Living without your partner requires you to respond in a single-person way to the new demands of single life. How can you do that when you still perceive the world and respond to it as a married / partnered person?

The answer is: you cannot. There is no such thing as being “suddenly” single. In the initial stages of divorce, the physical everyday presence of your partner is no longer a taken-for-granted fact-of-life. But he or she is still very much present – along with the married life you had – in your mind and feelings.

What do you do to begin moving your life forward?
You learn to become single through the mourning process. Mourning the loss of a relationship is the natural and normal way we let go of someone who is no longer present in the familiar way.

The mourning process is your key to healing yourself. Fighting it by pretending everything is fine (when it isn’t) trying to hasten it, or denying its existence, will only keep you stuck.

What is the mourning process and how do I embark on it? It is the natural process of letting go of your attachment. It is living through the sum of emotions you are having in response to the loss. These emotions are normal, but can nevertheless make you think you are right on the edge of sanity.

The grief you are experiencing may come in surprising ways that can range from agony and anguish to sadness and depression, resentment and helplessness. You may feel shocked, confused, indifferent or that you want to withdraw and give up. Loss of appetite, irregular sleeping patterns and low self-esteem are common reactions.

How long does mourning last, and how will I know when it is over?
You may get frightened. What if you never pull out of it? Each person experiences the mourning process in his or her own unique way, so no set time can be given for everyone.

However, it usually takes up to about two years for the process to reach the point where you begin to feel a sense of yourself as a separate individual with possibilities for self-realization that you thought were impossible to attain at the beginning of your divorce.

Once I have more or less completed the grieving process, what can I look forward to?
The mourning process is the road you must travel to lose your married self-image so that your single self-image can take its place. There is no going back to the past so you must move forward. Because you have had little or no experience in living, thinking and behaving as a single person, the future seems scary and uncertain. If you cannot move backward and the future is fraught with insecurity, where do you turn? In fact, your sense of emptiness of life is the source of your self-renewal!

Where your Self-Renewal begins.
Now is the time to turn your losses into gains. Ironically, the sense of “nothingness” enables you to reevaluate and reexamine everything that you once took for granted when you were part of a couple. “Nothingness” affords you a second chance at life, a chance to replace your old perspective with a new one that is realistic and appropriate in allowing you to attain your wants and needs at this time in your life.