Divorce is driving me crazy. I constantly have a string of questions running through my head.
What do I do?
Where is the money coming from?
How do I work, get the kids, clean the house, see a lawyer all in 1 day?
Why is this so hard?
What happened to my relationship?
Where did I go wrong?
Why did he have to act that way?
What’s wrong with me?
Why won’t the children listen?
Do they know I love them?
I hope the kids know it is not their fault.
I hope the kids know that I tried.
There is no doubt that going through a divorce can drive you crazy and make you feel like you are going crazy.
The constant wave of emotion that you are going through can be challenging but that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong.
We are always our own worst enemies. Most of us expect a level of perfection from ourselves that we can never achieve – nor should we. It is ok to feel:
- what you are feeling.
- upset, angry, hurt, disappointed.
- guilty, torn apart and a sense of loss that can be unimaginable.
Yet at the same time, you need to re-establish yourself and your life. You need to set up a new home, a new routine. You need to make sure that your children are cared for, loved, that they have any necessary questions answered and are receiving the support that they need. All the time, you have to maintain a job (or find one), possibly attend appointments or court dates and that doesn’t even begin to cover what you have to do on an every day basis such as cleaning, shopping cooking. You were busy beforehand and now life has thrown a whole bunch more at you (when you are at your worst) and said, “deal with this too”.
Yes – it is hard. Yes, it can seem insurmountable. But you will get through it. The first thing you can do is to take control of you. Stop allowing everything outside and around you impact how you are feeling and behaving. Stop allowing divorce to drive you crazy and take control of your life! Improve your relationship with yourself first and then worry about everyone else.
I asked some of my couples what they did during this time so that you have some practical tips.
This is what helped me to stop divorce from driving me crazy:
“I took the time to do the Improving Your Relationships Program before I made any big decisions. I just wanted to make sure I was ok, because I thought it was important that I took care of me so I could take care of the kids”.
“To do lists! I couldn’t survive without my to-do list”
“Wine and friends and focussed on me first”
“I took care of the basics and then left everything else until later. I needed to know I had a roof, money coming in and food on the table for the kids. Nothing else really mattered to me at the start until this was sorted”
“I created a new routine for the kids to settle into and then I started to focus on what had to be done next which, for me, was the finances”
“We got help sorting out the kids and then once that was all settled we looked at property”
If you want to work with Lorrie book a call here or, if you are ready, jump over to Improving Your Relationships to take care of you first.
