Divorce is easier than in earlier times. However, it still carries a sense of failure for many people. Most people divorce when living with their spouses is intolerable. I’ll mention six reasons why it’s difficult to be single again.
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Fear of Living Alone
Many people are afraid they cannot do well if they end a familiar relationship. Some people feel worthless when they no longer have a spouse to give to and to care for. Sometimes they feel they no longer have a reason to live.
Other people considering divorce feel they will do well. Their self-importance has them think this. But they may not be able to manage well because their former spouse took care of things for them. They may find themselves unable to manage simple tasks like grocery shopping, finances. and house cleaning. They may feel lonely and overwhelmed and long for their spouse who took care of things for them.
Nothing Changes in Divorce Roles
In my forty years of clinical practice, I find that people continue relating to one another emotionally and psychologically as they did during the marriage. They take their same ways of relating into the divorce. Commonly, spouses remain psychologically committed to ex-spouses. Few seek psychological help to discover how to disentangle from one another and to live in new roles.
Family and Friends Join the Fray
Friends and family mean well but complicate the divorce process and the return to living alone. They entangle themselves into your divorce process. Some critique and criticize you for divorcing. Some assume you are self-serving. Some offer sympathy to one spouse for being abandoned and forced to navigate a life on their own.
Commonly, one spouse receives lots of support from friends and family while the other spouse may be criticized, shunned, and unsupported.
Source: Sammy-Sander/Pixabay
Confusion in Going to Court
Couples go to court to settle the legal end to marriage. But judges have not studied the psychological complexity of spousal relationships. Judges make errors because of this. These errors compound the emotional roller coaster divorcing spouses are on. Judges may err in decisions on child custody, child support, asset splits, and spousal maintenance.
Many times, one of the couple reaps a windfall while the other reaps bankruptcy, all the while trying to defend themselves to the judge.
Less Support is Available
Divorcing people try to set up new lifestyles at a time less support is available. Married friends and the old social network have a way of disappearing after a couple’s divorce.
Some divorced people seek out psychotherapy to help them understand the divorce causes and to work through their distressing anxiety and depression. But such people are in the minority. Most divorced people blunder their way back into dating using the same methods and criteria as they did in their previous marriage.
With little self-awareness, people find one type of person attractive and reject other dating candidates. They have no new skills in how to evaluate people to date for selecting a future mate.
Navigating Concerns with Child Custody
Those who are parents must concern themselves with custody of the children. Homer B. Martin, MD and I found that some parents are concerned with the emotional welfare of the children and want to parent well even though divorcing. These parents may bend over backwards to comply with joint custody and coparenting.
Other parents, we found, disrupt their children’s well-being. They may use the children as pawns to display anger with their ex-spouse and to get revenge for the divorce, even when they were the ones seeking it. They may believe they are good parents even though they were only minimally involved in parenting during the marriage. Such parents may seek full custody to exert control over their children.
Split and joint custody determinations are in vogue with courts. Such determinations strive to be fair to parents. But we find they do not mean children are cared for equally by each parent. Children quickly see what parents are like in their parental role when they live solo with each parent. Rather quickly, children spot what parents do and fail to do to care for them. Who feeds them nourishing food and who feeds them fast food? Who does the laundry and who has them wear dirty clothes? Who gets them to school and practices on time and who forgets or runs late?
Custody battles may ensue. These may fatigue both parents as they take up a lot of time and create a lot of emotional turmoil.
Suggestions for Navigating Your Fears
- Get involved with a therapist who does psychodynamic psychotherapy with you. This type of therapy will help you discover the emotional roles you learned as a child about how you were to carry out your relationships. Such therapy will help you make changes in yourself so that you do not repeat being attracted to the same type of person as you were in your marriage.
- Remind yourself that you likely lived solo before you married. You were younger and less experienced in how to run your life than you are now. You will survive being single and may enjoy the experience of not being in a disliked or dysfunctional marriage.
- Put limits on abuse or negative comments from friends and family about your divorce: “I won’t listen to you say that about me.” “What you say is not the case. This is. I’ll have my say on it. Then I’m not going to talk with you anymore about it.”
- Find groups of people who enjoy doing what you do—book groups, sports, religious groups, parent groups, cooking groups, and so on. Remind yourself that you got divorced to have and enjoy a better life. Dig in.
- Help your children through the divorce. Listen to their concerns. Change what you can through the court system and/or talking with the other parent. Urge your children to speak up to their other parent when they have concerns or complaints. You cannot do it all. Don’t give in to anything you think is harmful that the court or an ex-spouse wants you or your children to do.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
