Discover a New Life After Divorce

Divorce affects everyone differently and can be stressful and overwhelming. During the divorce process, many people experience a wide array of emotions including fear, anger, and resentment. Many people who have been a wife or husband for a substantial period of time feel that their identity is wrapped up in that role, and find it difficult to break free from that. Following a divorce, however, you should take the time to determine who you are outside of a partnership role, and what your next steps should be. The following examples are a mini-roadmap of how some newly single people strive to become a healthier version of themselves after divorce.

Your marriage was important. It defined who you were for likely a substantial portion of your life. You should never pretend that it did not happen. However, as things end, you will welcome new beginnings. Consider spending some time contemplating the life you thought you would have and how that has changed, and then grieve and mourn that past. Eventually, you will need to focus on your new life, but first, you must say goodbye to the old one. There are many therapies and help that you can obtain to process this grief in the healthiest way possible. In many cases, it involves the relinquishment of anger, resentment, fear, hate, and any thought of revenge. Consider how a counselor may be able to help you through this process.

In some cases, people hurry to get back out into the world and to friends and family after a painful divorce. While it is important to have a strong support system, you should make sure that you are not covering up the grief process with a lot of dates, events, meetings, and people in order to simply avoid doing the hard work and processing what you just went through in your divorce. In some cases, people become workaholics in an attempt to avoid dealing with the emotions that crop up when starting a new life after a divorce. This process will likely be difficult and it will require alone time. You will need to figure out who you are outside of the role you occupied within your marriage. Think about who you have been, and also who you want to become. While it is sad that your marriage has ended, it does give you the chance to consider brand new opportunities.

Once you have sufficiently grieved the loss of your marriage and started on the path to self-discovery, you will likely want to set some new goals for yourself. You will start to develop a new sense of optimism. You may discover that you want to accomplish things you only dreamed about in the past. For example, do you want to accomplish your dream of joining a club? Eating better? Getting healthy? Running a 10k? Learning a new language? Saving more money? Learning a new set of skills? Traveling overseas? Becoming more spiritual? The truth is that at this point, you get to decide who you want to be, and where you place your energy and time. Take this time to truly rediscover who you are and what you enjoy. Determine how you are able to fit in with your friends and family as this new person with new dreams and new goals.

You may still be in the beginning stages of considering a divorce. The idea of starting a new life with new goals and new dreams may seem far in the distance for you. If you are considering a divorce, you likely now feel overwhelmed with all of the decisions you have to make and what steps are ahead of you both financially as well as how large decisions such as the division of marital assets, child custody, and child support will be handled. We would welcome the opportunity to help you with these next steps so that you can get to the enjoyable part of redefining your new life with new goals. Contact an experienced divorce lawyer at Arnold & Smith, PLLC in Monroe, North Carolina at 704.370.2828.