Going through a divorce is not an easy thing. It does not matter if you are male, female, twenty years old, forty years old, or been married once or five times. Many people tend to think that once they leave their spouse that the trauma, pain, and tears will be over and done with but that is not always the case. There are a lot of emotions that a person will experience, especially women. No one wants to end up in divorce, or else they would not have gotten married in the first place. This leads us to the first emotion felt by women after the divorce.
The first emotion felt is usually anger during the divorce process. Anger over the breakdown of marriage, spousal payments, custody, cheating, lies, heartache and everything in between. Unfortunately, the feelings of anger are not always dealt with properly. The result is that anger gets directed towards things that should not be the focus. Women also typically deal with feelings of failure. The sadness and the feeling of being a failure usually come after the divorce is finalized. But that is not where it ends.
Instead of moving on to a happier phase after the phase of sadness, many women find themselves reverting to anger. Even though they may not want their ex back, they do wish that things could have been different. This leads them to feel anger towards their ex and sometimes towards themselves for not doing something earlier enough in the marriage to prevent the relationship from going down the drain.
The key thing to remember here is that:
these emotions are normal
they are very healthy to experience
This is a grieving process you have to go through.
If you do not allow yourself to feel anything, your emotions will remain bottled up until they overflow down the road usually in the form of outward anger, or depression which is anger turned inwards.
Three Steps to Get Rid of the Anger
1)If you feel that you do not have a trusted friend or relative to talk to, make sure that you speak with a counselor or a life coach. Talking about your feelings is a great way to get past this traumatic event.
2)Confront your ex. Now, I am not talking about confronting your ex in person! I am talking about writing your ex a letter. Keep in mind that you write it, but you never send it. In your letter, let him have it. Do not be "fair", just let it all out. Express every ounce of feeling of anger and sadness that you have. If you are not used to writing long letters, then type it on your computer if that is better. Just make sure that it is kept private and away from the eyes of others. Talk about everything that upsets you, no matter how silly it may seem. By the end of the letter, you will feel a little relieved.
3)Go to a room in your house where you have privacy, and pound on the pillows, scream as loud as you can, and cry as much as you want. Keep doing it till you are totally exhausted and there is no energy left.
Be aware that you might find the anger return in a few days, and that is to be expected. If that happens, write another letter, or do the exercise of beating on the pillow. Keep going until you have absolutely nothing left to say. When you have nothing else to say because you have said your peace, you are ready to move on.
Vanaja Ghose 2009
