Well-being

Maintaining your physical and emotional well-being is crucial during and after divorce. Find practical advice on self-care, stress management, and personal growth, including strategies for dealing with anxiety, depression, and other emotional challenges common during this life transition. Discover tools and techniques to nurture your mental health, rebuild self-esteem, and cultivate resilience as you navigate your new life chapter.

If Divorce Is This Hard, Maybe I Should Have Just Stayed Married.
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If Divorce Is This Hard, Maybe I Should Have Just Stayed Married.

Published on
Carol Madden
Carol Madden
Separation and Divorce Coach
Carol Madden Coaching

Why wanting to go back keeps you stuck in the pain

“If Divorce Is This Hard, Maybe I Should Have Just Stayed Married”.

So many people who initiate their divorces ask this question when they are a year or more down the road.

I know this feeling well.

I knew that my marriage was no longer sustainable. I knew that staying was going to be painful. And yet, once I was divorced and the pain truly hit me, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should have just stayed and taken that misery over the misery I was feeling now.

It’s an incredibly painful paradox.

I initiated the separation because we were both so unhappy. But I was unhappy now too, so maybe I should have just stayed.

This was the illusion I was falling into.

I was believing that I could somehow control what my ex-spouse wanted or how he behaved. I was looking backwards and imagining that if I had made different decisions, somehow the outcome would have been different.

I also started to believe that perhaps I had made a huge mistake. That maybe I had chosen the wrong path.

But I hadn’t.

I had chosen this path for good reason. And now that the pain had arrived, I wanted to go backwards. I wanted to turn back time so I could revisit the mythical place that was the “happier times.”

But the happier times had died. That was why the marriage had felt so painful.

The death of the relationship had already happened. But I was in denial of that. I denied it to myself because the grief of the reality was too much to bear.

Anyone who has experienced the end of a marriage knows that it doesn’t happen overnight. It slowly declines over many years. There were years in which I went through periods of being able to bury things down, or deny things were happening, because the reality of facing the separation was too overwhelming and I simply wasn’t ready.

I knew it was going to be a shock to leave. I knew that it was going to take a herculean effort to leave the comfort and safety of a marriage and branch out into a life that was completely unknown.

So when I finally made that decision, the bottom line was, I was ready.

Not consciously ready. But something in me told me unequivocally that I had to get out.

And then, one year, two years down the track, when the pain of divorce simply wasn’t leaving, I started to second-guess myself.

Questions arose like, “Hang on, shouldn’t I be over this by now? If I still feel this confused and in pain, maybe I should never have left my marriage in the first place.”

This was the pivotal point. The time when I needed to begin the process of truly letting go of what was.

It wasn’t that I was physically going back and asking my ex-spouse to get back together. No. I tormented myself with imagining it. With wondering. But I never actually got anywhere.

It was a type of emotional hell. Spinning my wheels, panicking, looking for an escape route when there actually wasn’t one.

This was reality, plain and simple. And now was the work that needed to be done in me. I had the time and I had the space. Here it was. What I wanted.

This space was for healing. For coming to terms with all that I needed to face. Not just my ex-husband’s shortcomings, but my own.

It was terrifying.

I had to sit with the fact that a relationship could not fix or fulfil needs in me that I didn’t even know that I had myself.

There was no denying that I had changed. I didn’t recognise myself, and that was a destabilising realisation.

Rather than face that, my brain and nervous system wanted to reach back for the familiar. To believe that I could control the outcome by simply going back in time and undoing this pain.

Looking back, I can see that this was a normal human coping strategy. I was fantasising about not being in this god awful emotional predicament. I was trying to find a way to control the outcome again instead of facing what had to be faced.

I hadn’t been ready to do this. And I think that’s why I stayed stuck in the pain, the confusion and the illusion of control.

Eventually, I became ready to start the process of letting go and accepting what was instead of trying to change it. 

Is it an easy process? No.

How long will it take? There’s no set timeline.

It requires faith in yourself, belief in yourself and a huge amount of courage. But the life on the other side is worth it.

Imagine it.

You’re free. You’re clear that you’re exactly where you need to be. You accept your part in where you are today. You don’t need to blame your ex to feel justified and you’ve worked your way through unnecessary guilt.

You’re ready to rebuild a life that feels good. You feel optimistic that there are still good things to come. You don’t need a relationship or a specific set of circumstances to feel that life can be worthwhile again.

You can be alone without feeling like your life is empty.

You can wake up in the morning and not immediately think about what happened, what anyone else is doing with their lives, or whether you made the right decision.

You can stop looking backwards and start making decisions based on the life you actually want, rather than trying to repair the life you lost.

And you can get to a place where the grief is no longer running your life. It may still be there. You may still have days when something catches you off guard. But it no longer has the same power over you.

That’s what you’re working towards when you’re in the thick of it thinking “I can’t do this. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I just want something to make the pain stop.”

I understand that.

And this is why I believe it is so important not to rush to fill the void. Not to immediately find another relationship, another distraction, or another version of the life you had before.

There is something you need to find in this space.

It’s not one clear pathway. Sometimes you will stumble in the dark. Sometimes you will wonder if you are getting anywhere at all.

But if you stay with it, you’ll know that you’re moving in the right direction.

And that will always be enough.

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The Hidden and Very Real Costs of Motherhood

The Hidden and Very Real Costs of Motherhood

Published on
Katie Trexler
Katie Trexler
Author
Trexler Communications, LLC.

How I Continue to Pay Even Though My Children are Now Adults

Most moms make enormous sacrifices for the people we love.

We give up our time, our energy, and oftentimes our own wellbeing to enable our children to thrive. Being selfless, giving, and nurturing is who we are by nature. For me, the sacrifices of motherhood have been deeply fulfilling, but they have also cost me dearly, in very real and practical ways.

As a young mom, I thought I might be one of those fortunate women who could have it all. I was in my mid-thirties, working my dream job as a morning anchor in my hometown of Denver. It was often painful waking up around 2:15 a.m. to get to the station, but I was grateful when my shift wrapped up at noon and I could rush home to my other, more important job: Mom.

I thought I had the best of both worlds: a career that satisfied my ambitions, provided me a solid paycheck, and allowed me to have quality time with my family.

As our children got older, however, my husband started traveling regularly for his job. Suddenly, I wasn’t just a working mom, I was a working mom doing most things single handedly.

I was exhausted and stressed to the point of chest pains, constantly trying to meet the demands of two roles that both mattered to me.

The pace got so overwhelming that when my kids were nearly five, I made the difficult decision to leave the news desk, move out of state, and support my husband’s career path.

I had no idea how that choice would impact my identity, sense of self, and financial wellbeing for years to come. The moment I left the station, I went from being the highest earner in the household to bringing in nothing and being completely dependent on my husband’s income.

At first, I didn’t see this as a problem.

I didn’t think I was leaving news, the career, name recognition, and earning power I’d built over fifteen years, forever. I thought I was taking a break, rebuilding my tired body, and enjoying time with my children before they went into kindergarten.

Only life didn’t quite go to plan.

It was harder than I expected to find another job in news. I also recognised that returning to a demanding, full-time schedule would cost me valuable time with my son and daughter.

So, I reinvented myself and took a new professional path, freelancing in PR.

Pivoting gave me flexibility so I could be the primary caregiver for my children while also trying to build my new business.

I was hoping to strike a balance between career and motherhood. Turns out that balance also had its costs, many of which were invisible.

Despite wanting and needing to contribute to our family finances, I limited my work to what could happen between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. when the kids were in school.

As a freelancer, I didn’t have a steady paycheck. The work ebbed and flowed, and my income was a fraction of what I made as a news anchor. For several years I didn’t make contributions to my 401K, I had no employer match, or compounding growth.

Compared to my husband, a disproportionate amount of my time was committed to unpaid labor, the carpooling, the homework, activities, the doctor and dentist appointments. I rarely questioned these choices, because I loved my kids.

I valued that I was able to make my children and their lives a top priority and believed it made me a better mom.

I was also deeply invested in my marriage.

With me handling everything on the homefront, my husband was able to fully devote his time and energy to his career. He no doubt carried a lot of stress knowing our family relied on his income, but he was able to focus on his work with relatively few distractions or added responsibilities at home.

He traveled whenever it was required, worked as late as needed, and left it to me to cancel meetings or adjust my schedule if one of the kids got sick or an emergency emerged.

It made sense for us to divide and conquer like this. We needed one of us to manage the various needs of the family and the other to be dedicated to our financial future, attain promotions, earn higher salaries, and receive large bonuses.

I was often grateful for his contributions and our comfortable life. And yet, as an ambitious woman it wasn’t always easy to sit back and watch my husband’s professional progress.

I often felt like I wasn’t living up to my greatest potential. Especially when I watched friends and former colleagues achieve success at the network level in television news or others climb to impressive heights as doctors, lawyers, or in corporate America.

Most of them were also moms but had remained immersed in their work because of strong support systems with care providers, or in a few cases, because they had husbands who stepped into the primary caregiving role.

I have to admit, there were many times when I resented my husband for being able to focus on his career with relative ease. And I resented myself for not having an awareness that me and my job growth equally mattered.

I felt that resentment most profoundly nearly ten years after leaving my dream job at the station, when my marriage unexpectedly ended. Yes, the man I counted on, the man I believed was my lifelong partner wasn’t as committed to me or the marriage as I expected.

Suddenly I found myself in a position I never anticipated. I was in my mid-40s, looking at an uncertain future without the financial security I counted on when I first adjusted my career path all those years ago.

After our divorce, more than one person said to me, “You kind of got screwed.”

Well, yes, that is one way of looking at it.

From a financial and practical perspective, I certainly did get the short end of the stick.

Sadly, I know I’m not alone.

The so-called caregiver penalty impacts a disproportionate number of women.

According to the Pew Research Center, about 65% of mothers adjust their careers, reduce their hours, or pause work to care for their families.

Stepping away from the workforce, even briefly, has a lasting impact on a woman’s lifetime earnings. Research has shown that women who took a single year off work had lifetime earnings that were 40% lower than those who didn’t take time off.

Moreover, divorce hits women’s finances far harder than men’s. According to a 2025 study by the University of Michigan, women experienced drops in family income of 46% to 50%, nearly double the reductions experienced by men. Pamela Smock, the sociologist who led this study, explained: “Traditional gender-based division of labor and unpaid labor can make women more economically vulnerable.”

In my situation, perhaps the most bitter pill to swallow was knowing that the circumstances I now found myself in were at least in part the result of choices I had willingly made. I had chosen to leave my established career in television news and later made professional choices so I could remain focused on my family’s needs.

But those choices didn’t happen in a vacuum. Many of my decisions were heavily influenced by society and deeply ingrained internal beliefs that as the woman, as the mom, I should be the person to make the adjustments, not my husband.

Looking back, he never offered to adjust his thriving career so I could refocus on mine. But I also never asked him to. Mostly because I was afraid of the impact it would have on our family.

If I’d really wanted to get back to news, I could have pushed harder and made it happen. But getting back into that industry or even pursuing a more demanding job in corporate America would have placed significant strain on our family. A main anchor job might have required us to uproot our lives and move out of state. And to make the kind of money needed to support a family of four, I would have been consumed with work and has less time with my children. Even the idea of that made me feel so guilty that when thoughts of pursuing those opportunities surfaced, I ignored them.

I don’t want to look back on my life with regrets, but I can’t help but wonder what if?

What if I’d never agreed to leave my dream job all those years ago. Where would I be right now personally and professionally. What would be my job title, the balance in my bank account, or 401K?

And how would a different decision have impacted my marriage and my family?

My husband and I had never really discussed whose career should take priority. I think we both assumed they mattered equally. In fact, years earlier, he had moved to Detroit when I was presented with a big opportunity as an investigative reporter. And we weren’t even married at the time.

But now we had two young children, two careers, and a decision that forced us to weigh one against the other.

What if, instead of agreeing to leave my career, I’d said, “No. My career matters, too. I want to stay”?

Would my husband have resented me for limiting his potential?

Or perhaps he would have taken the position anyway. Would we have lived apart for a while? Would we have stayed together?

I’ll never know.

What I do know is that at the time, asking him to sacrifice his opportunity for my career felt almost unthinkable. His new job offered our family greater financial security, while staying in mine felt like choosing my own ambition over what was best for everyone else. And as a mother, that was a difficult choice to make.

What is abundantly clear now is that for the rest of my life, I will be paying the financial price for taking the path I did, and he will not.

In fact, in the years after our marriage ended, my ex-husband kept climbing professionally, and ultimately landed the job of his dreams, chief executive officer; the prestigious title, large salary and bonuses to match.

He is talented and driven for sure, but there’s no doubt that he is now where he is because of the support I gave him all those years ago. He was in a prime position to reach those heights because his career trajectory never changed.

There’s an old saying that behind every great man is a great woman. I’ve never been sure whether that was intended as a compliment, or rather a patronising way of recognising the unseen support many women provide their husbands and families. Sadly, I now find an uncomfortable truth to it.

When I was a young mom in news, I was fiercely independent. My marriage was a partnership in which both parents could and should thrive. And for many years it was exactly that.

But slowly, over time, choice by choice, the practicalities of managing a home and taking care of children began to overshadow my own ambitions.

Somehow, in the busyness of it all, I don’t think I even realised what was happening.

I never consciously decided his career mattered more than mine. I simply wanted a balance between career and motherhood, and this was how I could satisfy both parts of my heart. It was okay to fall into the supportive role for now, because eventually, I would get back to me.

Looking back, I wonder, if I’d known then what I know now, would I have made different choices? Would I have recognised the urgency in prioritising my career and valuing my well-being along with my family’s needs?

I choose to believe that I made the decisions I did, as a woman, a mom, and a wife, based on the information I had. And those were the right decisions at the time. I also appreciate that I made the choices I did out of love, trust, and perhaps some naivety.

Like many women, I was willing to pay the costs to support my family. I will never regret being a mom. My life is rich with memories and experiences from raising my children, and I’m incredibly grateful for the strong relationships I have with them now that they are adults.

But what I wish I understood as a young mom is that loving my family didn’t require me to lose myself in the process.

About Katie Trexler

Katie Trexler is an Emmy Award–winning television journalist turned PR professional. Her greatest joy comes from spending time with family—laughing, cooking, and discussing life with her adult children. She also treasures early-morning walks, yoga, coffee, and writing when no one else is around. She’s forever grateful for the strong, loving, and hilarious girlfriends who have supported her throughout life. Katie lives in the Denver area with her husband, a high school crush she reconnected with later in life.

You can read her memoir called “What Do I Tell My Daughter?” here.

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Shouldn’t Divorce Get Easier As Time Passes?
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Shouldn’t Divorce Get Easier As Time Passes?

Published on
Carol Madden
Carol Madden
Separation and Divorce Coach
Carol Madden Coaching

Why You Feel Worse Before You Feel Better After Divorce

It feels as though the third year after divorce should be easier than the first two, right?

You’ve got time behind you. You’ve gotten used to the new routines. You’re supposed to be “moving on”. You’ve survived the initial upheaval and, on the surface at least, life is beginning to feel more normal.

And yet, if all of that was true, there wouldn’t be that strange freefall feeling that can happen when you reach the two year mark.

I see this happen again and again with the women I work with. They feel as though they’re tracking well. They’ve got through the initial crisis, they’re highly functioning, they’ve built new routines and they’re getting on with life. Then, somewhere around that two-year mark, something shifts and they start questioning everything.

It was exactly the same for me.

I divorced with two young children. My son was eight and my daughter was five, so life was already incredibly full. There were school runs, appointments, homework, weekend sport, and all the ordinary demands that come with raising small children.

Then you add divorce to that.

Custody arrangements. Stress. Anxiety. Fear about the future. Grief. Dealing with extended family. Losing friendships. Trying to create some kind of new normal when the family structure you had built your life around has disintegrated.

There wasn’t much time to stop and think about how I was actually doing. I was focused on getting everyone else through it.

Of course, the demands look different when your children are teenagers or young adults. You might not be dealing with school runs and bath time anymore, but you may be navigating teenage emotions, exams, relationships, independence, university, or supporting a young adult who is finding their own way. You’re still very capable of putting their needs ahead of your own.

And this is something I see particularly often in high-performing women. We are very good at getting everyone else through difficult things. We organise, we solve problems, we keep things moving, we show up at work, we make sure the children are okay and we somehow keep functioning when, underneath it all, we are struggling.

We are often the last ones to get a glimpse of the care we give to everyone else who needs it.

This is why the two-year mark can be such a significant point.

By then, things have usually become quieter. The legalities are, in most cases, over. The paperwork and negotiations are behind you. You’ve finally stopped thinking of your ex-spouse as your partner, and your children have started to get their heads around the change and settle into their new routines.

And suddenly, there is space to think.

Space to look back. To wonder where it all went wrong. To question whether you could have done things differently. To really feel the reality of running your own life and your own home, and perhaps being a single mother in a way you hadn’t quite allowed yourself to fully acknowledge before.

And that reality can be incredibly confronting.

Your mind can start reaching back towards the comfort zone of marriage. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. You know why you left. But it was familiar, and familiarity can feel very comforting when you’re standing at the beginning of a completely unknown road.

The road to rebuilding a life from scratch.

And for women in midlife, there can be another layer to this. Your children may be getting older and becoming more independent, and suddenly the question of your own life becomes much louder.

Who are you now? What do you actually want? What does this next chapter look like when so much of your identity has been tied up in being a wife and a mother?

The first couple of years are about survival. You get yourself through each day. You go to work, achieve at your usual high standard, make sure the family have everything they need and try to create a healthy and amicable co-parenting relationship.

You might start dating again. You’re figuring out where you fit within your old extended family. You’re navigating friendships, growing professionally. There is a huge amount going on.

So where, in all of that, is there time to stop, catch your breath and actually feel what has happened to you?

For me, most of my intense grieving hit around the two-year mark. The quiet was deafening. The grief and loneliness was all encompassing.

I understand now why the two-year mark seems to be such a significant marker for so many of the women I work with.

It’s not necessarily that something has gone wrong. In many ways, it’s the opposite. You’ve finally got everyone through the initial impact, and there is enough space in your life for you to feel what you have been carrying.

And that can feel like a setback.

You might suddenly feel anxious again. You might start questioning your decision. You might miss your ex. You might wonder whether you made a terrible mistake. You might feel desperately sad, confused or completely unlike the woman who seemed to be doing so well six months ago.

If this is happening to you, please don’t panic.

You haven’t undone all the progress you’ve made. You haven’t gone backwards, and it doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision. It doesn’t mean you should think about going back or that something is wrong with you.

It may simply be that you’ve reached a point where there is finally enough quiet for you to process what you have actually been through.

You are a woman who has been through something enormous. You got yourself and everyone around you through the first impact. Now it’s time to give the love, support and care you gave to everyone else, to yourself.

You don’t need to have it all figured out.

You may simply need some time, some space and some support to feel and process what you were too busy to feel.

If you’re a few years down the track and wondering what on earth is happening to you, take a breath. There is nothing wrong with you. This is all very normal.

You can reframe this time as a unique opportunity.

Start asking yourself what care looks like for you now, and what’s going to support you the most as you begin to build this next part of your post-divorce life.

Read more articles by Carol Madden.

About Carol Madden

I’m Carol Madden, a Post-Divorce Life Coach working with women around the world from my online practice.

I work with women who have been divorced for two years or more and thought they’d feel better by now. They’re functioning and getting on with life, but still struggling to let go, heal and move forward in their new post-divorce lives.

I’ve been through divorce myself, and that experience led me to this work. I know what it’s like to look fine on the outside while still carrying grief, guilt, confusion and all the unanswered questions underneath, even several years later.

I also know what it takes to come out the other side and build a life that feels good again.

I help women get to the heart of what’s holding them back, stop looking backwards and find the strength to move forward, even when it feels hard.

Discover me on social media:

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A Full Mind, An Empty Tank: How to Make Decisions When Your Brain Can’t

Published on
Yvonne Filler
Yvonne Filler
Co-Founder
amelliora

‘I just can’t seem to make decisions anymore’. It’s a common admission from women navigating separation. Not just the big decisions, where to live, how to divide the finances, what to tell the children. Just ordinary ones. What to have for dinner. Whether to reply to a message. What to wear.

It turns out this isn’t weakness or confusion. It’s biology.
When we’re under sustained stress, our bodies release cortisol, which directly affects the part of the brain responsible for analytical thinking and weighing up options. Research shows that elevated cortisol biases the brain away from careful, deliberate reasoning and toward instinct and habit. We become, quite literally, less able to think things through. Even minor decisions drain cognitive resources that are already depleted. As Art Markman, professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, puts it:
‘Stress decreases our working memory capacity, so we have fewer cognitive resources to wrap our heads around all the different options, even for things that are relatively inconsequential.’
There’s another layer to it. Rumination.  The circular thinking that kicks in when we’re under stress. The questions that go around without resolution. What if I’d done things differently? What does this mean for the children? What if I can’t manage financially? What will people think? Unlike reflection, which moves us toward clarity, rumination keeps us stuck in the same loop focusing on the causes and consequences of our distress rather than solutions to it. It feels productive, like we’re working through something. But research shows it impairs our ability to make good decisions and can lead to analysis paralysis, becoming so caught in the loop that we can’t decide anything at all. At a moment when decisions feel important, urgent and unavoidable, this is perhaps the cruellest part of the experience.
This happens in other high-stress periods too, serious illness, bereavement, job loss, new parenthood. Any time life asks too much of us at once, decision-making suffers. The difference with separation is that it doesn’t just ask too much of us emotionally. It asks us to make some of the most consequential decisions of our lives, legal, financial, practical, parental, at precisely the moment we are least equipped to make them well.

The worst time to make big decisions

Under stress, we tend to make decisions quickly because they bring temporary relief. The decision is made, the anxiety lifts, and we can breathe for a moment. Research bears this out: the feeling of being rushed is itself one of the strongest predictors of later regret. And most divorce regret doesn’t centre on the decision to separate, it centres on how decisions were made during the process.
The pressure to decide quickly rarely comes from nowhere. It can come from the other party or their solicitor moving fast. From well-meaning family and friends who want things resolved. Or from inside, from exhaustion, from the completely understandable wish to make the pain stop. All of it can push you toward decisions made for the wrong reasons.

Not all decisions are equal

One of the most useful things you can do in the early stages of separation is to stop treating all decisions as equally urgent, because they aren’t.
Some decisions can’t wait. Your immediate safety and housing. Protecting joint finances from unilateral action. Basic arrangements for your children in the short term. These need attention, and getting early legal advice on them is important.
Some decisions can wait and should. Final financial settlements, decisions about selling the family home, formalising long-term arrangements beyond immediate needs. These are precisely the decisions most likely to be made badly under pressure and regretted later. They deserve time, proper advice, and a clearer head than the early weeks of separation usually allow.
If a decision truly cannot wait, you need to know why and that reason should come from your solicitor, not from pressure.

The sequence matters

The antidote to overwhelm isn’t making decisions faster. It’s understanding which decisions to make first, in what order, and with what support around you.
A useful first step is simply to separate the urgent from the important. What needs to happen in the next few weeks is different from what needs to happen over the next few months and writing those two lists, even roughly, can bring surprising clarity.
Gathering information before making decisions is just as important as making the decisions themselves. Start with what you know or can find out. Bank and savings statements. Mortgage documents. Pension statements for both of you. Credit card and loan balances. Tax returns. What does your income look like as a single household? What would your outgoings be? You don’t need exact figures to begin with; a rough picture is enough to start understanding your position. Here’s the crucial thing: you cannot negotiate what you don’t yet understand. Understanding your financial and legal picture, even imperfectly, puts you in a significantly stronger position before any formal conversations begin.

You don’t have to have all the answers yet

The goal in the early stages of separation isn’t to resolve everything. It’s to make sure that the decisions you do make are the right ones made at the right time, with the right information, and the right support around you.
The decisions that shape your life for the next decade deserve more than a moment of overwhelm and a pressure to agree. They deserve time, clarity, and the space to think.
When everything feels equally urgent and equally unclear, the mind struggles to find a way in. The cortisol that clouds your thinking and fuels the rumination begins to recede when we feel even a small sense of control. Identifying what you know, what you need to find out, and what can wait, quietens the noise. And in a quieter mind, decisions become better.
You don’t have to decide everything now. You just have to decide what comes first.

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Stop Demonizing Divorce. Start Supporting the People Going Through It.
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Stop Demonizing Divorce. Start Supporting the People Going Through It.

Published on
Natasha Bacca
Natasha Bacca
Divorce Doula, Mediator & Writer

It’s time we stopped confusing preserving marriages with protecting families—and replaced judgment with compassion.

There are few major life transitions we still expect people to endure with as much shame as divorce.

When someone is diagnosed with a serious illness, we rally around them. When someone loses a loved one, we bring food, send flowers, check in, and make room for grief.

But when a marriage ends?

People often disappear.

Friends don’t know what to say. Families quietly take sides. Communities that once offered belonging can become sources of judgment. The person going through the divorce may feel pressure to explain what happened, defend why they are leaving, prove they tried hard enough— or remain silent altogether.

Divorce is still too often framed as a personal failure. A broken promise. A selfish choice. Evidence that someone didn’t try hard enough to save their family.

And that framing does real harm.

Because divorce is rarely a simple choice between staying married and walking away.

Sometimes a marriage ends because of betrayal, addiction, abuse, coercion, chronic conflict, or years of emotional harm. Sometimes one person wants the divorce and the other is devastated by it.

Sometimes two people love each other and still cannot create a healthy life together. Sometimes people spend years trying to repair a relationship before finally acknowledging that staying is costing them too much.

And sometimes ending a marriage is not the destruction of a family. Sometimes it is the beginning of making that family safer.

Whatever brought someone to divorce, they are already facing one of the most significant transitions of their lives. What they need from the people around them is not another layer of judgment.

They need compassion.

The Cost of Stigma

Divorce stigma doesn’t simply hurt people’s feelings. It can influence the decisions they make long before anyone files paperwork.

When people believe ending a marriage makes them a failure, they may stay silent longer. They may minimize what is happening inside their homes. They may hesitate to ask for help or tell the truth about their relationships.

They may remain in harmful dynamics because leaving feels morally worse than suffering. For parents, the pressure can be even greater.

Stay for the kids.

Keep the family together.

Don’t be the one who breaks up the home.

But preserving a marriage and preserving a healthy family are not always the same thing.

By the time some couples finally separate, years of damage have accumulated. Resentment has deepened. Communication has deteriorated. Finances may be strained. Children may have spent years absorbing tension between their parents.

The divorce didn’t necessarily create all of that.

It may simply have revealed what was already there.

Stigma does not necessarily prevent divorce. Sometimes it simply delays support until families are already in crisis.

This Is Not a Fringe Experience

Nearly one-third of American children experience parental divorce before reaching adulthood, according to a 2025 study using linked tax and Census records for more than five million children.

Think about the scale of that for a moment.

This is not a rare family aberration. It is a major childhood and family transition experienced by millions of people—and one that deserves far more thoughtful support than our culture currently provides.

Yet we continue to treat divorce as something families should whisper about. Something parents should apologize for.

Something children should be protected from discussing.

Something adults should have to justify before receiving compassion.

When an experience touches this many families, shame is not a solution.

Support is.

What We Get Wrong About Children and Divorce

Divorce can be hard on children. We should acknowledge that plainly.

It can bring enormous changes: two homes, altered routines, financial stress, grief, uncertainty, and less access to one or both parents.

But “divorce can hurt children” is not the same thing as “parents should stay married for their children.”

Research tells a much more complicated story. A 2022 review of the literature on children’s adjustment to divorce found that the family environment before and after divorce—particularly the level of interparental conflict—plays a crucial role in how children fare.

In other words, the legal end of the marriage is only one part of the story.

The environment children are living in matters enormously.

Decades of research have also linked interparental conflict with emotional and behavioral difficulties in children, and those associations exist in both married and divorced families.

A marriage can remain legally intact while a family is emotionally falling apart.

Children can live with married parents and still grow up surrounded by hostility, contempt, fear, volatility, silence, or chronic tension. They can learn that love means enduring disrespect. They can learn that keeping a family together matters more than the wellbeing of the people inside it.

Those lessons matter, too.

The marriage certificate itself is not what makes a home safe.

So perhaps the question should not simply be, Is divorce bad for children?

A better question is:

What environment gives these particular children the greatest opportunity to feel safe, loved, connected, and emotionally secure?

Sometimes the answer will be helping parents repair their marriage. Sometimes it will be helping them separate well.

Either way, shame should not be making the decision.

Divorce Is a Life Transition, Not a Moral Diagnosis

There is something else we rarely acknowledge: for some people, divorce is not the beginning of their suffering.

It is the end of it.

That does not mean divorce is painless.

Relief and grief can exist at the same time. A person can know that ending a marriage was necessary and still mourn the family they hoped they would have. They can feel freer and terrified. Heartbroken and hopeful. Certain and devastated.

Divorce can affect housing, finances, parenting, identity, friendships, traditions, community, and a person’s understanding of their own future—sometimes all at once.

Research on marital dissolution and health reflects that complexity. Divorce can be a significant stressor associated with poorer health outcomes for some people, while research also finds that resilience is the most common trajectory following marital separation.

Both things can be true.

Divorce can be deeply destabilizing, and people can rebuild lives of health, connection, and meaning afterward.

And yet we often expect people going through divorce to function as though they are simply completing a legal transaction.

They may be asked to make enormous financial decisions, navigate an unfamiliar legal system, figure out where they will live, protect their children, negotiate parenting arrangements, grieve their marriage, keep working, keep parenting—and somehow remain perfectly calm and rational through all of it.

Then we judge them when they struggle.

What if we treated divorce not as evidence of someone’s moral failure, but as a major human transition deserving meaningful support?

Supporting Divorce Does Not Mean Promoting It

This is where conversations about divorce often become unnecessarily polarized. If we stop demonizing divorce, some people fear we are somehow encouraging it.

But supporting people through divorce doesn’t promote divorce any more than caring for someone with cancer promotes cancer.

We can value marriage and still acknowledge that not every marriage should continue.

We can believe relationships deserve effort while recognizing that effort has limits.

We can encourage repair without demanding endurance.

And we can support someone whose marriage is ending without requiring every private detail before deciding whether they deserve our compassion.

The goal is not more divorce.

The goal is less unnecessary suffering.

What Real Support Looks Like

So what would it look like to respond differently? We could start by breaking the silence.

Many people say nothing because they are afraid of saying the wrong thing. But silence can feel remarkably similar to abandonment when someone’s entire life is changing.

I’m thinking about you.

I’m here.

What would feel supportive right now?

Those words matter.
We could resist the urge to immediately judge, diagnose, interrogate, or assign blame.

We could become more curious and less certain that we understand someone else’s marriage from the outside.

What appears sudden may have been unfolding privately for years. The person who files for divorce may not be the person who ended the marriage in every meaningful sense. There may be grief, betrayal, relief, love, fear, responsibility, and hope tangled together in ways outsiders will never fully understand.

And perhaps most importantly, we could stop requiring people to prove that their marriage was terrible enough to justify leaving it.

There does not have to be a villain in every divorce.

Sometimes a relationship has simply reached its end.

Sometimes staying requires one person to disappear inside it.

Sometimes leaving is the most honest thing someone has done in years.

Whatever the circumstances, someone facing the loss of their marriage should not have to earn basic human compassion.

We Need a Better Story About Divorce

Divorce reshapes households, friendships, finances, workplaces, schools, and communities.

It is not a private aberration happening to a small group of people who somehow failed at marriage.

It is part of the landscape of human relationships.

That does not mean we should celebrate every divorce or pretend separation carries no consequences.

It means we should become mature enough to hold multiple truths at once. Divorce can be deeply painful.

Divorce can affect children.

Marriage can be worth fighting for.

And ending a marriage can sometimes be the healthiest choice available.

We can value marriage without treating divorce as a moral failure. We can acknowledge that divorce can be painful for children without assuming that an intact marriage is always the healthiest home. We can believe relationships deserve effort without believing people must suffer indefinitely to prove they tried hard enough.

The goal shouldn’t be keeping every marriage intact. The goal should be protecting the wellbeing of the people inside our families.

Sometimes that means helping a marriage heal.

Sometimes it means helping a family survive the end of one. Either way, what people need from us isn’t judgment.

It’s compassion.

About Natasha Bacca

Natasha Bacca is a divorce doula, high-conflict divorce coach, mediator, educator, and author who supports people navigating divorce, co-parenting, and major life transitions. Her work centers on helping people move through divorce with greater clarity, dignity, and support—and build meaningful lives on the other side. Learn more at NatashaBacca.com.

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Calling Yourself "Divorced"
Young teenage girl looking in the mirror in the room.
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Calling Yourself “Divorced”

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Tucker Lieberman
Tucker Lieberman
Writer / Researcher
Custody X Change

Unless you’ve always been with your secondary school sweetheart, there was probably a time when you thought of yourself as “single.” Then you were “engaged,” then “married.” If you’re headed toward divorce, your marital status will need yet another label. At some point, you’ll take a deep breath and say: “divorced.”

Whereas engagement and marriage were happy updates, divorce usually has negative feelings swirling around it, which makes people reluctant to admit that their status has changed.

However, it’s important to be honest about your marital status, especially when you’re introducing yourself to a potential new match. A Custody X Change study of recently divorced Americans found that most people wait until their divorce is finalised to start seeing someone new. You don’t ever have to start dating again, of course, but most divorced people do, whether they make an effort to meet someone new or a relationship sparks unexpectedly.

In situations like this, using the right label can be helpful. Calling yourself “divorced” quickly communicates your marital status to others so you start new relationships on solid footing. It also helps you to face facts and move forward.

Acknowledging Negative Feelings About Getting Divorced

You may be dwelling on the question of who’s responsible for the breakdown of the marriage. Maybe you sought the divorce or agreed to it, and in that sense, you “wanted” the divorce. Or maybe you resisted the divorce: your spouse asked for it, and you’ve never had much choice about it. Either way, divorce wasn’t part of your original plan when you first got married, which can make it tough to accept what’s happening.

It’s common to have multiple negative feelings about divorcing. You may feel:

  • Disappointed in your spouse for having betrayed you or neglected to support you.
  • Inadequate for having failed your spouse in some way.
  • Exhausted because marriage was harder than you expected.
  • Overwhelmed by a toxic or abusive dynamic.
  • Confused because you’re still in love with your spouse.
  • Embarrassed in front of your friends who came to your wedding, showed goodwill and spent happy times with you as a couple.
  • Ashamed in front of your parents or religious leaders who expected or encouraged you to stay married.
  • Frustrated because you didn’t have the happy marriage you believed you had worked for or deserved.
  • Fearful that this divorce will make you seem less desirable to future partners.

If you attach negative feelings to the idea of divorce, it’ll feel harder to call yourself “divorced.”

Feelings can be helpful indicators — even the negative ones. It’s good to notice what your ex may be feeling and to process your own feelings. Eventually, though, you may benefit from taking a more neutral view of divorce.

Uncertainty can also affect how you describe your marital status. If you’re factually unsure whether your marriage is ending or you’re not yet ready to admit it, you may avoid saying you’re “getting divorced” because you believe that’s inaccurate. You may generally avoid the topic to stop others from making false assumptions about which spouse hurt the other or which spouse walked away from the marriage. It’s understandable that you don’t want to spread falsehoods or have to deal with others’ misrepresentations of you.

If you’re a parent, though, you’ll need a way to explain the changes to your children. Ultimately you’ll have to explain it to yourself too.

When you’re ready, telling people you’re divorced is a way to speak the truth and to take control of your own narrative.

Call Yourself “Divorced” When You’re Ready

At some point in the not-too-distant future, you’ll have to communicate your marital status. You may simply be making casual conversation with neighbors or filling out a form at the doctor’s office. You’ll want to speak truthfully and also feel emotionally prepared with language that makes sense for you.

Sometimes people who are winding down a marriage want to be precise about their living arrangement or their marital status. They may call themselves “separated” while they’re still legally married but living apart from their spouse, then call themselves “divorced” only after a court finalises the end of their marriage. They may specify that they’ve gotten a financial clean break from their spouse (if they’re speaking with an estate agent or letting agent, for example).

Some people sum up by giving the relationship status “it’s complicated.” That’s fine if you don’t mind people knowing you’re going through some changes. Expect that it will provoke curiosity.

You may simply call yourself “single” to say that you don’t currently have a romantic partner. Your spouse has been an important part of your life, and you may be surprised that it isn’t always necessary to specify that you used to be married. Your ex-spouse is no longer around, so why mention them at all? “Single” can be an appropriate word choice. It implies you’re free of romantic commitments and open to a new relationship. Many people consider themselves single before their divorces are legally finalised, so pay attention to what other people mean by this word and what they believe you mean by it, so no one feels misled.

Words have power, and there’s a lot of weight in the word “divorce.” You may have an emotional moment when you call yourself “divorced” for the first time. Though it can be sad, it’s an opportunity for truthfulness, self-acceptance and the personal growth that follows.

Read more articles by Tucker Lieberman.

Read more articles by Custody X Change.

About Tucker Lieberman

Tucker Lieberman is a Writer / Researcher for Custody X Change. After a decade with an investment company focusing on saving for university, he now writes about co-parenting arrangements.

About Custody X Change: This powerful tool helps divorced and single parents create parenting plans, track their custody schedules, manage expenses and more. Since 2005, we’ve helped over 60,000 parents ensure the best possible future for their children.

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Managing Grief and Loss and Emotional Recovery
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Managing Grief and Loss and Emotional Recovery

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Noel McDermott
Noel McDermott
Founder
Mental Health Works Ltd

Humans are attachment making animals, we form loving bonds with each other that have deep consequences for us. They shape us literally at the biological level. The hormones involved in feelings of love and happiness with each other encourage myelination in the brains, whereby physical structures are formed in the brain. We use the term ‘personality’ as a shorthand for the sum total of these interactions. When a baby is born these loving interactions form the basis of brain health and personality health. Neglected babies have literal holes in the frontal lobes where brain matter is lost. Without this frontal lobe development, the capacity to think, regulate etc are severely compromised. This process is lifelong and crucially our attachments form the basis of our ability to regulate, think, operate in the complex social web of life. The longer we have had a relationship the deeper the impact is on personality and functioning. Although this is about loving relationships myelination also happens with stress-fear based relationships and what follows about loss is equally true.

Loss in this view then, is loss of self as represented in the real, social world. It is the loss of the ongoing capacity to regulate, make sense and meaning of reality, to frame experience in a way that makes it safe (predictable, as in better the devil you know in stress based intimate relationships.) This loss of meaning is frightening and we can’t turn to the person we have lost to help us regulate that fear. For these reasons we can feel the loss of a partner in divorce for example in a complex and confusing manner, particularly if we wanted the divorce, because why would we grieve ending a relationship we didn’t want anymore?

Understanding that loss and grief is our brain and personality trying to heal from a type of injury can help us make sense of this. The brain, our personality or self is primarily a social or environmental phenomena from this view. Loss is an injury to its wellbeing, to its health. So, we need to focus on that in healing that injury.

Loss of a partner to divorce is no different to any other loss and the social framing of it shouldn’t get in the way of the deeper level of understanding. So what helps?

  • Develop meaning in the world again. Much spiritual and or religious practice is based on meaning making so you may find comfort in that. If you are secular, think of helping others. As social animals any activity we engage with that helps the ‘herd’ helps us. There is always someone worse of then oneself and helping them will A) help them and make the world a better place and B) help us to get a sense of perspective and feel connected to something other than our own suffering

  • Increase contact with loving network and fill that hole in the brain with others to help us regulate

  • Stay away from alcohol and drugs. Temporary relief from these chemicals which can and do hijack neurological pathways is too dangerous at times of distress. Emotional distress is a sign you need a hug not a glass of wine

  • You have had a major injury, what would you do with any recovery from a major injury? Correct: rest, slow down, seek help, eat well, hydrate, sleep, show compassion to yourself

  • Normalise your reactions. There is nothing wrong because you are healing from a psychological injury. It is to be expected. Not being able to feel loss and grief (the signs you are healing) would be more worrying. It’s okay to not be okay

It’s worth reflecting upon the healing impact of nature during times of loss. Its impact is so strong that it’s worth developing it as a unique strand of your recovery. Nature has an impact on our brains similar to mindful meditation, which is well researched to help our bodies and brains heal. Nature increases our sense of connection to each other and our feeling of wellbeing. Nature in this context does not mean out in the wilds, it can be that, but equally can be your local park or indeed a bit of gardening. It is well researched for example that putting a park in an urban area reduces violent crime in that area by up to 20%. This is due to the sense of connection and wellbeing fostered. Therapeutic horticulture (gardening) is also well researched in psychological recovery. The impact of nature is so strong that simply taking time to pass attention to a tree at your bus stop on the way to work will produce a noticeable effect. So go hug a tree and say thanks!

Finally, it’s always a good idea to check in with a mental health professional or your GP if you are worried about how you are coping. If you have a history of psychological distress, you may well need extra help such as anti-depressants. Mostly you will be met with empathy and emotional support from the professionals who can reassure you nothing is wrong, but you never know, so it’s always good to check.

Read more articles by Noel McDermott.

About Noel McDermott

Mental health expert Noel McDermott is a psychotherapist and dramatherapist with over 30 years’ work within the health, social care, education, and criminal justice fields. His company Mental Health Works provides unique mental health services for the public and other organisations. Mental Health Works offers in situ health care and will source, identify and co-ordinate personalised teams to meet your needs – https://www.mentalhealthworks.net/

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Is this really love? How to detect signs of Domestic Abuse in relationships
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Is This Really Love? How to Detect Signs of Domestic Abuse in Relationships

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Laura Sargeant
Laura Sargeant
Solicitor at Jones Myers

In February, thoughts often turn to romance with messages about Valentine’s Day circulating everywhere on social media and in every shop on the high street.

It’s easy to be drawn into the hype and see our own relationships or potential relationships through the lens of what the marketing tells us love should be like.

In reality, relationships aren’t always a fairy tale where we get charmed off our feet by the likes of Benedict Bridgerton or Jeremiah Fisher.

A gift of flowers or chocolates and a card professing unending love can be very thoughtful, but what if they are done to excess (a practice known as ‘love bombing’) or are sent in an attempt to ‘make up’ following an incident of physical or verbal abuse?

It can be hard to see the signs that a relationship is abusive. This is partly because the abusive partner is often very good at hiding what they do and deflecting attention away from their actions. It is also partly because we can find it hard to accept that the person we think loves us and who we think we love could be capable of abusing us.

Although the signs of domestic abuse are wide ranging, and whilst the below is not an exhaustive list, they can include elements of the following:

Physical – hitting, slapping, hair pulling, pushing, strangulation, throwing objects at you;

Verbal – this can range from loud verbal attacks, swearing and name calling to more subtle verbal abuse such as making derogatory comments about your appearance;

Sexual – is your consent to sexual activity sought? Are you being forced to have sex when you don’t want to or manipulated into engaging in sexual activities you don’t enjoy?

Threats – are you or members of your family being threatened with violence if you fail to comply with what your partner wants?

Financial – does your partner control all the finances in the relationship and this isn’t by mutual, fully informed agreement? Does your partner take money from you or spend money in a way that puts you in financial difficulty?

Control – does your partner always want to know exactly where you’re going and who with and do they check up on you throughout? Do they harass and follow you or check your phone messages? Do they dictate what you wear?

Isolation – are you prevented from spending time with your family and friends either overtly or through more subtle means such as by your partner telling you your family are awful and you shouldn’t be spending time with them?

If you think you might be experiencing domestic abuse in your relationship there are lots of organisations who you can reach out to for specialist support including IDAS, the biggest specialist domestic abuse charity in Yorkshire.

At Jones Myers our paramount consideration is securing your safety, and we are trained in spotting the signs that there may be domestic abuse in a relationship.

Our highly experienced family lawyers can provide you with specialist help and advice regarding leaving a relationship and any protective orders that may need to be put in place for you or your children such as non-molestation or occupation orders.

For queries on domestic abuse or family law, call 0113 246 0055 (Leeds) 01423 276104 (Harrogate), 202550 (York). Visit www.jonesmyers.co.uk, email info@jonesmyers.co.uk or tweet 01904 @helpwithdivorce

About Laura Sargeant

Laura has over sixteen years’ expertise in family law. Her specialisms include domestic abuse, adoption, child arrangement orders and child protection orders.

A member of the firm’s esteemed Children’s Department based at Jones Myers’ York office, Laura was attracted by the firm’s outstanding reputation in the legal world – and how the practice always strives to deliver excellence in family law to its valued clients.

Laura finds it rewarding to support clients through a difficult period in their lives and help them to find the best solution for their unique situation.

Clients value Laura’s dedication and knowledge along with her empathy and listening skills.

 

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Menodivorce or Menopause? Feeling out of control at Christmas
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Menodivorce or Menopause? Feeling out of control at Christmas

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Sarah Barr-Young
Sarah Barr-Young Head of Financial Remedies Department at Jones Myers, Harrogate

Sponsored post by Jones Myers.

A series of studies has highlighted a connection between menopause and divorce – with many women attributing the menopause as a key factor in their relationship breakdown.

The festive season can be a particularly stressful time for married and separated couples for several reasons. High on the are list are financial worries, concerns about seeing their children – and the pressure of expectations to make the holiday magical and memorable for loved ones.

While I am not a medical expert, I am aware that seasonal stress can exacerbate physical and mental symptoms of menopause and perimenopause, the transitional phase before menopause. They include tiredness, hot flushes and mood swings along with feelings of inadequacy and shortcomings.

As a family law specialist with extensive experience in working with women in their mid-lives, I know how hard many of them find openly discussing their emotions with their nearest and dearest, a contributory factor in findings linking menopause and divorce.

Another worrying factor from the research focuses on the vital role of solicitors. Many women who have divorced while undergoing the menopause say their family lawyers failed to include the menopause and its impact on their deteriorating relationships in divorce discussions.

While this may be attributable to a lack of awareness or understanding, it requires addressing as a priority to ensure our family law profession fulfils its responsibility to assess every aspect of our clients’ lives following a relationship breakdown and guide and support them in reaching the best possible solutions.

Jones Myers’ holistic approach explores all areas of our clients’ lives, signposting them to third parties, whether this be counsellors, therapists or IFAs, when appropriate. Our firm’s approved internal list of referrers ensures clients receive the highest quality advice for their unique circumstances.

Finances are another key area where we guide and assist clients undergoing separation or divorce.

Many perimenopausal and menopausal women deciding to make the break have chosen to sacrifice their careers or put them on hold to bring up their families. This may have prevented them from saving money or accruing a work pension, later prompting major fears of how they will manage post-divorce.

We recognise clients’ concerns over finances – and how many women during their marriages have not had to manage practicalities such as tax, standing orders or direct debits.

Helping clients to plan for their future both pre and post-divorce, our holistic approach sees  us work with tried and tested financial advisers who support our clients to stay on track as  they embark on the next phase of their lives.

I urge all women who are feeling the season’s pressures and thinking about divorce and separation, to seek help from professionals and family lawyers who understand the challenges they face – and who can guide them on the right path.

For queries on any aspect of family law, call Jones Myers at Leeds 0113 246 0055, Harrogate 01423 276104, or York 01904 202550. Visit www.jonesmyers.co.uk, email info@jonesmyers.co.uk or tweet @helpwithdivorce

Jones Myers blog is ranked 5th in the UK’s Best 25 family law blogs and websites to follow in 2025.

Read more articles by Jones Myers.

About Sarah Barr-Young

Sarah brings a wealth of expertise to her role as Head of Jones Myers’ award-winning Financial Remedies Department at the firm’s Harrogate town centre office.

Highly experienced in complex, high net worth financial disputes, Sarah’s reputation in business property portfolios, pensions on divorce and resolving disputes out of court through negotiation is widely recognised.

A named Legal 500 ‘Key’ Lawyer and Chambers ‘Notable Practitioner’, Sarah is respected and valued by clients as a strong ‘no nonsense’, knowledgeable, strategist who is also patient and empathetic.

A long-standing admirer of Jones Myers’ reputation for delivering excellence in client care and legal services of the highest calibre, Sarah relishes the opportunity to be instrumental to the practice’s continued growth.

Sarah is an accredited resolution specialist in Complex Financial Remedies and Private Children Law and is a Member of Resolution.

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Why Confidence Often Drops After Divorce, Even When You Wanted It
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Why Confidence Often Drops After Divorce, Even When You Wanted It

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Karen Omand BASoc BAThan CT
Karen Omand BASoc BAThan CT
Co-Founder
Divorceworkshop

I remember lying in bed a year and a half before my divorce, thinking, I can’t even get a part-time job at the local variety store. I was once well-educated, with a degree and a postgraduate diploma, yet I felt completely worthless. My confidence had been eroded for years, and I didn’t even realise it.

Many factors influence confidence after divorce, but what’s interesting is how rarely we talk about this side of it. The divorce world often highlights freedom, fresh starts, and empowerment. And while those things can be true, there’s another side that doesn’t get enough space: the quiet collapse of confidence that so many people experience, even when they were the ones who initiated the divorce.

Research confirms this is common. Studies show that self-esteem and self-efficacy often drop significantly after divorce, even among those who chose to leave. Part of this is grief, but another part comes down to familiarity: losing the rhythm, routines, and identity you’ve known for years. Even if those patterns weren’t healthy, they were familiar, and our brains cling to what feels safe.

You might have chosen this path, knowing it was necessary. But still, somewhere between signing papers, dividing assets, and sleeping alone for the first time in years, your sense of self begins to feel unsteady. You may question things you never used to. You second-guess decisions. You may even feel smaller, less sure, or invisible.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not broken, you’re human. Here’s why it happens.

 

The Loss of a Mirror

Even in difficult marriages, we become used to being seen through another person’s eyes. Over time, our identity and confidence become intertwined with that reflection: partner, spouse, teammate, or co-parent. Something is comforting about that, even if it can be severely dysfunctional.

When that reflection disappears, it can feel like standing in front of a mirror that suddenly went blank. You still exist, but you no longer see yourself the same way.

Divorce removes that constant feedback loop of affirmation and belonging. You’re no longer “we”,  you’re just you. And while that can ultimately be freeing, it’s disorienting at first. You can feel so lost in those moments.

This loss doesn’t just show up in big emotional waves; it sneaks into ordinary moments too. I remember the first time I went grocery shopping after the separation, it was so ingrained in my brain (attachment systems) that I automatically put things in the cart that he liked. I had to stop myself halfway through the store and say, “Karen, you do not have to do this anymore.”

Emotional Fatigue and Decision Overload

Another reason confidence dips is the sheer exhaustion that divorce brings. Every system,  emotional, cognitive, and physical, is taxed. The paperwork, co-parenting logistics, housing decisions, financial pressures, and constant emotional negotiations drain your energy quickly.

Confidence is a high-energy emotion. It needs clarity, stability, and rest to flourish. When your body is in survival mode, confidence naturally declines.

I remember sitting in my lawyer’s office, completely depleted. My nervous system was frayed, and yet I was expected to make major decisions, such as what to pursue legally, what to let go of, how to respond to my ex’s false accusations, and his refusal to pay child support. I wasn’t just tired; I was dysregulated, running on adrenaline and fear. It’s no wonder confidence felt out of reach; my system was simply overwhelmed.

Mini-Tip: After stressful meetings or negotiations, move your body. Go for a walk, stretch, or literally shake out your arms and legs. These simple movements help discharge stress hormones and signal to your nervous system that the threat has passed. Confidence can’t return when your body still believes it’s under attack; it comes back when you help your body feel safe again. You’re not less capable, you’re simply exhausted.

 

The Threat to Safety: Financial Competence and Security

For many, especially women who may have managed the home or taken a career step back, divorce delivers a shocking blow to financial confidence. The problem isn’t just about budgeting; it’s about the primal human need for safety, particularly when children are involved.

Suddenly, you are the sole person responsible for the financial security of your family, often on a diminished income. The fear of financial precarity, the inability to pay for housing, healthcare, or a child’s needs, can quickly mask itself as a deep, incapacitating feeling of incompetence.

You might have been a highly skilled professional, but facing mortgages, insurance policies, and tax documents you never handled before can make you feel utterly lost. This crisis of competence is really an attack on your perceived ability to protect yourself and your dependents, leading to significant drops in self-trust and confidence.

Mini-Tip: To counter this, focus on building micro-competencies. Schedule one hour this week to review your full post-divorce budget, or meet with a financial advisor. Each small act of engaging with your finances, however scary, is a powerful act of reclaiming control and building measurable confidence.

 

Wearing the Mask of Doubt

It’s easy to mistake grief for regret. Those quiet questions, “Did I do the right thing?” “Should I have tried longer?”  Their often surface is not because we want to return, but because part of us is struggling to integrate what’s been lost. I wrote about it in my recent blog on regret and grief. I talk about how what we label as “regret” is so often just grief wearing a different mask.

In thanatology, we understand that when a major attachment ends, we don’t just lose the person, we lose the structure of our lives that surrounds them: routines, identity, belonging, and the sense of continuity that tells us who we are. The grief that follows is not always for the relationship itself, but for the psychological home it once provided, even if that home was unstable.

I remember about five months after I left, my children and I were up north visiting my sisters and their families. A wedding song began to play, and out of nowhere, tears filled my eyes. I stepped out onto the deck, unable to explain why I was crying. I had left an abusive marriage, and I didn’t want that life anymore. But in that moment, what I felt wasn’t longing for him; it was grief for the part of me that had believed in that story, the one who had hoped the marriage might one day be safe, loving, and whole.

That’s the quiet complexity of post-divorce grief: it isn’t just the loss of a partner, but the death of a version of self who lived inside that relationship. Confidence doesn’t disappear; it becomes entangled with mourning. To rebuild it, we have to honour what’s died, not to stay in the past, but to integrate what those losses meant.

 

The Quiet Shame of “Failure”

Culturally, marriage is still seen as a sign of stability and success. Even when we know our divorce was necessary, there’s often a quiet, internalised voice whispering, I failed.

When I ran a divorce support group, this came up often. Almost everyone in the room felt like a failure. It’s hard to imagine why, especially when most of us have tried everything to make it work. And for those who left abusive relationships, the truth is, it was never going to work in the way we hoped.

That sense of shame erodes confidence because it attacks our worth at the core. But ending a marriage that no longer served you isn’t failure — it’s an act of profound courage. You didn’t fail at marriage; you succeeded at choosing yourself.

I often remind my clients,  and myself, that it took tremendous strength to leave something that was breaking us down. That truth doesn’t get written or spoken about nearly enough.

Mini-Tip: When that “failure” voice shows up, pause and write down three things you did today that reflect your courage or growth. Shifting your focus from what ended to what continues builds confidence from the inside out.

The Erosion of Self-Trust

Confidence and self-trust are inseparable. After a divorce, it’s common to question both.

I remember chatting with two colleagues, and we all admitted the same thing: we didn’t fully trust ourselves anymore. We worried that if we chose the wrong person once, maybe we’d keep making the same kind of mistake. That fear isn’t rare; it’s the nervous system’s way of trying to protect us from future pain.

After a divorce, many people replay the relationship in their minds, asking: Why didn’t I leave sooner? How did I miss the signs? Can I even trust myself to choose differently next time?

These questions don’t come from weakness; they come from a longing to feel safe again.

For years, I had been told, and eventually believed, that I wasn’t the smart one. He was always positioned as the intelligent, capable one. When I finally went back to university, something he didn’t support, I began to reclaim a part of myself I had lost. I realised that I wasn’t stupid or incapable; I had just been made to doubt my own judgment for too long.

Rebuilding self-trust means learning to listen to your intuition without judgment. Each time you make a decision based on your own truth, no matter how small, that trust begins to return.

Comparison and Disconnection

Once the immediate chaos settles, another challenge appears: the pull of comparison and isolation. You start noticing how different your life looks. Social media is filled with family photos and anniversaries, and suddenly your confidence wavers.

You also lose the stability of a couple identity, which often means being dropped from mutual friend groups or feeling awkward at couple-centric social events. This loss of your established social status and subsequent isolation can severely undermine your sense of social competence and belonging.

You might feel behind or different, as if your life broke while everyone else’s stayed intact. But comparison steals the truth: you are rebuilding, not regressing.

Mini-Tip: Limit social media for a week and notice how your sense of self shifts. Measure your life by your feelings, not someone else’s highlight reel.

 

Relearning How to See Yourself

Divorce doesn’t just end a relationship; it ends a familiar version of yourself. It can leave you standing in unfamiliar territory, unsure of how to move forward.

Relearning who you are takes time. For me, it felt like peeling back layers of an onion. I had to start with the micro steps, small, almost invisible choices,  before I could even think about the bigger ones. Each tiny act of courage built a little more confidence.

It’s still a journey. I’m still unlearning the way I saw myself for decades, but awareness and understanding have become steady companions along the way.

Confidence after divorce doesn’t come from returning to who you were before. It comes from discovering who you are now, beneath the roles, expectations, and history.

This is the real work of self-love: not vanity, but truth-telling. It’s the quiet, patient act of seeing yourself with kindness again.

Losing confidence after a divorce doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision. It means you’re human, navigating the in-between, the space between who you were and who you are becoming.

If you’re in that space right now, remember:

Your confidence isn’t gone. It’s just resting beneath the grief, waiting for the moment you start trusting yourself again.

Mini-Tip: Reflection Invitation: Today, notice one small choice you made just for yourself. Celebrate it. That is your confidence returning.

Read more articles by Karen Omand BASoc BAThan CT.

About Karen Omand BASoc BAThan CT

Karen Omand holds a rare university degree in Thanatology and a B.A. in Sociology. She is the co-author of the “Just Separated Divorce Workbook,” coming out this October, and co-founder of The Divorce Workshop. As a private counsellor and coach, Karen specialises in high-conflict cases, post-divorce abuse, grief, and divorce. Having navigated her own high-conflict divorce, she is also the mother of two lovely daughters.

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Finding Calm Amid Separation: A Guide to Self-Care
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Finding Calm Amid Separation: A Guide to Self-Care

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Jo Harrison
Jo Harrison Divorce Consultant and Relationship Therapist Family Law in Partnership

American naturalist and writer Hal Borland said, “No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn,” a phrase that is often used
to give hope to people going through something difficult. I know from my experience of working with people who are going through a separation, that it can feel like it really is going on forever, and it can be hard to hold onto the hope of something changing – particularly when people are going through litigation or there is high conflict.

How can you support yourself through this difficult period?

This is often a process that can take a long time and have complex developments both in the practical and physical aspects of your life as well as emotionally and psychologically. These are some of the key aspects I encourage people to think about to support their own care as they go through the process of separating…

1. Prioritise What Matters Most

This is a time of life when you may need to prioritise what is important to you in order to preserve emotional energy and resources. This might mean saying no to things, or being careful about the things you do in order to choose things that feel nurturing or positive to your wellbeing, or to not choose things that you know are going to make you feel drained or worse.

 

2. Set Boundaries Around Communication

Depending on the quality of relationship with your ex, it may be that when you communicate with each other it makes you feel bad or upset or it drains you. It may be that you need to communicate about certain things for example arrangements about the children. It is also possible to set boundaries for yourself around if you feel there are ways you can support yourself. For example, not reading or exchanging emails late at night when this might affect your sleep, or trying to multi task childcare and difficult conversations. Some people even set up separate email accounts so that they can be intentional about the time they read messages from their ex. If it’s possible, try to agree with each other a time that you will check in with each other to catch up regularly rather than drip feed information. (This can work really well for parents to have a time each week where they know they are going to be able to talk about things that need talking about).


3. Pick Your Battles

This may be a more challenging one, but take a moment to reflect whether there is a part of you that gets drawn into difficult communications with your ex. Are you able to pick your battles, or step back from some issues that are not as important as others? This will save your energy and allow you a bit of distance rather than keep taking you back into unhealthy dynamics.


4. Allow Yourself Time to Reflect

It is ok to be sad and to cry. Self-care is not about having a smiley face on all the time. It’s about allowing yourself space to grieve what you have lost, and allowing yourself space to try to understand what has happened.


5. Build a Support System

All of this can be supported by making sure you have a good support system. That does not just mean friends and family. It might mean booking an appointment with the GP to talk about how you are not sleeping. It might mean considering therapy to have a space to be supported with all that you are feeling. It might mean making sure you get the support of all the positive aspects of nature by making sure you have a walk each day, or the good feelings you get from exercise. Take a step back and think about what aspects of life and which people help you to feel better and supported.


6. Recognise When You Need a Break

One of the lawyers at FLiP often reminds people that having a duvet day when you just do not feel like dealing with the legal stuff is totally understandable. All she asks is that it is communicated so that you can think together about how to do what is required. This kind of dynamic thinking about what needs doing on the legal side of things can often get lost or people can feel that they are not allowed to have these kinds of conversations with their lawyers. It is really important that there is an open channel of communication about how you are feeling about doing what you need to do.

7. Reconnect with Your Identity


It’s also important to remember aspects of your identity that are not connected to you getting divorced, since it can feel so overwhelming. Make sure you make time for yourself where you are not focussed on something divorce related. Some people find it a good time to take up a new activity or hobby where they can enjoy new aspects of themselves rather than feeling focussed on all that has happened with their relationship. This may be something to work towards in time as often people can feel too overwhelmed to take on something new. Look at my thoughts on reclaiming your identity after separation here.

8. Be Kind to Yourself During the Holidays


We know that with Christmas around the corner, there are added loads on people’s shoulders, perhaps for some combined with the pressure of feeling you need to make Christmas extra special for the children now that you are separated. Be kind to yourself and do the stuff that makes you feel good and that feels doable, rather than taking on too much and feeling burned out.

Most of all, be compassionate to yourself. We know that divorce is a stressful and emotional time. Listening to yourself and what you need is important and may keep you afloat during this time of navigation.

Read more articles from Jo Harrison

About Jo Harrison

Jo is a Divorce Consultant and Relationship Therapist with Family Law in Partnership. She is very experienced in working with individuals and couples who are separating.  A former family lawyer, Jo has a depth of experience and understands the legal process, which many if her clients find helpful.

If you would like to enquire about support individually in relation to preparing for a divorce or separation, please contact the FLiP relationship support team at E: therapists@flip.co.uk 

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How to Spot if Your Partner is a Narcissist
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How to Spot if Your Partner is a Narcissist

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Claire Chisnall
Claire Chisnall Senior Associate Consilia Legal

Abuse in a marriage or civil partnership can take many different forms, such as physical, sexual, financial and emotional. There are many types of emotional abuse, which are also often referred to as psychological abuse, and this is where the form of abuse is much more complex and can be due to one party having challenging personality traits such as narcissism.

Narcissism is often dismissed as a person being selfish, self-centred or self-absorbed, but this form of abuse is much deeper than that, and how a person uses this to manipulate situations and emotions can develop over many years and can be particularly damaging for the person on the receiving end. It is important to point out that not everyone that behaves badly in a relationship is a narcissist, narcissism is much more than poor behaviour this is a pattern of troubling personality traits which we refer to further below. 

What is narcissism?

Fundamentally, narcissism is a mental health condition called Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). It is a form of emotional manipulation which can stem from deep-rooted insecurities and a lack of self-esteem but manifests itself in many different ways, and sometimes this is not deliberate or intentional on the part of the perpetrator. Hence, a narcissist may be unaware that they are causing emotional strain on their partner, but on the other hand, some narcissists are aware and use their personality disorder to cause emotional harm. The recipient of narcissistic behaviour can feel trapped and helpless because the primary motivation of a narcissist is to have control and to manipulate, whether this is intentional or not.  

Common signs of narcissistic behaviour

Although all narcissists will behave slightly differently, and of course every relationship is different, there are common traits that you may be able to identify as narcissistic behaviour:

  • A sense of self-importance and entitlement
  • Can’t show any empathy or compassion to you as a victim or any friends or family of yours
  • Generally charming to you initially but will often keep up a charming persona to others 
  • Showing excessive affection and wanting constant communications at the start of a relationship, often called love bombing
  • Being jealous and envious of other relationships you might have
  • Displaying arrogance as a form of low self-esteem
  • Preoccupied by status and wealth 
  • Can demonstrate aggressive tendencies as they can’t regulate their emotions properly
  • Very sensitive to criticism of themselves and can’t tolerate imperfections in other people
  • Prone to publicly humiliating you and making a joke out of it 
  • Can be controlling and very manipulative. 

A narcissist will present with more than one of the above traits, and there are differing levels of narcissistic traits, with some being far more challenging and potentially dangerous. There is generally a pattern of behaviour that develops over time which presents itself as a cycle, where one minute your partner can be loving and the next be very dismissive of you, creating a feeling of rejection resulting in you seeking validation from them. This cycle can be very damaging to your self-worth and self-esteem, especially if this been going on over a long period of time. 

How to identify that your partner is a narcissist

Living with a narcissist can be exhausting and it will feel like you are always questioning yourself. It can also result in you developing low self-esteem and this could manifest itself in stress and anxiety where you feel torn between being loyal to your partner and escaping the situation. It is therefore important that you recognise the narcissistic traits in your partner and act on them. Here we have listed typical scenarios you might recognise:

  • Is your partner always seeking praise and admiration from you or other people?
  • Does your partner act like rules or laws don’t apply to them and that they deserve special treatment? Do they feel untouchable, as if they can do no wrong?
  • Do they like to portray a very charming character in public, but you know this is false?
  • Are they unable to take criticism on board?
  • Do they refuse to take responsibility for their actions?
  • Do they become excessive with flattery, gifts and seek commitment early in a relationship? Or after a fall-out?
  • Are they capable of giving you the silent treatment and stonewalling you for hours? 
  • Do they always make themselves centre of a conversation and show open disinterest in talking about you? 
  • Do they make you feel like nothing you do will ever be good enough?
  • Are they incapable of recognising the needs of you or other people? 
  • Do they act impulsively for attention, and show a reckless disregard for the consequences? 
  • Do they try to gaslight you and twist situations, so you feel like you are always in the wrong?  

Some of these traits are common in a partner and can be dismissed as playful or the normal ups and downs of a relationship. But it is very easy for these behaviours to become excessive and for a pattern to form which becomes abusive behaviour. The objective of the narcissist is to have control and to manipulate situations and emotions for their own benefit, and whether this is intentional or not, it is a form of emotional abuse. 

How to deal with a narcissist

Because a narcissist is hypersensitive, you often find yourself treading on eggshells around them and this makes it difficult to discuss the behaviour with them, and in some cases could result in the abuse taking on another form. If you have concerns about the behaviour of your partner and wish to escape the situation, it is important to speak to family and friends and seek their support. There are numerous resources available for those being subjected to an abusive relationship, such as the Domestic Abuse National helpline. You should take professional advice from an experienced family law solicitor, who will explain what your rights are and how you should approach a divorce and separation, or dissolving a civil partnership, if that is the course of action you have chosen.

About Claire Chisnell

Claire Chisnall, Senior Associate in the Family Team at Consilia Legal. Claire is a highly experienced family lawyer with a broad background across all areas of family law and is recognised for securing excellent outcomes for her clients through her calm, pragmatic approach.

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