It's Going To Take How Long?

    The experts say it takes half the time you’ve been in a relationship to recover and heal and be ready to move on. It takes a significant period of time to find peace and learn to re-invent your life and love life.  SO…depending upon how long and what the circumstances were, it could take at least as long as half the years you were in your marriage to let it go.

Rusty Weber is a single dad and financial advisor by trade and in his business, he has a general rule, that a portfolio of stocks and bonds should be portioned approximately by age. For example, he states if you are 60 years old, you should have approximately 60 percent of your portfolio in bonds, the rest in stocks (equities). However, the key to this is that it is only a starting point and needs to be changed by the individual circumstances. For example, Rusty says that if you want to be more conservative, you could be invested in 80 percent bonds. I love the analogies so much because sometimes you really need to see your life as a portfolio so you know when you’re out of balance and need to move things around.

In the relationship and marriage worlds, there is also a general rule that it takes about half the length of your marriage, to "get over" it or move on – when it comes to an end. You’ve probably heard it before… if you were married for 10 years and then divorced, figure about 5 years to be ready to then "move on" with memories and maybe some ‘baggage’ in hand. It takes a good time out to review what may have gone wrong, heal enough not to make the same mistakes again or bring in  a similar relationship, like the one that didn’t work out.  This time period also can fluctuate by the circumstance of the divorce and the experiences gained (or lost, depending upon if you see your glass half empty or half full).

It’s best to work with the HALF FULL scenario. There is a lot of be grateful for within each experience, whether it feels good or bad.  Even painful experiences and a loss of a dream makes us grow.  It’s like the growth spurts our kids go through…we are going through a growth spurt through the pain or confusion…and once we get to the other side we can see more clearly how we have grown!  BRAVO!  


Jodi Seidler is the founder of the single parent site MakingLemonade.com and the author of "55 Things Every Divorcing Mom Should Know!" Her advice has also made it to TV talk shows, such as: "Inside Edition"and "Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus." Her e-mail is jodi@makinglemonade.com.