It’s over.
You knew it when the final papers were signed. You moved out. Your ring finger is now bare. There’s an empty space where your spouse used to be. What do you do now?
Working through the after effects of a divorce is much like dealing with a break up. You will spend some time mourning the loss but what you are really mourning is the loss of your projected future. You thought that you would grow old together. That is what you hoped for years ago when you stood in your white dress promising to love each other forever. Somehow things didn’t work out as planned and now you sit, rejoining the throngs of single women.
If this was your first marriage, you should celebrate because you’ve gotten over the romantic idealism that first marriages seem to bring. Much like crushes on celebrities you romanticize what a relationship will be like and then when reality hits you and you realize that you are living with an actual person and NOT the fantasy person you made up, you are sorely disappointed.
You will continue to be disappointed in yourself and the loss of the relationship until you want to get over it. Your pity party lasts as long as you decide. You don’t have to be sad that your relationship ended. Your life didn’t begin when you got married, why should it end there?
Now that you’ve moved past the hump of a first marriage you are able to more clearly define what you want and don’t want from a relationship. No, you are not a failure. No, you didn’t sabotage your whole life. No, that was NOT your last chance at love.
Ask yourself: What am I now free to do that my relationship was holding me back from doing?
Now go do it! This is your opportunity to engage in those once forbidden activities and really indulge yourself in self love. Treat yourself the way you always wanted to be treated. Give yourself the best that life has to offer. It is your turn to do something amazing with your life.
Your ability to link up with one person and stay with them for the rest of your life is not the way to gauge your value. That relationship does not define you. No relationship defines you outside of the one you have with yourself. Men will come and go. Those who are meant to stay will be there without much effort on your part.
Be open to life cycles of beginnings and endings and let the chips fall where they may. Wherever you end up on this roulette called life, is exactly where you are supposed to be. Now stop crying, look around you and ask yourself- How can this lead to my biggest adventure yet?
