Can Divorce Be a Good Opportunity?

Are you contemplating divorce or in the thick of it? Maybe you are in the thick of a break up. Turns out that you aren't the only one. 

Women are tired of the expectation that they take on the role of breadwinner, primary parent, primary housekeeper, and primary emotional laborer in the relationship. We are juggling the brunt of the physical and emotional work in families - leaving work early to take kids to appointments and after-school activities, and mental and emotional strain aside, we just figure it out and make it work. But the exhaust and resentment becomes overwhelming, intolerable. Some women feel like it would be easier to do it all alone.

Women are reclaiming their time, their space, and their purpose. Whether you're stepping out of a marriage that no longer serves you or rediscovering who you are outside of a partnership, divorce can be the catalyst for building a life that's authentically yours.

Society tells us divorce is a personal failure, for women especially. A single mom is supposedly a failed wife, but we don't hear much about that absent father. Women are tired of carrying the weight and the blame when things go wrong. We are told to look back wistfully at how our mothers and their mothers stayed home with the kids and were the best mothers around - in the kitchen, where they belong! But of course, we don't hear as much about how 50s housewives took uppers and pills to get through the day. The fact that women couldn't get their own bank accounts or credit cards until the late 70s. Women have always experienced dissatisfaction in relationships - they just didn't have much of a way to get out!

The trope of the woman as the domestic default and family martyr still persists today, but the difference is that despite how we may have internalized fear of leaving, fear of independence, fear of being single above a certain age, and fear of single parenting, women have CHOICES. We can design our own life paths, we can create our own solutions, and we don't have to put up with pulling a double load, toxicity, or abuse. Today, many women are just saying, No thanks! 

Don't get me wrong - There are a ton of emotionally healthy, great husbands and fathers out there. I'm not saying that lots of families do a decent job of dividing the domestic physical and emotional labor. Those families get gold stars but aren't really the audience. This is for the women who have had enough and are going through a transition to end toxic cycles and relationships that are well beyond salvage. But how do you get from relationship end to a new beginning?

Could this breakup be a problem-tunity? That's an opportunity that is disguised as a problem. You had problems - seemingly big ones in your relationship. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here now. But what if right where you are is exactly where you are supposed to be? Looking your future self straight in the eye. But how do you become her?

It starts with the decision. Will it be you for the future, or will it be past you, circling back around in another toxic spiral, waiting for just one more straw to break the camel's back. The decision is often the hardest part. We want to figure it out and then fast-forward to the next chapter. I get why! The decision is the hard part. Why? Because it forces you to admit to others, but also admit to yourself, that you must now confront CHANGE, be the change, do the changes to get to the next version of you.

You want to skip ahead to the good part - happy, single, and prosperous you. Many people going through a divorce try to skip the hard part - the hard feelings, the trauma and drama, to get right to the new path. In my divorce, I didn't spend months in talks about it. Sure, I spent months in internal turmoil, but that is what a lot of women do. By the time they make the decision and take action to leave a relationship, they are already more than halfway out the door. The decision almost feels like the end of a long internal transition. But it's a mistake to think that you can just hit the pavement running into immediate healing and happiness. I immediately went into single gal in the city mode. Busy with work and friends, my emotional state was messy, but transition happens in a spiral, not a straight line to success, reinvention, or even healing. Even though I thought divorce was the best path for me, in retrospect, I would have taken more time to heal, feel all the feelings, and I'm not sure I did. I didn't slow down enough to sit in the quiet and check in with myself. The big feelings were still there - they were showing themselves in other areas of my life - relationships and drama and poor choices.

To properly end a relationship and a period of your life - who you were - you have to allow yourself to feel all the feelings. Anger, grief, confusion, fear, loss. This means giving yourself and your busy life a bit of a pause. Chances are, behind those big feelings, and some very messy thoughts. You are angry because of the thought that what happened was unfair or your ex-partner did you wrong. You are grieving because of the thought that you will never find another love. You are fearful because of the thought that you don't know if you can financially provide for yourself. Sitting with those feelings is a key step to working past them, taking new actions to support healing and success. 

It's very difficult to begin again if you are holding onto negative feelings like anger or grief. Especially when you are expending a huge portion of your time thinking unproductive thoughts that reinforce the feeling. So many women get to a point where they seem to get off on ruminating in their anger or grief. They constantly talk about the ex-partner, rehashing how awful his actions and character are. The drama stokes their fire of anger; they continue to focus on that feeling, which feeds a never-ending cycle of stuck-ness, stewing in anger and unproductive thoughts, not really moving forward at all. It's almost as though they have left the relationship, but they cannot seem to leave the relationship. It’s a refusal to deal with their feelings in a productive way. It's refusal to take accountability for their thoughts. It's a refusal to move on.

If we're not careful, we can stay stuck in the refusal to change. Stuck in the past. All of a sudden, we can so easily recall what was great about the relationship. The good times. The could have beens, just if something had been different. Living in the past. That's a mistake though. If it was meant to be, it would be, right?

You will never be able to change what happened. The things he said that hurt you. The behaviors you put up with. But in order to move forward, you have to figure out how to change your perspective on what happened. To begin to detach from the person you were in the relationship. To take accountability for your own part in what went wrong. Perhaps you were always the "wonderful partner". Sure, honey! But let's pretend that that was the case. Even then, you stayed; you put up with behavior or actions that did not serve you. That you did not like. Are you angry because of the thought that it was your partner's fault, or are you angry at yourself because you didn't realize sooner that you deserve better? Are you angry because of the thought that you let that person trample on your boundaries? A healthy part of leaving any relationship requires you to not just get over your thoughts about what the other person did. You also have to be willing to look at your own actions or inactions to understand where they came from. What thoughts about yourself and the situation led you to stay? Were your thoughts full of self-doubt and lack of confidence? Did you think that there was no way out? It is worth taking a look at the self-limiting beliefs that may have led you to put up with a bad relationship for way too long. If we don't take the time to look at the reason for our actions, the thoughts driving our feelings and the feelings that led us to our actions and reactions, we are likely to repeat the same negative patterns in future relationships.

Only once you have wrestled with these hard feelings, can accept the things you could not control, and can truly look at your own part in the situation, will you be able to truly begin again. Going through divorce is letting part of your old self die. You are releasing a big part of your identity in the relationship to form a new one. But what if you cannot get away from the ex?

What got you here is NOT what is going to get you to future you.

It's very hard to move forward in the way I've just described when the old relationship habits don't end. For me, cutting off contact with the other person has been the best way for me to get the quiet needed to heal. But some women cannot cut off communication with their exes - they have children together or co-own a property or business. 

When you have children and you have to continue to coparent, it can get particularly nasty if one ex-partner is unwilling to coparent peacefully. While you may not be able to control the words and behaviors of the ex-partner, this is a true test of how much you are changing. It's a time to establish and stick to new boundaries. To write down what your standards for communication are and convey the consequences of how you will react if the ex-partner does not follow your boundaries. 

Having boundaries does not mean controlling what others do; it means that you have standards for who and what you will allow in your life, and when those are not met, you act on it. When your ex-partner says something you think is disrespectful, you say, "If you are going to say something rude, I am going to hang up the phone." Then, when he says something rude again, instead of yelling or counterattacking, you hang up the phone. By doing so, you are demonstrating conviction in your boundaries. You cannot control someone else, but you absolutely can control yourself and your actions. This change can be empowering because not only are you standing up for yourself, you are probably going to feel a lot better about how you approached the situation. It does not feel good to allow yourself to be dragged down to a level of behavior that is beneath you. And sometimes it necessitates strict changes in your life to show yourself that even if that person has not changed, you are changing regardless. 

In my early days of coparenting, engaging with my ex was very unpleasant. However, I did not want to keep this type of energy in my life. When he would cross my boundaries with disrespect, I would go "gray rock." I would NOT engage. Negativity in text? No answer. Snide comment? No comeback. No words. At times, it is important to understand when it is healthier for you to cut off communication altogether. Some ex-partners in divorce only communicate through a family court-given app or an attorney. While this is unfortunate, it sure beats prolonging abuse, toxicity, and terror. Often, after a short time or a long time, the animosity wanes and co-parenting becomes easier. If you would have told me 10 years ago that my child's father and I would be able to coparent pretty well, I wouldn't have believed it could happen. But here we are! By giving yourself time and space to heal your feelings, think and react differently - no matter who you are dealing with, you will be closer to becoming future you. 

Many of us were drawn to marriage believing it would start us on a journey towards achieving something, like it was going to be a safe path to a lifetime of wonderful. Divorce can seem like a sad ending, but it's an opportunity to become an improved version of you. The possibilities are endless! But who is future you? As you begin your new journey on your own terms, you aren't necessarily starting over. You are taking all of the learnings and growth that you developed through this experience with you - to live better, smarter, more intentionally. What do you want to carry forward, not just leave behind? What is it that you want for your future you, and a life on your own terms?

Divorce often nudges women to evaluate their finances, career trajectories, and personal goals. And guess what? You can too:

• Career reinvention: Start a passion project or chase that degree or promotion.
• Confidence boost: Find that accomplishing big tasks and making big decisions alone can be wildly empowering.
• Clarity: Discover what genuinely brings you joy—without compromise.
• Lifestyle: Travel to all of those places your partner wasn't interested in.

If you think that your story will end with divorce, think again! Turns out, your story is just beginning.

If you would like help getting through a difficult divorce, relationship ending, or you want help figuring out how to rebuild your life to chase a dream, reassess your priorities, or reclaim your self-confidence, schedule a Strategy Call with me at theboldlife.coach. I'd love to help.