So a friend called on Thursday, her divorce had just become final and she was pretty broken up about it. They have been in process for so long, that she thought she would be relieved when it finally happened, but instead she felt sad and depressed. She didn't want to tell other people because she didn't want to hear them say congratulations when it felt like such a huge loss.
We talked for a while about mourning the loss of all the ideas and dreams you had when you first got married. Letting go of that future that you had imagined and letting yourself feel the loss of that. I think when the divorce is contentious. we believe that we are supposed to feel happy when the marriage is officially done. But the truth is that no matter how you feel about the person in the end, there was the hope that you had when you first married them, and losing that is sad.
She is a writer, so I suggested that she just take a lot of time and write about how she is feeling; the sadness, the loss, the relief, that depression, the hopefullness for something better, all of it. To let herself feel whatever she is feeling and be okay with it. And to honor it by recognizing that it is all normal and it is all part of the process. We spend too much time worrying about how we should feel and not honoring how we do feel. It was a reminder to me, too, to accept where I'm at and be okay with it and to use the insight that I can get from writing about my feelings and experiences to learn something about myself and get to a better place.