Reconnecting with Community…and Yourself
It seems like all the pieces have moved.
Finding community after divorce isn’t as easy as it may seem.
Figuring out what you need after a divorce is not easy to do. We exit our marriages in different ways, for different reasons, and with different needs and abilities to meet those needs. However, I believe there is one need that is universal post-divorce: the need for connection.
“Connection is the experience of oneness. It’s having shared experiences, relatable feelings, or similar ideas. It is the feeling of belonging to something greater than oneself.”
Many of us divorce because we lost connection to our spouses, growing apart while raising kids and/or building careers. The connection may have been lost because feeling connected requires communication, and by the time we finally realized we were not communicating effectively with our spouse, it was too late, the damage had been done.
After a divorce, I think we ALL emerge starved for connection. I know I did.
It’s not uncommon to also feel disconnected from friends after a divorce. Divorce-related lifestyle changes can suck up every bit of bandwidth, making it hard to keep up with old friendships or establish new ones. Going back to work after being a stay-at-home mom, working more to make ends meet, and juggling all the responsibilities that you once shared with your spouse can leave you less available physically as well as emotionally.
These lifestyle changes and increased workload are not the only thing that can take a toll; grief itself is draining. It takes more energy to adapt to all of the changes that happen in your life after divorce. Even if you have always enjoyed planning and hosting gatherings, bringing friends together post-divorce can be harder than expected because it requires re-imagining and adapting things to suit new circumstances. Now that you’re no longer a couple, your social circle has to adjust too. And let’s face it, change is hard for everyone – even for your friends.
The way you relate to your still-married friends may also change after a divorce. Even if no one can quite explain it, this is a feeling divorced women share with me time and again. This disconnectedness may be the result of some shame we feel if we see ourselves as failures for being unable to fix “broken” marriages or if we feel “broken” ourselves in the wake of divorce. Comparing our own failed marriage to our friend’s “good” marriages can lead us to engage less often or less deeply with them. Whatever the reason, we can feel socially detached, as if we have less in common with our friends now than when we were all married.
It wasn’t until after my divorce that I realized I didn’t like eggs his way at all.
After my divorce, as the dust settled and I surveyed the pieces of my life, I had to be honest: I hadn’t just lost connection with my ex or with some friends, I had lost connection with myself, too. Although I knew how I liked my eggs (quick – name the movie!), I realized there were lots of parts of me that had been lost during the marriage. I had people-pleased myself to a point that I had not only lost my voice and my confidence, but I had also lost touch with a lot of things that bring me joy.
As I took steps to connect with others, I reconnected to myself too. I invited friends to go to art exhibits or hiking, but if they couldn’t go, I went by myself anyway. I went to the school gala by myself and joined friends on the dance floor, remembering I loved dancing, and gaining confidence in being on my own. I learned that I could not only survive “couples” events, but enjoy them, learning to be myself, completely on my own terms, no people pleasing involved.
Eventually, my efforts to reconnect with fully living my life led me to start dating. Although it was intimidating for me at first, I began to realize that I was not only learning about the person I was on a date with, but learning about myself even more.
Take a moment and think about your life. What type of connection do you need right now and what action(s) can you take to meet that need?
Do you need to connect with old friends, or get out of your comfort zone to make some new ones by experimenting with new activities or new groups?
To reconnect to yourself, would it help to schedule regular sessions with a therapist or for a soothing massage? Or to set time aside to do things that bring you joy?
Is it time to start dating to rebuild your confidence in being yourself in an intimate relationship?
There are endless options of activities that will reconnect you not only to others, but to yourself as well.
Let us be a part of your new community as you feel your way through creating your new post-divorce life. The GoodBetterNext community understands how divorce changes life. We have been there too. Join our conversations on this and all other topics that divorced women want to talk about by Joining a Group on our “Get Involved Page.” We can’t wait to connect!