Starting Over After Divorce
Are you afraid about starting over after divorce? Your fear is understandable because starting over after divorce is a mine filled field. You have many obstacles; financial, relationships, the death of your marriage, tensions with children, family, friends and how to keep your head on straight at work. You no longer live in your marital home and might not even live in your former community.
When you are starting over after divorce, you need to be tough. As strong as possible. Not only do you have your ex against you, but it is likely that your kids are not too happy with you either. And on top of everything, the biased legal system steamrolls your life. You are likely angry, sad and depressed. And you have no clue who to turn to. You are in danger of collapsing from psychological, financial, divorce court and work pressures all at the same time.
If you are in court right now, listen to your lawyer and stop listening to friends/family/coworkers. Everyone thinks they are an expert, but they are not experts at divorce law. You pay your lawyers big bucks. Let them do the worrying for you.
Your job is to stay as healthy as possible, in mind and body.
Now is the time to get even more strict about good health habits. You need to level up your game of thought, speech and action. You are in a dark hell right now. You might not see any light, just like the story of Jeremy L., a divorced father who committed suicide after divorce.
Here is a point that you must remember:
- There is a future, but it will be different than the past you yearn for.
- You want to live with your kids, wake them up, put them to bed, watch them grow up.
- When you accept this scenario is no longer real, you will recover from the assault of the court on your will to live.
You, your ex and your children should all live a better life in the future. However, the divorce court slaughter houses of men need to modify the laws, so that they are fair to both parents. That is in the best interest of the children.
Assisted suicide by the divorce courts is not in the best interest of the children.
There is only so much that a human being can take, and it is time that divorce courts start treating men as human beings who love their children and not as ATM machines. Remember, you are not alone, reach out to contact me any time. Do not become another divorce and suicide statistic.
The 10 Rules for men starting over after divorce are:
1. Stop Grieving and Start Imagining a Bright Future
Excessive grieving can lead to depression. Depression can lead to suicidal ideation or worse, suicide. You need to tell yourself that you have had enough. Find a word, a trigger word, to tell yourself enough. I like the word Zehhu. If you are curious why, read about the nightmare that changed my life.
But, use any word that works for you.
Imagine that you are the owner of a field, a vineyard. A hurricane destroys everything you built. Your home, your vineyard, your life. Imagine what you need to do to rebuild your vineyard. Stop sitting in the middle of your field and mourning over your loss. Rebuilding your vineyard is a parallel to starting over after divorce:
- Make the Choice to Rebuild Your Vineyard, your Life –Make the decision right now to rebuild your life.
- Select a Field that is Bright – we need bright thoughts and positive thoughts to rebuild.
- Seed the Field – Plant good thoughts, expectations and images of the future.
- Water the Field – Eat real food daily, nourish your body and mind.
- Growing the vineyard – Take care of yourself and adjust to any obstacles.
- Harvest the vineyard – Be grateful for what you have right now.
- Winnowing – Focus on the best and not the worst.
- Pressing the wine – Get the most out of what you have right now, like squeezing the juice from the best grapes.
- Drinking the Wine – we should appreciate as often as possible the gift of life, with our family and friends.
For more details read this next – How to Manage Depression
2. Action is Better than Keeping a Journal
Especially if you have lost contact with your children after divorce. Seeing your kid once a week or twice a month is not contact. It is easy to feel the loss of relationship even after a few days of separation.
Consider this interview of Joshua Coleman Ph.D., by Terry Gaspard, MSW, LICSW on February 5, 2015:
Terry: Why is estrangement so common in divorced families?Dr. Joshua Coleman: Divorce greatly increases the risk of estrangement. It often creates a fundamental reshaping of alliances and can place parents at risk for greater distance from their children. Whether it’s a grey divorce or a breakup when the child is young, it often causes a child to see parents as winners and losers.Second, it can create the opportunity for parental alienation where one parent poisons the child against the other parent. Children, especially when they are young, are vulnerable after divorce.Next, divorce can also bring new people into a child’s life (new sibling, half sibling, step-parent) and they may feel they have to compete for love, attention, or resources. Finally, in our culture, divorce can cause a child to see their parent as an individual with their own attributes and liabilities—and less of a family unit that they’re part of.7)
Staying busy building a new life is better than writing in a journal about your old life. Make the choice to be productive again. No matter how many days, weeks, months or years that you mourn, the results will be the same. You will be sad, depressed and lose the greatest asset of your life, which is time.
Take action now, today, get started immediately.
If you do want to write in a journal, start with your life now. Begin with the present. Begin with creating your new life. Write how you are taking your power back by taking care of yourself, getting fitter, getting stronger and living better. Use your words and affirmations to paint the portrait, the landscape of the new life you are building for yourself. Do not drown yourself in the sorrows of what you have lost. Stay positive, always!
3. Stay Positive and Do Not Lean on your Guy Friends
If you think you will hear sympathy from your guy friends, as we say in Brooklyn, ’forget about it’. Instead, they will say ’we told you not to get married’. They will let you have it for being a traditional idiot. We told you not to ruin your life.
We warned you not to get married in a culture which has it out for you if you are a man.
Of course, you never believed you would end up in court. And that you will never live with your kids again. They will blame you for not listening to their advice to never get married. Most guys know that if they get married, a divorce court will destroy their life.
What great reward in marriage is worth that risk?
You cannot expect your friends to be supportive. They will scold you for getting married. Then, they will use your ruined life as the reason that they will never get married. So, don’t expect to be feeling better by leaning on your friends. You will feel like garbage.
Instead, lean on yourself.
Think brighter thoughts. Start to think thoughts of calm, strength, success, rebuilding, a bright life. You have to be your own rock. Stay strong, imagine strength and think good thoughts.
Stop repeating your ‘story’ to your friends. You will get no sympathy.
4. Start Strength Training, not Antidepressants
You have to start working your field. Meaning, that you have to start building up your strength and testosterone. Do the hardest compound movements that you can.
Get as strong and fit as possible. Yes, even if you are over 50. Physical strength helps you bear the mental burdens of divorce and loss. You have to get stronger to handle the stresses of divorce and isolation.
Antidepressants should never be your first course of action.
If your doctor recommends them, respond that you want to try an alternative approach to treat depression. This new approach is to lift weights to lift your mood. Try it out for a month.
If deadlifts, squats and pushups do not help you to feel better, then you can always go on antidepressants.
But, be aware that antidepressants come with a high cost, and that does not mean financial. Antidepressants themselves have many serious negative side effects. Many antidepressants come with a warning label that they can cause suicidal behavior. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration sent out a health advisory:
Warning – All antidepressants increase suicidal behavior in adults.
Health care professionals know that antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal ideation. Unfortunately, our culture ignores the suicidal effects of antidepressants. Depressed people run to their doctor who gives them antidepressants as the solution. And, if a person harms him or herself, we can chalk it up to suicide.
Without any consideration if the antidepressants caused the suicidal behavior.
Such as in the case of Robin Williams. The assumption was that he committed suicide. How about the fact that he was on antidepressants? We do not even hear in the media which antidepressants he used.
Let’s preserve his good reputation. Antidepressants increase suicidal behavior. That is a fact that our pill popping society wants to ignore. For sure, the antidepressant manufacturers do not want you to think about.
So, in some cases, antidepressants might help an individual. But, in all cases, why not try weight lifting for depression? Or any other exercise before going on antidepressants?
What do you have to lose, besides fat and depression?
As far as deadlift/strength training gear goes, weightlifting requires a small area and a minimum amount of equipment available in most gyms that have free weights. Or you can set up a home gym in a small area of your basement or garage with these tools for weightlifting and fitness.
Stop looking to antidepressants to fight depression, unless you have no other choice.
For more strength training details read this next – 26 Remarkable Benefits of Deadlifts to Unleash Your Fitness or How Deadlifts Change Your Body in 27 Powerful Ways
5. Think Good and it will be Good.
This is a real tough one. When you are starting over after divorce, you must change your thoughts to change your life. You must plant new thoughts, good thoughts to build a new life. Whatever you put in the soil will grow. So, be careful to not put seeds of weeds into the soil. It will be a challenge to think good thoughts. But, do your best. Think thoughts of success, happiness, good relationships, health, wealth and peace. Keep your mind flooded with as much bright thoughts as possible.
For more details on positive thinking, read this next –Tracht Gut Vet Zein Gut Revolution
6. Eat Healthy Foods
Now is not the time to go crazy on junk food. Now is the time to eat the best food possible to rebuild your body and mind. A healthier body will help you overcome the stress of divorce. Healthier foods, means real food daily. Exclude processed food as much as possible. Eat more real food daily to fuel your body and mind transformation. If you need to lose weight, How to Lose 20 pounds in 3 Months Using 5 Simple Steps will put you on the fast path to sustainable weight loss.
For more details on the secrets to losing weight, read this next – :Just Eat Real Food — The Secret Sauce for Weight Loss or The Secrets to Change Your Body Fast.
7. Be Grateful for what you Have
It is easy to focus on what you do not have. You can obsess on everything that you have lost. Especially if you have lost contact with your children. You have to think and be aware of the blessings in your life. You don’t have to tell anyone else. Be aware for yourself and start with what you think is most trivial. For example, waking up, be grateful that you woke up today.
And take it from there.
Even after divorce, there is an enormous list of phenomena to be grateful for. Be happy your kid(s) are healthy and safe and think thoughts of good relationship with them. Do not make the mistake of turning every event into a catastrophe.
8. Do Not Start Dating Again..Yet
Dating again can lead to a relationship, and you are not ready. If you want to hang out, fine, but be safe, and stay casual. You do not need to see the inside of a court again. And for sure, do not discuss marriage again with your friends. They will throw you out knowing what you went through. Now is not the time.
Get yourself stronger, work on all your faults, because you probably have a few, like all of us. Think of where you went wrong in your relationship. What could you have done better? Did you treat your wife like the Queen she wanted to be? Did you honor, cherish and love her like you know she wanted? Yes, she has her own issues, but don't focus on her field, her issues. Focus on yours. Because it is only in your field that you have any power.
You have the power to change yourself and that is where you have to focus before embarking on a new relationship. Fix as many bad habits as you can. When you go through a trauma like divorce, you want to come out a better person, right? So strive to be the best man possible. When you are starting over after divorce, you cannot press rewind and pretend like the years of your marriage and divorce did not happen.
9. Hold onto Your Job
It is easy to lose focus on your job. Both during and when you are starting your life over after divorce. You have to do everything possible to hold onto your job. Do not speak about your divorce at work. When you go into your office, be a different person.
Stay focused on your responsibilities at the office. It is bad enough that you lose your identity as a husband and father. You lose your identity as a homeowner and neighbor. Do you want to lose your work identity too?
You better not.
10. Stay Connected to Yourself
It is easy to lose yourself. To lose perspective of who you are. You have to be good to yourself. The better you are to yourself, the better you can be for others. Do your best to stay connected with your children
They also suffer from the divorce.
Besides, they must endure the hurtful narratives that they hear about their parents. If they estrange you, remember that it is not their fault. Do not be angry with your children. Your ex and the court fed them a poisonous diet of endless character assassination.
Be there for them as much as possible.
Everything you expect others to do for you, make sure you do that for yourself. Think about your welfare, check up on yourself, look out for yourself, focus on yourself. Because you might not hear from anyone else for a long time, so you have to take care of yourself.
Starting Over After Divorce Conclusion
If your marriage is in trouble:
Never take antidepressants. Especially at the suggestion of your wife. Because if she serves you with divorce papers, you better not be on medication. If she does not serve you with divorce papers, then get to the gym, start working out and eating better. Start taking care of yourself and get healthier so you can improve your marriage.
Think of everything that you are grateful for in your life.
Yes, not only for your health and your kids, but start thinking positive thoughts about your wife. Treat your wife like a queen. She deserves your respect, love and honor. You still have a chance to turn your marriage around. You must find gratitude in your heart for your wife to turn your marriage around. Once you do, your marriage can transform from a living hell to paradise.
Your attitude of gratitude will sweeten your life, as hard as it might be to believe.
Try it out, it is not too hard, just say ’Thank You’, to yourself, your wife, your kids, mother nature, or your higher power. Divorce and suicide no longer have to be a couple. Let go of the guilt and shame, get the attitude of gratitude. Think good and it will be good. Think good of yourself, your wife, your kids, your family and friends.
However, if you are already in the process of divorce or post divorce, you need to take control of your life now, where you can. There will be much that is not under your control, so you need to raise your game. A good beginning is to adhere to these 10 Rules for Starting Over After Divorce. You can rebuild your life starting today.
If you are in crisis right now, call the national suicide prevention hotline.
Please leave your comments/insights about the divorce and suicide risk of for men. If we can help one man or father to reconsider suicide, is it not worth your words? So, say what you can to help prevent divorce and suicide of men after divorce. Men have few places to go for support or advice. What are your recommendations for starting over after divorce?
For more details on how to recover from divorce and depression, click on this link: ’Crossing the Bridge from Depression to Life’
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Rich is a certified personal trainer-AAPT and the author of