Surviving Divorce: Getting Through The Week


surviving divorce

Divorce has a way of seeping in and affecting every aspect of your life. From impacting your sleep schedule to reducing work productivity, the process of ending a marriage can have a significant impact on your daily schedule.

With constant worries about custody, money, property, lawyers, court appearances, judges, alimony, child support, adultery, protection orders, etc., it is only reasonable to expect someone going through divorce to be distracted.

However, a key to surviving divorce is to minimize the impact it has on your day-to-day routine.

You won’t be able to completely block the divorce out at all times, but if you can find constructive methods to help you avoid overthinking things, it will certainly help ease the pressure you are facing.

Here are a couple tips to try if you are having trouble getting through the week while going through a divorce.

Save divorce communications for the end of the day

A way to avoid becoming distracted by divorce-related topics on the job is to simply save reading and responding to messages from your attorney until the end of the day, freeing you to remain productive while at work.

However, you should let your attorney know if this will be the case so they know to mark emails that need immediate response as urgent in case something important does eventually come up.

Many attorneys also recommend consolidating your questions until evening since it will cut down on what you are charged if your attorney can knock out several questions at once and due to the fact that issues in the morning may resolve themselves by the end of the day.

Remove home and workspace distractions

Photo frames and wallpapers of your happy family, little mementos given to you by your wife years ago that decorate your desk — really anything that calls back to your past — should be removed from your work and living space.

It may seem harsh, but doing a clean sweep of anything that brings up your marriage will help you avoid dwelling on what used to be, and in turn, what is happening with the divorce.

Things that once brought happy memories will now only serve as bitter reminders of your marriage ending.

Find something to occupy your free time

While you want to avoid having the divorce distract you from important tasks such as work, you also need to find ways to distract yourself from the divorce.

Find activities that are so thoroughly engaging in the moment that it is impossible to dwell on what lies ahead.

Haven’t read a book in a while? I hear “A Song Of Ice And Fire” (the book series HBO’s “Game Of Thrones” is based upon) is pretty engrossing. Go get your hands dirty and change that timing belt that is 10,000 miles overdue. Football season is quickly approaching; maybe it’s time to pick up fantasy.

The idea is to simply find something you can do when you have downtime to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Crossword puzzles may work for some, whereas turning a wrench will work better for others, so try to find a fun hobby that occupies your mind.

Get ripped

Don’t feel ashamed that you sort of let yourself go during the course of your marriage — it happens to everyone. But now is as good a time as ever to put the potato chips down and your running shoes on as you want to avoid the myriad of health problems that plague men after divorce.

Start jogging, join a local gym or at least begin going on regular walks at the end of the day or in the morning to help get some fresh air and clear your mind.

As an added bonus, getting back into shape helps boost your confidence, which will come in handy whenever you are ready to start dating again.

Reconnect with friends

During the course of your divorce, you will likely lose some friends along the way. However, this is also an opportunity to reconnect with some buddies that may have fallen by the wayside during your marriage.

Having some friends you can text back and forth throughout the day or call to argue why the designated hitter is ruining baseball can be a very effective distraction and a healthy part of your support network — something that is crucial for the coping process.

While you may feel the instinct to turn inward, maintaining or even improving your social life will help you get over the divorce much faster than becoming a recluse.

Fortunately, guys are traditionally very easygoing, so it’s not difficult to revitalize a friendship that may have gone stale over the years.

Divorce is going to affect your life in unexpected ways, and unfortunately, you cannot avoid that entirely. However, you can work toward minimizing the effect it has on your daily routine.

Everyone will need to find a unique system that works on an individual level, but actively looking for ways to avoid letting the divorce become an overbearing distraction will drastically improve your ability to keep moving forward instead of being bogged down by something out of your control.

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