Self-Care Tips for When You’re Going Through a Divorce

Self-Care and Divorce

The nature of the relationship between divorcing couples tends to fall anywhere on the range from amicable to highly contentious, but regardless of the dynamic, going through divorce is never easy. Self-care and social support are critically important areas for divorcing spouses to focus their attention on as they navigate such a challenging time. 

As a therapist and breakup recovery coach, I like to walk my clients through the process of building self-care routines that can help aid in the recovery and healing process after a breakup or divorce.

Self-Care During Separation and Divorce

In my work with breakup recovery clients, I like to encourage you to create a list of self-care activities (I also like to call these “feel good” activities) that are diverse enough that you are able to engage in at least one activity from that list every single day. 

The reason why it’s important to have a diverse list is so that you can set yourself up for self-care success. It’s so easy to push off self-care when you’re going through a divorce, especially if you have a family. But it’s imperative that you remember to set aside time for yourself. 

I ask that clients be thoughtful about including activities that are in-home and some that take place out of the home; ones that are free and others that cost money; some that are outside and some that take place indoors; activities that require other peoples’ involvement and others that are solo activities, and so on. 

It might sound impossible to engage in self-care on a daily basis, but when you make a self-care list that is as diverse as possible, you are able to come up with activities that are appropriate regardless of the time of day or how much free time is available. 

For example, activities such as taking a long shower or watching a TV show can be done from the comfort of your home. Actions such as listening to music by your favorite artist or engaging in breathing exercises can occur at work. Going on a trip or out to dinner with friends requires more planning and money than some other activities, but might still be appropriate for your self-care list. 

Anything that brings you joy and makes you feel good belongs on this list. 

[For more on creating a self-care plan, see: A Self-Care Plan to Cultivate Calm]

How To Cope With Divorce: Establishing & Building Your Social Support

Social support is extremely important when going through any challenging experience, including divorce.

Social support is extremely important when going through any challenging experience, including divorce. Seeking support from friends, family, and/or a therapist are all good options, as is joining online support groups for people experiencing divorce. 

While you may find that you’ve lost some friends due to people taking sides, or maybe you’ve lost touch with friends during your marriage and find you don’t have as many as you’d like, focusing on maintaining and rebuilding important relationships is a great way to ensure you have the support necessary to navigate and recover from a divorce.

Your support system can help you maintain your self-care activities, check-in and offer support when you are experiencing a more difficult day, offer encouragement, offer distraction, and help you work through your healing journey.

If now is the time when you are realizing that your friendships could use a little growth work of their own, check out these articles for tips on building healthy relationships: The Importance of Healthy Friendships and Feeling Lonely? How to Find True Friendship in a Frantic World.

How To Emotionally Handle A Divorce

Big emotions are bound to spike during the divorce process and that can make it difficult to communicate effectively. Some divorce methods, such as Collaborative Divorce, have a mental health professional involved to help address these kinds of situations in the moment, but in other situations, you may feel more alone in terms of managing your emotions. 

Remember, divorce is a process and while there may be an urgency felt to settle the issues as quickly as possible, you are better off taking time to cool down and revisit the contentious issue, rather than making decisions while emotions are ramped up.

Self-soothing is extremely important when it comes to managing emotions. Self-talk, such as telling yourself that this difficult period will pass or that you’ve been through other hard times and survived, can be extremely helpful, as are breathing exercises, such as inhaling through your nose, pausing for a few seconds, and slowly exhaling through your mouth. 

These are self-care activities you can engage in on the spot or immediately after divorce-related conversations or milestones.  

Feeling big emotions is part of being human, and it’s important that you allow yourself the space to work through them. Emotional Self Care When Your Life is Falling Apart and It’s Okay to Cry: How to Handle Big Emotions each share how to work through these big emotions while supporting yourself. 

Managing Anxiety Around Rebuilding Your Life

Feeling big emotions is part of being human, and it’s important that you allow yourself the space to work through them.

Anxiety about the unknown surrounding life post-divorce is completely normal. People tend to try to eliminate the “bad” emotions as quickly as possible because they can feel so uncomfortable, but they are absolutely normal responses, and the sooner we allow ourselves to acknowledge them and even indulge them, the sooner we’re able to move through them. 

Self-talk can really make or break things, and you have a huge amount of power during this process by choosing what kinds of thoughts you’d like to feed yourself. The anxiety-ridden thoughts are probably going to come to mind more easily, so it can be helpful to create a list of positive changes that are occurring as a result of the divorce so you can revisit that list when you feel bogged down by the anxiety.

I am a firm believer that crisis points often lead to opportunity and that nothing is 100% good or 100% bad, so when you feel ready, as strange as it might sound, I encourage you to contemplate the silver lining and the new opportunities that could come your way as a result of the divorce and capture that list in the notepad in your phone so you can continue to add it it as new ideas come to mind. 

Working Through The Stages Of Grief After Divorce 

When going through a divorce, it can feel like everything is falling apart. Rest assured, this feeling is not permanent, but there is validity to it. Navigating the Post-Divorce Stages of Grief can feel really scary, unstable, and uncertain. I strongly encourage you to treat this end of the relationship as a death because when we allow ourselves to frame our experience in that way, we also tend to be more gentle on ourselves. We give ourselves permission to grieve in many of the ways we would if we had suffered an actual death. The reality is, the end of a marriage is a death, and it’s okay if you are struggling to take care of yourself. 

The best course of action is to do one small self-care activity each day and not think too far ahead because the recovery process can feel too daunting. If that means that today you were able to get up and take a shower but couldn’t muster much else, that’s okay. Acknowledge small efforts to yourself and you will find that the efforts eventually build and build until you’ve developed a new normal. 

6 Self-Care Tips for Surviving Divorce

As a summary, I’d like to provide you with a brief list of what we discussed above. This way you can screenshot it and refer back whenever you may need a little reminder: 

1. Create a list of Self-Care activities that you enjoy (both socially and alone) so that you can easily refer back when you’re in need of a pick-me-up.
2. Reach out to your support system or join an Online Breakup Support Group.
3. Take part in Emotional Self-Care (allowing yourself to feel and move through big emotions).
4. Practice positive self-talk.
5. Let yourself move through the post-divorce stages of grief.
6. Reach out for help from a professional.

Perhaps most importantly, don’t be afraid to reach out for help. Friends and family are often waiting in the wings to step in and help, but might not know that you’re suffering unless you communicate that to them. Likewise, therapists are always available to help support you during these difficult times, so reach out!

If you are going through a divorce or breakup, we have so many resources to help you. Please visit our “Healing After Heartbreak” collection of articles and podcasts, or, if the time is right to get support, learn about our divorce and breakup recovery services here at Growing Self.

Warmly,

Dr. Rachel