that these steps are not linear or ordered and you can jump back and forth from one to another. If you fail to acknowledge and work through your feelings of grief, these unresolved negative emotions will follow you into your future life and may even impact your future relationships. It’s okay to mourn in order for you to eventually move forward to a place where you can remember – with a certain distant fondness – the positive aspects you enjoyed in your marriage.
Make yourself the priority
As we all know, children are indeed a blessing, but that doesn’t stop them from taking up a significant amount of our time and energy. Sharing parenting duties under one roof means that we can often carve out time for ourselves. Being a single parent after divorce means doubling up on our energy and efforts towards our children, at least for the time they are with us. More than ever as a single parent it’s important to also make yourself a priority during this phase in your life. Children take on their parents’ moods by what seems like osmosis and they can see through us when we pretend to be happy but are not. By making yourself a priority, you will not only be the best version of yourself which will ultimately help your children, you will also be giving your newfound happiness to your children. Making yourself a priority can be as simple as carving out time in your busy day to take a bath, read a book, or go for a walk. It also means not trying to be the perfect parent, all the time, to compensate for the loss of a two parent household. Children want stability and they get that from happy parents. If it means both parents live in different households they really don’t mind too much. Adjust your expectations to make your life easier and that will in turn make their lives easier too.
Cut yourself some slack
You have been used to managing your life with a partner. Now that you are divorced, you are not only having to manoeuvre the practicalities of life on your own – such as bills, housekeeping, child rearing – but you are probably having to process many negative emotions at the same time. Negative emotions are natural, like any other emotions, they are there to help us process. Ride the wave of them and don’t put yourself under undue pressure to keep it all together, all of the time. You have nothing to prove to yourself or the world. When you catch yourself spiralling into negative thought patterns, negative self-talk or even catastrophizing, stop and think how would you address this if you were talking to your best friend or even to your child? Would you be as harsh? Probably not. You would have words of encouragement and support. Use those same words on yourself. And look at the evidence for where the negative thoughts and the catastrophizing just don’t ring true. Be kind to yourself and cut yourself some slack. Think positive thoughts and practice positive self talk.
Set Achievable Goals
Setting simple goals to achieve will work wonders for improving your self-esteem. Even completing simple tasks, such as meeting with a friend, or drinking more water every day will help. While achieving goals helps your self-esteem, setting goals that are unrealistic can negatively impact your self-esteem. We suggest breaking your goals into smaller tasks which are more likely to yield success for positive results.
Pick up a hobby
After a divorce, you may find yourself simultaneously with double the workload and no free time on certain days and a vast expanse of free time on other days, especially if you have children and there are days where the children go to the other parent. At the beginning especially, if you have not planned for this free time, it can make you feel lonely or feed into negative coping behaviours. Make plans for that free time that involve other people. A community is our resilience and our source of happiness so picking up a new hobby or recommitting to an old hobby that puts you in touch with people can be a great source of strength. So can taking part in a support group such as “Leaves Dubai” where you meet other people going through the same experiences. Leaves Dubai has been running for 10 years to help people during or post-divorce support each other through this process. It runs every month, on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, at Keyani Clinic in Umm Suqueim, Dubai.
One Life Coaching for Divorce
We all need help navigating our way through divorce. The professionals at One Life Coaching can help. We are passionate about helping our clients overcome the obstacles on their path to living a happy and successful life. We recognize how emotionally charged the divorce process can be – especially in the case of expats, living abroad, without their trusted support network. With over a decade’s experience helping people navigate their Divorce, you can rest assured knowing there is someone you can trust to give you the best guidance. We take great pride in having helped hundreds of clients in the UAE and internationally to navigate their divorce and regain their self-esteem as they embark on this new chapter in life.
When you are ready, please contact a member of our team. We are here for you.