Divorce Transformations: Helping Yourself through the Separation of Your Relationship

There are 7 stages of grief and loss that you will experience when going through separation.

The universal stages of grief and loss that are most recognizable are: denial/sadness, depression, anger, bargaining, and acceptance.

There are two other stages of grief that a person goes through during separation of a major relationship. It’s hard to look at the last two stages when you are deep and raw in grief.

The sixth stage is recovering from the damage caused by the relationship and being accountable for the part of the negative dynamic that may have been yours. It is key to remember during this stage that the relationship is dynamic and each person contributes to it. Part of healing is being accountable for your part of what happened. This may be the part of yourself that you need to work on and is possibly the shadow part of your personality, this might be the part of yourself you have to understand better and accept, so you can get your needs met in a relationship. In order to have a successful relationship in the future you will need to work on yourself, heal so this dynamic is not recreated in your next relationship.

The seventh stage is having a vision of your future and what you want in life going forward. Oftentimes, people find that what they have been struggling with in their long-term relationship are similar struggle they have in other parts of their life such as work, friendships, or family relationships.

My view of healing from separation and divorce is to let it be about transformation—it can be a chance to transform your life and to create the life that you want, one that would be fulfilling for you. You might have to work on figuring out what that is and helping yourself grow and expand your thinking so that you can actually have the life you envision.

You may be stuck in old patterns, but it’s never too late to change. Get the support you need to imagine and live the life you want.