Questions to Ask Yourself After Your Marriage Ends: When Are You Mailing Your Love Letter to Yourself?

In a previous blog, I shared the poem Love After Love by Derek Walcott — a beautiful poem about learning to love the stranger that was yourself prior to the ending of your marriage or love relationship. After a relationship ends in divorce, it is not uncommon to yearn for a new relationship, especially if the marriage was devoid of emotional and physical intimacy. It is a human need to seek validation, especially by knowing that somebody else feels that you’re attractive and lovable — an experience that you may have missed for years.

Starving for someone who makes you feel special and valued, you may fall head first into a romance with someone who may or may not be capable of loving you the way you need and deserve to be loved.

Given this, post-divorce relationships can develop extremely quickly. This can preclude the opportunity to prioritize finding YOURSELF again as well as understanding your role in the demise of the marriage, and taking the time to fully grieve your loss and heal some of the unhealed childhood wounds that attracted you to your ex-partner at the outset. There are many important questions to ask yourself including:

Am I looking to blame the ending of my relationship solely on my ex-partner?
What were my own ‘steps in the dance’ with my ex-partner?
Are these ‘dance steps’ familiar from other relationships I’ve had in my life?
What are my core values?
What are my interests?
What are my desires?
Where do I feel safe?
Where do I feel protected?
Where do I feel uneasy?

While it may seem counter-intuitive, one of the best ways to honestly answer these questions is to allow for time and space to feel the hard and difficult feelings — the sadness, anger, hurt, and pain. These feelings can be used to do a deeper dive into knowing yourself and to take the opportunity to grow from the divorce experience.

Choose you. We can help you prioritize and create a space for yourself. Contact us today.