You must have heard people saying, “Oh what will people say if you get a divorce?” “What about your future?” “Who will accept you?”.
The stigma related to divorce is mostly discussed but the inner turmoil that follows after the divorce is less likely to be considered and talked about. Going through a divorce is traumatic for the people involved. The stigmatization and ostracization add to the turmoil that follows after the divorce.
The process of deciding to end a relationship can bring a lot of trauma and chaos and the people involved can go through contradictory emotions. There are also distinct feelings, attitudes, and dynamics depending on who initiates the breakup decision and who receives it. Fear, relief, distance, impatience, resentment, doubt, and guilt are all common emotions felt by the initiator. When a person does not initiate the divorce – leavee, may undergo a sense of betrayal, lack of control, victimization, decreased self-esteem, feelings of inadequacy, anger, a desire to “get even” and a desire to reconcile. A person going through a divorce may also get to experience the inner turmoil and the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The two people involved might react to the divorce and loss of their marriage differently, at different times, and in different ways.
In denial, the initiator – called the leaver may also operate on autopilot while pretending that everything is still fine while seemingly ignoring thoughts of divorce. They use denial as a coping mechanism to numb all emotions to survive the situation.
In denial, the spouse being left fails to grasp the reality of the situation. The leavee may rebuff the thoughts of divorce by assuming, “they are just upset” or “this will all blow over soon.” They often try to rationalize the divorce filing by believing their spouse is suffering a midlife crisis or any other personal turmoil.
The next stage normally is anger – when the numbness of denial gradually wears off, the leavee experiences a range of emotions. Anger tends to outweigh all other feelings, and it’s usually focused on the spouse who filed for divorce, referred to as the leaver.
Unlike the denial stage, which portrays the leaver as suffering or simply needing time, the anger stage portrays the leaver as the worst person. The throes of fury – making the leaver a bad lover, friend, and human on the planet. These emotions are normal and necessary for persons going through the divorce grieving process.
The third stage in the divorce grieving process is bargaining. The bargaining phase in the divorce process is usually a last attempt to save the former relationship or pinpoint exactly what went wrong. The leavee may offer to change many things about themselves, make grand promises, or agree to certain requests in an attempt to stop the divorce.
This stage can be helpful if there is a chance the relationship can be saved. The leaver could change their mind at this point and agree to work things out, but this is not guaranteed and most divorces still proceed.
The process of divorce is heavy, causes havoc and internal turmoil. The weight of denial, anger, and bargaining, combined with the sobering reality that a marriage is over causes the most difficult stage of all – depression. People find that depression tends to last longer than the other stages and is typically harder to overcome.
Feelings of depression are completely normal during a divorce and affect both the leavee and the leaver. Many people report feelings of loneliness, isolation, and feelings of low self-esteem. They have intrusive thoughts such as “I’ll never find love again,” or “relationships aren’t worth it.” These thoughts are not reality and they typically pass over time. At this stage, it is advisable that the people involved in a divorce should seek help from a mental health professional. A sense of relief prevails when the people involved in the divorce reach the acceptance stage. However, accepting the divorce does not stop the grieving process; it is common to bounce back and forth between stages after coming to terms with the circumstance.
Acceptance gives people the strength to move on and recover their lives, rather than allowing divorce to define them. Though one may still experience various stages of grieving, they eventually reach a point where they can live with those sentiments and move on with their lives.
It is also important to remember that grief and healing are completely individualized processes. A few indicators might be helpful to identify the emotional stages that have been identified with ending a relationship. It may also be helpful to understand that relationships and marriages do not break overnight and the breakup is not the result of one incident; nor is the breakup the entire fault of one person. The emotional breakup process usually happens gradually over years, and it’s complicated by the fact that each party is going through distinct stages of the emotional process while going through the same physical and legal procedure.
It is also quite normal to do different things to try to create distance from the former partner while divorcing. Unfortunately, this distancing often takes the form of fault-finding. If the other person is portrayed as really awful, one can escape any responsibility for the end of the marriage. A common response to divorce is to seek revenge or to “get even”. When parties put their focus on getting even, there is an equal amount of energy expended on being blameless. What’s true is that blaming and fault-finding are not necessary or really helpful.
Another narrative and rationalization that the couple goes through is that the marriage was an entirely bad experience and escaping it is “good riddance”. Thinking that the marriage was unpleasant is unfair to both parties and can hinder emotional healing. Acknowledging that both stayed in the marriage for as long as they did because there were some good things about it helps the people involved to accept the decision better and realize that the dealbreakers might be so significant that they impacted a relationship and living with those dealbreakers might have been worse.
We have given sufficient emphasis on the inner turmoil after divorce but how do you move forward? Acceptance, concentrating on the future, taking responsibility for their own acts (now and throughout the marriage), and acting with integrity are all part of the healing process.
Divorce sadness affects both the leavee and the leaver in various ways, but there are some recommendations that might help make the process more pleasant.
As cliche, as it may sound but sit with your emotions, it helps. Every emotion that arises during the divorce process is valid and contributes to a person’s healing and rationalizing the situation. As a person learns to adjust to their new normal, negative and disturbing feelings fade.
The other thing which might help to get over the feelings of loss is to build a good support group. The loss of a life partner due to divorce makes people feel intensely lonely and isolated. This makes having a support group of close family and friends invaluable in the healing process.
The third and most important thing is to take time as we always rush trying to fix things whereas the relationship wasn’t built overnight and healing from divorce won’t happen immediately either. Falling out of a relationship needs time to work through all the emotions and rediscover who you are without being in a marriage, as an individual. There is no race to heal and no set timeline for grief and as long as people continue to move forward, they should take all the time they need.
If you feel that you are stuck in a loop and not getting over the negative feelings, heaviness is weighing you down or you are gradually getting depressive it is always a good idea to seek therapy.
Ramsha Saghir is a Clinical Psychologist by profession. She is an Intersectional Feminist and writes on gender equality, societal issues and mental health.
