The term “gray divorce” refers to people who divorce later in life, generally after long marriages.
In the article, “Divorce After 50: What I Wish I Had Known Beforehand” (originally published on Marketwatch), people going through gray divorces share information that they wish they could have shared with their younger selves, thus providing important considerations for others.
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In his beautiful ballad, Percy Sledge sang to us, “Take time to know her, it’s not an overnight thing.”
Getting to know someone takes a long time. For many divorced people, there is a strong pull to find a new life partner, a new forever relationship, a new soul mate. Initial excitement during the honeymoon phase of a new relationship can mask problematic aspects of someone’s individual character. We may fall in love with the feeling of being in love or fall in love with our fantasy of who the other person is.
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The stress of divorce is felt through our emotions–and experienced in our bodies. It’s natural to feel tight and tense in response to common feelings of divorce, including fear, anger, and sadness.
The experience of these emotions can be so powerful and overwhelming that many detach from their bodies. In other words, people separate from these somatic experiences as a defense, especially as a marriage unravels and physical intimacy becomes emotionally painful.
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Divorce is difficult to recover from, yet critically important for your own physical and emotional health and that of your children for you to make a full recovery.
Considered akin to the death of a marriage, divorce ranks among the most powerful stressors in adult life because it creates uncertainty in every important aspect of life that was once stable, i.e. work, finances, children, etc. Relationships with friends and family are often affected—and you may wonder about future relationships and if you will ever find love again.
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Poetry was one of the recovery tools we shared in our workshop Recovering from Divorce, Reclaiming Yourself, which was held at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health this past September. Poems like Love After Love by Derek Walcott speak to the heart of why this type of healing work is so important.
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Music touches our soul and speaks to a different part of ourselves—outside of our cognition. It provides the space to be more contemplative and meditative while building hope, inspiration, and energy. Read More
Recovering from divorce, and pressing the reset button on your life, requires persistence, mindfulness, and an ability to focus on internal response without pain, grief, or fear.
This is not an easy or swift process—it is necessary to create the time and space to feel the emotions and process the death of the marriage. Read More
We are pleased to share a terrific piece by writer Portland Helmich that delves into the approach we take in our program at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health.
After 18 years together, my ex-husband and I separated in 2008. We divorced in 2010. It was the most painful experience of my life, bar none. Read More
Recently, a colleague reached out to one of her clients and heard the following voicemail message:
Hi, this is Donna, sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. [pause]. Unless I was once married to you.
The message’s message is clear: speaking to an ex-spouse is not something that Donna (or many people) want to do. Read More