29 Things No One Tells You About Divorce

 

Only those who are highly prepared for divorce know what to expect from divorce. Since few people go into the divorce process prepared, most people are caught off-guard with the real life experience of divorce. I write about divorce but have found that, for most, when tangled up in the middle they wonder why “no one told them” about how horrendous the process can be.

Based on a Facebook discussion I saw last week I’ve put together a list of some of the things no one tells you about divorce.

29 Things No One Tells You About Divorce:

1. No one tells you divorce makes you an outcast, an outsider, a castaway.

2. No one tells you people really do take sides, and they will do it in your face.

3. No one tells you how to learn to get over it. How to sit with your grief.

4. No one tells you how vulnerable you’ll be and how everything feels shi**y.

5. No one tells you you’ll look back at the calendar with disbelief at how long divorce takes and the unraveling and the dealing with the family court system and bad divorce attorneys. That is all stuff you have to learn on your own.

6. No one tells you some people will act as if it’s contagious and being near you will wreck their own marriage.

7. No one tells you how to move forward, pick up your life and redefine every part of who you are and what you want or need.

8. No one tells you how much strength you really have or how resilient you really are or how much perseverance you have. We learn extraordinary things about ourselves during divorce.

9. No one tells you, you don’t know who your true friends are until you go through a divorce.

10. No one tells you that mere acquaintances will become your most valued and loyal friends.

11. No one tells you that divorce has two parts. The emotional one and the legal one.

12. No one tells you there is a big difference between alone and lonely. It doesn’t take long to get that one figured out!

13. No one tells you how much other people will judge you. You will become a “bad” wife, parent, friend, sister all based on who is on the outside looking in. Like Taylor Swift sings, “Haters gonna hate!”

14. No one tells you just how long you will feel like hell. Whether you wanted the divorce or not, you are going to spend quite a bit of time feeling like hell.

15. No one tells you that, although you won’t always feel like hell, if you have children, divorce will always suck major rocks.

16. No one tells you the harm divorce can do to your children.

17. No one tells you how you being strong can undo all the harm done to your children.

18. No one tells you that divorce is a great opportunity to teach your children how to handle adversity and change in life.

19. No one tells you that, that bad stuff you hear about happening in other divorces can also happen in your divorce. No one is immune to the sh*t rolling downhill.

20. No one tells you that you can end up divorced when a divorce is the last thing you want.

21. No one tells you that, although the divorce rate is so high, society still has little empathy for those who are divorced. And, the thing we need most is empathy!

22. No one tells you that on some days you will be deliriously happy and the next day unable to get out of bed.

23. No one tells you that you will discover broken parts of yourself you didn’t even know needed to heal.

24. No one tells you that an ex-spouse can be worse than a spouse. He isn’t going to turn into someone you suddenly like once you have that final decree of divorce in your hands.

25. No one tells you that, although you think you can’t cry anymore, you will cry some more.

26. No one tells you that these trials: these painful, horrible trials, will make you stronger and reinforce the friendships and the bonds that withstand the apparently never-ending pain that is a high conflict divorce.

27. No one tells you that you will come to appreciate friendship, loyalty and love on a whole new level that miraculously helps heal your heart.

28. No one tells you that your heart can and will love again.

29. No one tells you that love and life do happen after divorce and though divorce will always be part of who you are, it doesn’t have to hold you back from getting what you want and need out of life.