True love is not supposed to end. Everyone grows up wanting to be special to someone. Love can carry us to the heights of human experience. Of course, when it seems to let us down, there is no deeper despair.
You can be filled with betrayal, anger, disappointment, and outright agony. You feel confused and lost. Divorce itself can feel like death. To be honest, some people never recover. At the very least, divorce can fundamentally change how you see yourself, how you see the opposite sex, and how you see life itself.
But there is life after divorce, and it begins by living through the pain, not avoiding it. Drinking too much, having sex to “get even”, or even jumping into a new relationship too soon are all ways we avoid our pain or transmit it to others. I find everyone feels “victimized” in some way after a divorce. Whether this is a temporary experience or permanent is eventually a choice. You can heal if you allow yourself to, by releasing and forgiving the other.
You have to go through the pain to get to the other side. As I tell people, you have to keep walking and keep breathing until you walk out from under that canopy of despair. If you do this work honestly, by facing your pain head on, you deepen as a human being.
When the time comes when you are emotionally ready to date again, you will be faced with the question of how much you should open yourself up. It can feel risky as all get out, but without this emotional vulnerability, you prevent yourself from having the deep emotional satisfaction of closeness.
At the same time, you will approach dating from a changed perspective. You have lost your innocence (not necessarily a bad thing). When young and innocent, many relationships were based solely on mutual attraction. From a mature perspective, in addition to whether you are attracted, the question is, “Is this a good person for me?”
So, if you go through your pain in a honest way, facing yourself, reflecting on your mistakes without beating yourself up, forgiving the other as well as yourself, AND in dating asking the question of whether this person I’m dating has done his or her emotional work, AND is a good match for me, then the outcome will most likely be a successful marriage and the possibility of a deep and sustaining love.
It may feel impossible soon after a divorce, but you just need to give it some time. You are capable of a happy partnership again, this time born out of pain with a sense of gratitude and joy for new beginnings.