4 Things You Stop Doing When You Get Divorced

The world was ending.

I walked in the door from work, and my wife was sitting in a recliner watching our 1.5-year-old daughter run in circles around the living room. Our daughter was laughing and having the best time of her life.

My wife was also laughing, and I put on a fake smile to join the fun.

A few hours earlier, I discovered my wife was probably having an affair. Now it was time to “talk” about it with her after rushing upstairs to change and check her phone for confirmation.

Checking the phone confirmed my suspicions, and thus began the end of my marriage.

Divorce sucks. There is no better way to put it. Ask anyone who has been through it, and they will confirm.

It’s an unwanted gift of mental, emotional, and physical pain.

Emotional pain can be the hardest to deal with. It’s not like a body part you can see and feel healing over time, like a cut or broken bone. You must work to recover.

What if you need it? Wait, who NEEDS a divorce? More couples than would admit it. But humans always seem to need to crash completely before rebuilding.

Who doesn’t love a good comeback story?

It’s one of those rare times when you entirely control your chosen direction. The bitter divorced person or thriving because you seized the opportunity to grow.

I know because I lived it. As I pulled myself out of the depths of depression and anguish, I learned I NEEDED to go through this.

It was time to grow. Sometimes, that’s easier when you are forced into it.

There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. — Ryan Holiday

As the clouds cleared, I slowly realized there are a lot of good things that come from divorce. If you ask me today, without hesitation, I’ll tell you that divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me.

How could this be? It’s jumping on the old idea that everything is happening FOR you and not TO you.

This is what divorce taught me I had to, or could, stop doing. It was a complete mindset shift for me.

1. Stop putting myself last. As a husband and father of a newborn, I always put my wife’s and child’s needs ahead of mine. Husbands and fathers do it all the time.

It’s the type of toxic masculinity that isn’t talked about much.

Consistently putting the needs of your wife and child above yours is a soul crusher. I’m not saying to be a selfish husband or father.

But you do better as a husband and father if you charge yourself up or fill your cup first.

If you consistently give to others without doing for yourself, you’ll become burnt out and resentful towards your wife and child. Resentment turns into contempt. Contempt is a relationship killer.

I had gotten so used to putting myself on the backburner that I didn’t think communicating my wants and needs was a good idea. I thought it would create friction.

I learned it wasn’t combative to express what I wanted and needed. It was more about setting and having boundaries. It didn’t make me selfish.

People without boundaries get used and abused by those who take advantage.

Learning this lesson changed every relationship after the divorce — romantic, friends, and even how I behaved at work.

2. Misunderstanding the difference between being “okay” and “happy.” Being “okay” is enough for many people because we confuse it with being happy.

Just because you aren’t unhappy doesn’t mean you are happy.

Putting myself last for so long made me understand I was settling for less than I deserved in almost every aspect of my life.

Good enough was no longer enough for me. I wanted things to be great. My relationship, my family life, and even my career.

If you settle for the status quo long enough, you’ll forget how good things can be.

It’s not wrong to think things can change. It is inappropriate to think things will change if you don’t change yourself and your behavior.

I saw that my choices and behaviors had led me to a place I wasn’t happy with. I wanted more. So, changing was my only option.

It seems impossible after a separation, but you will probably see that being “okay” was you not being happy with the state of things. Think about it; happy couples don’t divorce.

A therapist said to me shortly after my separation that even though I was getting crushed by the changes taking place in my life, she also sensed a good amount of ease coming from me.

At that moment, I knew I had been miserable in my marriage for a long time. I made the mistake of not communicating that unhappiness.

3. Disconnecting from who you are and what you want. There were many things I wanted to try that my wife wasn’t interested in.

I wanted to travel more to see the world. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. My ex-wife didn’t have the same ambitions.

I then started to feel like a zombie just cruising through life. I had been sailing for so long that I had forgotten who I was and what I wanted.

My entire identity became a husband and father. I was nothing outside of that. Eventually, the things I wanted to do seemed impossible, and I resigned from who I had become to just being a “married father.”

I didn’t see that it could all balance out.

My divorce shined a light on my misplaced thinking about relationships. Wouldn’t it be easier to be with someone who wanted to travel if that’s what I wanted?

If I wanted to learn new things or try new hobbies, wouldn’t it make sense to be with someone who wanted to try those same things or at least support me in trying them if they weren’t interested?

The main lesson here is that if you are in a relationship where you think you have to give up on everything you want, you’re not with the right person.

4. Thinking you could have changed things. People always say hindsight is 20/20. That is true of some things.

Marriages are trickier. Adding the variable of another person changes everything.

Everyone wants to point to one thing that caused their divorce. The problem is that it’s never just one thing. Sure, there could be a catalyst, but a relationship ending is usually just the natural progression of many things adding up.

When things were fresh, I used to think about all the things I could have done differently. I would fantasize about how I could have kept the marriage alive.

It’s a convenient lie I told myself to make myself feel better. Why should I take full responsibility for fixing everything?

No behavior changes or communication improvement between us would have changed that we did not fit together.

Marriages and relationships, in general, take two people. If your partner isn’t on the same page, it doesn’t matter what you do or change.

You both are responsible for things failing and things working. When you internalize that, you can move on to find the right relationship for yourself.

So, no, divorce is not all bad. You can choose whether to view it as good or bad. Your choice is going to determine how things work out for you.

Reinvention is possible. Imagine getting to choose the cards you can play. Are you going to keep choosing the losing hand, or are you going to start winning now?

It’s your choice, but you deserve some wins. Choose wisely.