Survive and thrive after divorce
From banning your ex's name to rearranging all the furniture, a new boook reveals how to . .
WHAT I could see made no sense. It felt like I was going insane. my body was shaking uncontrollably and I thought I was about to be sick. I opened the drawer for the second time and there it was — the contact lens box staring out at me.
I didn’t wear contacts. And neither did my husband. I closed the drawer and left it undisturbed but in that moment I sensed deep down that my life had changed profoundly.
Britain has the fourth highest divorce rate in the world — 40 per cent of marriages do not stay the distance — and yet an unsuccessful partnership is still seen as one of life’s ultimate failures, not remotely what we have in mind when we pose contently for the wedding photographer, certain that this is our happy ever after. And I was about to add to the statistics.
In fact, the suspicions had started months earlier. I knew things weren’t good between us but I carried on regardless, convinced it was my fault and that if I kept on trying — became a better cook, a better listener, sexier, thinner — something would snap into place and he would wake up and remember how much he wanted to be with me.
It didn’t happen. I didn’t confront him immediately — I was in denial and withdrew from everything and everyone. I went into self-preservation mode. Staying in a dishonest environment isn’t healthy, believe me, but I just wasn’t ready to come to terms with my broken heart.
In all I spent six weeks, watching and waiting, confirming my fears. Nothing prepared me for the day I looked at him and saw the way he looked back and knew he simply no longer loved me. For a while, I truly thought my life was over.
The break-up was tough, hugely complicated by our jointly owned business, and full of incidents that nearly broke me. The thing that took the most effort to understand was how this man –— the one I’d pledged to spend the rest of my life with, the one who knew me like no one else — could suddenly become such a total stranger to me.
That was when I began to appreciate what a traumatic experience divorce can be and its massive impact on all aspects of your life. We were together for eight years, married for five and the divorce took two. This wasn’t ‘ conscious uncoupling’, in Gwyneth Paltrow’s gentle phrase, it was an aggressive severing.
And yet it was far from the end. The divorce was the worst possible thing at the time — but overcoming it was also an incredible lesson. And once I finally learned to move past my divorce, the future seemed much brighter.
It was my own experience that led me to specialise in divorce coaching — like life or business coaching, but aimed specifically at getting clients through the trauma of marital separation.
Over the past 16 years I’ve helped hundreds of people pick through the wreckage and emerge not just intact, but in a better place. So here I’m sharing my road map through a break-up — ways both to survive the devastating end of a marriage and to thrive beyond it, too. HOW TO COPE WITH HIS AFFAIR SOme clients endure the humiliation of an affair for years; others opt for divorce at the merest hint of betrayal. Whatever you do, I know from experience that forgiving somebody for causing massive heartache is difficult and takes a long time.
And yet you can’t fully move on until you do let go. Hating the other person will only eat away at you, not them. There is a process to go through where you grieve for the end of your relationship and come to terms with the fact your partner cheated on you — it’s like a bereavement and it has similar stages. But it’s important to remember that your partner is not the man or woman you thought they were. Realising that can help propel you forward so you can move on.
TIP: Change the questions you ask yourself. Stop wondering ‘What’s wrong with me?’ or ‘What did I do wrong?’. And instead ask ‘What can I do right now to help me through this?’
That might be something small like having coffee with a friend or something more important like researching local law firms. KNOW WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE IT’S crucial to surround yourself with the right people. Some of those will be professionals — a good divorce lawyer, a financial adviser, possibly a therapist if you want trained emotional support — and others will be your existing friends.
But don’t underestimate how closely members of your circle will watch you, fearing the same thing is about to happen to them. In fact, take it as an opportunity to redesign your inner circle. Cut your social media ties so that only the supportive people can see what you’re doing.
Stop seeing those who want to pick over the divorce instead of helping find a new focus, and particularly get rid of those who maliciously set out to hurt you.
They will have to live with themselves, but bitterness will only hold you back. Don’t be afraid to be brutal.
TIP: Talk to ‘friends’ who want to stay in contact with both of you. You might ask them not to pass on any information about what you’re up to, or explain that you’ve had to ‘unfriend’ them to stop seeing Facebook posts from your ex that they’ve ‘liked’.
It can be hurtful to see happy snaps of your children with your ex’s new partner, for example. Just avoid it. FIND THE SILVER LINING - THERE WILL BE ONE THIS is a technique I developed during my divorce to counter the negative emotions I was constantly in thrall to.
‘Flipping it’ is about wrenching your gaze from the past and finding a silver lining, no matter how distant it may appear.
It might seem impossible to be this optimistic in the early stages and it’s not an exercise in donning the rose-tinted spectacles. Often you’re looking for just a single nugget of positivity among the general chaos and upset.
One client with a very young child found it devastating to hand him over to her ex at the weekends and would spend the entire time alone, in tears.
Together we worked on flipping her feelings so she could focus on getting a good amount of rest while the baby was away and be a better mum when he returned.
Another was able to identify moments when her husband had made hurtful comments about her weight — once refusing to buy her a pub lunch but eating his own in front of her.
Despite still loving him, she was able to focus on the sense of relief she felt at no longer having to