4 Surprisingly Good Things That Come From Divorce

In the beginning, you focus on the wrong things.

Everything hurts. Your heart, brain, and, from time to time, you develop physical pain out of thin air. Most days, it’s hard to get up.

Your mind becomes your biggest enemy. If there is a negative angle to the story you are living, your mind grabs it.

You’ll rehash every moment and formulate a way you could relive it. To make it all end up right. Then a funny thing happens.

You start to think about all the work it will take to put things back together, and you feel exhausted.

The prospect of picking up the pieces and putting things back together seems like a waste of time. You question whether the therapy, rebuilding of trust, and changes in your and their behaviors that lie ahead will work.

Deep down, you know neither of you have it in them to go through this. You don’t even believe your partner will give it a reasonable effort. Why bother?

You start to settle in on the fact that it’s over.

This is where I found myself at a crossroads. Do I try to force it back together or move on? I might have thought differently if I knew my wife would fight as hard as I would.

I knew she wouldn’t, so I fought to regain myself.

One of our biggest fears when facing a divorce is how we’ll start over. How will we build a new life after basing so much of our lives and identity on a failed relationship?

Everything seems like a lie now.

We don’t recognize who we’ve become. More times than not, it’s something that we don’t like.

We have to change, but this kind of change is terrifying. If we don’t get this right, we could spend the rest of our lives at the bottom of this deep, dark hole we feel like we’re in.

It’s a self-imposed hell.

You have to decide, as I did, to reframe it all. You don’t have to keep yourself shackled in that dungeon. You have a key to let yourself out.

The key is recognizing that plenty of good things will come out of this trial you are facing.

If you’re given a choice of good or bad things, why would you keep choosing bad things for yourself? If you could win or lose, why would you prefer to lose?

Your mindset is going to determine how you bounce back.

When You Hit Rock Bottom

Rock bottom feels like the worst place you could be. Sadly, most of us need to hit it before we make the changes we need to make.

Every good comeback story requires a rock bottom.

I know, bouncing back is hard. It hurts. It takes time, patience, and resiliency to keep going. But it’s not all bad. We focus on the bad because we feel bad at the moment.

Our emotions control the wheel, which means that although it’s just one bad experience we are facing, our mind will trick us into believing everything is terrible.

It’s not. Here are some excellent things you might not realize.

You Get a Clean Slate

How many times in your life have you wished you could start over?

Too many to count? Now you have it. The slate is wiped clean.

Anything you’ve wanted to do or become is now a possibility. You can rebuild yourself into the person you’ve always wanted to be.

You can get everything you wanted before but thought you never could. Maybe your marriage was holding you back from certain things you wanted. Maybe your ex didn’t want to do the same things you wanted to do.

Now, there are no limits. Honestly, there never were. You just needed a push to get past them.

The life you wanted is possible. The relationship you liked that you thought you’d have with your ex is also possible. You are now free to chase both.

Please go out and get them all.

You Get to Face Your Shortcomings

You know what your weaknesses are. You know what good and bad behaviors you have. But do you know why you have them?

Now is the time to learn more about yourself and who you are.

Learn about whether you have unresolved trauma from your past. Learn how to handle your emotions. Address any health issues, especially if you haven’t taken your health and fitness seriously. Figure out your financial needs and struggles.

If you’ve flown by the seat of your pants on these issues previously, you will be forced to face them now. If you don’t, your life will spiral out of control.

When you get a handle on them, you’ll see firsthand how amazing and resilient you are.

Understand there is no timeline, however. The process of improving yourself takes time. There will be ups and downs. You can handle them.

You Can Find Love

If things are new and you feel raw, you won’t care about this as much.

But realize you are no longer chasing a relationship that doesn’t suit you. You no longer have to force yourself to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with you anymore.

You are now free to find your perfect match. You’ve probably had an idea in your head about what your ideal relationship is. Now, you can have it.

It will require you to address the previous mistakes you made in your past relationships, but it must be done. You won’t find your dream relationship if you stay the same person. You’ll find more of the same relationships you’ve been having.

You know, the ones that haven’t worked.

But there is no fabulous catch more than someone who has overcome divorce and done the work necessary to recover.

Do All the Things You Want to Do

This is usually one of the last things we think about, but what have you always wanted to do that you couldn’t?

Things you wanted to try, places you wanted to go, dreams you wanted to chase. Now, there are no excuses not to do them.

You no longer have to convince someone else to do them. You don’t have to worry about your partner talking you out of it. You no longer have to plan around your busy schedules or figure out a way to get extra money to pay for one additional person.

Now, you can do it. You don’t need approval and don’t have to worry about someone else’s negativity weighing you down.

You are free to be and do whatever you want. So please do it.

It’s easiest to dwell on the negative when your world seems collapsing. In the case of divorce, the dreamy future you had planned with a partner is ending. It’s natural to focus on the negative.

You’ve probably spent years identifying as a particular person in a specific situation, and now it’s all being uprooted. What are you going to do with yourself now that the previous version of you is no longer possible?

You’re going to make a better version and make a brighter future. It might not seem possible, but you will. You’ll have no choice but to press ahead.

Use this situation as a reason to turn things around for yourself. Anyone who can do the necessary healing and make the growth required to improve themselves after divorce has turned themselves into a fantastic person.