The Art Of Rebuilding Yourself After Divorce

The best way out is always through — Robert Frost.

I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t slept much for the last week. It had been over a year since my wife, and I separated, and I was finally reaching my acceptance point.

I had been hanging out with depression for so long that I forgot what I looked like without it. Days became a blur. I was living on autopilot. I honestly don’t recall much from that year at all, even to this day. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism.

My mind was restless. As I lay there, I kept having the same thought. It’s over, so now what do I do? Am I going to live the rest of my lackluster life, blaming everything on that one time I divorced?

The more I thought about things, the more it was apparent. I had a choice to make. I could spend my life grieving, miserable, and pointing fingers while life moved on without me, or I could accept things for how they were and focus on what was in my control.

So now what?

What’s in my control? First and foremost, I could decide to let the whole situation go. Everything unfolded the way it did. It couldn’t be changed now. No take-backs.

Many people think that letting go means you no longer care and are no longer affected. That’s not the case. It just means you’re no longer devoting time, energy, and thought to control a problem you can’t.

The situation still rocks you, but you’re spending your effort trying to get through it and not getting spun up mentally and emotionally on what-ifs.

As the weight lifted, I thought about how far I had fallen. The weight I had gained from the emotional eating, my drug of choice. I thought about my shattered confidence and self-loathing. And as much as I was disappointed in what I had let myself become, I was even more disappointed in the example I was setting for my daughter.

She would be three soon. She was innocent. She shouldn’t have to grow up around me in that state for the rest of her life.

I started to search for things I knew I needed to work on. My health was an easy one. I also knew my finances were going to be a struggle. I was in a house I couldn’t afford and would soon have to pay child support.

I struggled emotionally and needed to work on getting my emotions in check. I also required a complete mental overhaul. My mindset was keeping me from getting back on track. I would have to learn to be friendly and supportive of myself if I wanted to get anywhere now.

How am I going to tackle all these things?

Health and Fitness

I put my health and fitness as the backbone of bouncing back. It would give me the quickest positive results. The weight will come off if I start being mindful of eating and exercising. It will help build my confidence and make me feel better about myself.

I needed a quick fix, and I kept it simple at first. I picked up a pedometer and tried to get as many steps in during the day as possible. I took the long route everywhere. I took the stairs if possible and took a 2.5–3 mile walk every afternoon after work. It was spring/summer, so it was an excellent way to get outside.

I didn’t count calories. I just ate less of the garbage I was already eating and replaced some things with healthier choices. Eating a whole large pizza became just eating a few slices. Late-night binging sessions disappeared because I started going to bed earlier. Anything I used to get a jumbo size to eat got replaced with something smaller.

Between Spring and the end of Summer, I lost 50 pounds from those changes. The time I spent walking around was also instrumental in clearing my head.

It doesn’t matter what you choose. Just make sure you are doing something active. You don’t need to join a gym. Just get out and walk if that’s all you can do. Try and eat less than usual if you are struggling with overeating. What worked for me was not keeping the bad stuff in my house. When I did go get it, I only got enough for that day. If I bought more, I’d end up binging.

Finances

I put together a quick, down, and dirty budget. It wasn’t pretty. I couldn’t afford to stay in my house, pay my bills and child support, and keep food on the table.

I loved my house. I didn’t want to leave. But maybe staying there was keeping me down. I had tried to move furniture around and re-paint. That was cool for a while, but eventually, the weight of memories would wrap around my neck and drag me down. So, I decided to sell and move to a different city 10 minutes away.

Best decision I ever made. I broke even on the house, luckily. I downsized and moved into an apartment closer to work and the city. More importantly, moving into a new place was refreshing for my spirit. It was time to move on. And at least physically, I had!

Had I had no choice but to stay in my old house, I would have been forced to get a second job. Having a young child, I wanted to help and watch her grow up and not spend more time working. I was already losing half of her childhood because of shared custody.

Your expenditures will go up with one income paying for everything now. You may have to pay child support and or alimony. What about legal fees? School loans? You have to understand what is coming in and going on. If you don’t know where to start, pick up a copy of Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover.

Emotional and Mental Health

My job had great insurance, so I put myself in therapy. For months I unpacked everything I could on the therapist’s couch. I always joke that it was so heavy there that I forced her into retirement. She retired a year after I started seeing her.

I also sought out other divorced co-parents. I wanted to find other people that could relate to what I was going through. Meetup.com was where I discovered that. I also started reading everything I could about inter and intrapersonal relationships. I wanted to learn what made me tick thoroughly and the world around me.

The mental aspects were by far the most challenging. Sometimes you don’t realize how bad it is until you look honestly at things. I needed to rebuild my self-confidence and self-esteem. Re-learn to love me. I thought I just had to rebuild and relearn, but the deeper I got, the more I realized I never truly loved myself.

When you learn about all your faulty beliefs about yourself, you then learn how you’ve had them for so long that they’ve been operating in the background without noticing. They’ve become a part of your identity — critical and negative self-talk playing on an endless loop.

More importantly, you learn that you can never stop those things completely. At first, you learn to notice. Then you learn how to contain, then battle against, and win. While their frequency becomes less, they never entirely disappear. But you can beat them. You can always beat them. Don’t give up.

I tried other things as well, but this was the foundation of what I did. It was a long and winding road. There was no steady linear growth. It was up and down until I got to a better place.

As low as you might feel right now, better days are ahead. It’s strange because it feels like the end. And it is, in a way, but it’s only a chapter that is ending. You’ve still got plenty of chapters to write.

Take things day by day and find some easy wins early on. The momentum from those will propel you forward. When you look back at what you have become, you’ll realize how remarkable what you just did was.

If you are where I was, it’s up to you to make the same decision. Trust me, always choose growth.