If you want to enjoy your life after divorce, it’s very important that you make sure that you focus on YOU!
Divorce is a difficult thing to deal with no matter who’s at fault, and the faster you understand this the better. There will be a lot of moments that may seem to difficult for you, but just know that these roadblocks are temporary and don’t forget to only worry about you and not any external events or people. My mother always told me during our my divorce was to control what you can control, and everything else will take care of itself.
Don’t Let Things create emotional Suffering
A lot of times in a divorce there are things that both parties want and will stop at nothing in order to get that item. This could be a house, car, clothes, jewelry, retirements accounts, alimony and so much more. Its totally okay to want things that you paid for or that you think that you deserve but make sure whatever you may have a fight over, ensure that it’s not affecting your mental health.
For me, this started when my wife wanted a new car that I purchased with funds from my retirement account. Because she used it more than me, she believed that she should have ownership of the vehicle. Initially, I fought tooth and nail for my car and I slowly began to realize after a month that my stress levels were sky high and I was not eating and sleeping well. This was all over a damn car! I knew that I had to let the car go to move on with my life as fast as possible.
There will be many moments like this during the divorce and some items are just not worth the simple fact of winning. When there is a lot of property needing to be separated, there will become an undisclosed battle of who has the most items on their side of the table.
SAVE YOUR MONEY
The longer you have your lawyer playing parent in between you and your spouse, the longer you will have to pay them. I think you know where I’m going with this right? Most people get so into the fight over items that they forget all of these negotiations are costing them and that life after divorce will be that much harder with a lack of funds. Save money when you can, if you’re a spouse that did not work or made less money, your number one priority is to make sure that you are not spending money unnecessarily on attorney fees. The hardest part about starting over from a divorce is having a lack of funds that add more stress and does not put you in the best place to heal.
BE CAREFUL WITH FRIEND ADVICE
Your true friends will feel as if they are going through the divorce with you and this is sometimes very problematic. Why? They’ll sometimes give you advice which doesn’t have your best intentions in mind and can lead to you fighting battles that you really don’t care about deep down. Remember that car story I told you above about, guess who gave me the fuel to fight initially? Your friends mean well but its important to make sure that you jot down what matters to you and what will make you happy. Listen to them but never put your happiness on the back burner for others opinions.
FOCUS ON HEALING NOT WORRYING
Why is any of this important? Well, I wished I had this advice prior to filing a divorce. The goal of divorce is for you to get out of it with as little scuffle marks as possible, and as quickly as possible. The only way you can make sure you’ll be happy is to put yourself first, no matter what. Know exactly what you need to have for a smooth transition, don’t argue over things that really have no value, listen to friends after you figure out what you want, finish the divorce process as quickly as possible, and start living the new chapter in your life.
Wish you the best on your journey 🙂