Dealing with your feelings
"Be kind to yourself, let things go at their own pace, spoil yourself once in a while. This does not have to be expensive - a cake will do."
Divorce and separation, like bereavement, take a long time to get over. You need to get used to being a new person, and no longer part of a couple. It won’t come right overnight. People often expect you to bounce back once you’ve got your divorce sorted but feelings don’t fit tidily into legal processes.
For most people it takes about one to two years before they start feeling okay again. Bit by bit it should start getting better. Children will also need time to adjust.
"A lot of things seem out of your control during a divorce. Things that were private are discussed with solicitors, family and friends. But there is one thing that is under your control. You can work with your ex-partner to ensure that your children are protected from the worst anxieties and anger of divorce."
Using outside help
There are lots of places where you can get some help to recover from the effects of divorce and separation. Don’t feel bad about asking for help. You can’t always do it on your own. There’s no shame in asking for help. Some of the places you might turn to are:-
- Friends
- Your GP, who may know about local places and people who can help. This might include self-help groups and counsellors.
- Your health visitor, if you still have small children. Most health visitors are a mine of helpful information.
- Your local library. They often keep information about local activities and groups.
- Counselling services. Yellow pages or your GP would be good places to start looking.
- Local self-help groups. These might be for lone parents, or divorced or separated adults. Gingerbread (see links to other websites) have local groups all over the country for lone parents.
- Mediators and solicitors generally know about the helpful local networks too.
"I try not to criticise my ex-partner in front of my children. They need to maintain a good relationship with us both."
Helping your children
Ending your marriage doesn’t stop you being a parent. You are both going to go on being parents for the rest of your lives. So what you do about the children matters.
CAFCASS have some useful leaflets for you and the children: see links to other websites.
"After we split, we got a big year planner and a lot of stickers and sorted out the kids’ contact so everyone could see what was happening."
It’s helpful if you can tell the children together, and if you have already worked out what you are going to say and some of the decisions that you are going to make about them. Children tend to think that it must be their fault - you need to make it clear that it isn’t, and that you both still love them very much.
"We realised that our children aren’t things. We couldn’t just divide up their time as though we were serving a cake."
Try to keep domestic routines as much the same as possible. It’s tempting to try to make it up to the children with extra treats, but in the long run, this isn’t going to help much. Extra cuddles will though, and you might find that they become very clingy for a while.
You need to tell their schools. School-work often suffers because children have other things to concern them. It helps if their teachers know that they may be having a hard time.
