Divorced. Now what?

[Stillstrugglingon]

After a lengthy battle, divorce has been finalised and I know where I’m plodding financially.

We weee together 20 years, half of my life and although he was a cheat and had zero emotional capacity - I’m still struggling to let go of some resentment and confusion.

I have a decent job, two amazing teenage sons and a crazy dog to keep me busy. My family is small but supportive and I am lucky enough to have some lovely friends.

ExH has met someone new, seems to be living his best life and has little regard for our boys. I’m really struggling and don’t want to be a bitter, miserable woman for the rest of my life.

Please help me with some tips to move on before I get left behind.

Just give it time. I was angry and hurt and sad for a fairly long time (a year?) but then it just sort of eased off slowly.

I focused on my kids, work, friends and me time. I didn’t date for about a year as I just needed to find myself again. I’d been battered emotionally by his affair and then the divorce.

Following!

Things I am trying (with varying degrees of success)…gratitude journal, throwing myself into work, therapy, new hobbies, work on the new house, making more plans with friends, listening to my friends when they complain about their rubbish husbands.

I’m trying to choose happiness over bitterness. I went to a wedding recently on my own, which I found really hard, but I was determined to try and be happy for them.

My EXH left my kids without so much as a backwards glance. I am living my best life and very much don’t regret divorce, but the first year was mostly spent trying to manage the rage I felt towards him regarding my children. I would recommend therapy in the first instance. Then start thinking about what makes you happy, what you want out of life, how to achieve it etc. therapy will give you the best foundation to do all of this from. BetterHelp do have a financial support package, it’s worth having a look.

Well done for getting out of it, you’re going in the right direction!

Thank you for replying!
We’ve been separated since late 2020 and it feels like one hell of a slog to even make it through divorce.
I still wake up thinking of the whole situation as soon as I open my eyes, but hoping that will ease off now divorce is final.
I’d like to put the house up for sale early in the New Year - that should give me something to focus on and will be a fresh start.
I just feel really sad!

Practical things that have helped me.

1. How to heal a broken heart. Book by Rosie Green. There's a chapter in there specifically about avoiding the tendency to become a bitter divorcee.
2. Have a read around the media coverage of the Alice Evans and Ioan Gruffudd divorce and subsequent spats. Personally I think he's a complete shit. However his ex wife has not done herself any favours by posting it all on social media. I've used that as a pointer on how NOT to do things. For example resist, and resist again the temptation to badmouth your ex online and when talking to local people. It just makes you look deranged and bitter.
3. Look up Michelle Dempsey Multack on Instagram or other social media. I find her inspirational on how to rise above it all and put the kids first every time.
4. Two songs I like to play by myself in the car. "I forgot that you existed" Taylor Swift. & W.I.T.C.H by Devon Cole.

You’re allowed to feel sad. The end of a marriage IS sad, however it comes about, and even when divorce is a relief. No one marries thinking they’ll divorce.

Let yourself have the odd wallowing moment but don’t dwell on them.