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    Post-Divorce Bliss: Ending Us & Finding Me
    Post-Divorce Bliss: Ending Us & Finding Me
    Post-Divorce Bliss: Ending Us & Finding Me
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    Post-Divorce Bliss: Ending Us & Finding Me

    By Jude Walsh and Jed Diamond

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    About this ebook

    Ready to leave your divorce behind and live a life you love?

    After a long marriage, Jude Walsh found herself in a position she never thought possible: divorced. The life she knew was gone. To heal the pain of the divorce and create a different future for herself, Jude developed eight practices, which she shares with the goal of helping other women create the life of their dreams and thrive after divorce. In Post-Divorce Bliss, women learn to shift their perspective, go beyond grief, and transform their trauma, along with other practical skills for moving forward. With Jude’s guidance and passion, women find themselves ready to leave their divorce behind and live a life they love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJun 25, 2019
    ISBN9781642792355
    Author

    Jude Walsh

    Jude Walsh is a writer and life coach dedicated to helping women not just survive midlife divorce but also thrive as they create a beautiful new reality. A Writing Mindset and Legacy Writing teacher, she is also active in the literary community and has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies. Jude travels frequently, writes daily, and leans into the abundant adventure her life has become. She lives with her son and three lively dogs in Dayton, Ohio.

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      Book preview

      Post-Divorce Bliss - Jude Walsh

      Introduction

      This is not the life I ordered. Divorce after a long marriage comes as a shock, disconnecting two people who have been together for most of a lifetime. Some partners accept it easily and move on quickly. Others are blindsided, devastated, deeply wounded. If you are among those, this book is for you.

      Divorce is common in the United States. Current statistics estimate 40% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages, and a whopping 70% of third marriages end in divorce. Yet most of us believe when we marry that our marriage will last forever. The longer we are married, the more convinced of this we become.

      When we say divorce, we usually mean the legal dissolution of a marriage. That is one definition, one that is nice, tidy, and devoid of emotion or feeling; a simple legal transaction. Divorce is also defined as a separation between things which were or ought to be connected; to separate or dissociate from something else. It is the second definition that can bring us to our knees.

      If betrayal is involved, the wound is particularly deep. How, after all these years together, could this happen? Especially at a time when we have raised our children or built our careers and now have the time to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Did all those years of working together to get here mean nothing? Were we married to strangers? It can feel that way.

      It is understandable to refuse to accept this sea change in your life, to believe that it is an aberration, a glitch in an otherwise solid relationship. It is understandable to want to fight to heal the marriage. It is understandable to nurture the hope that your partner will come to his senses, realize what is being destroyed, and do the work necessary to heal and rebuild. When that doesn’t happen, when he walks away from the marriage, when your touchstone is no longer yours, when your wealth is suddenly divided, when you are suddenly on your own after a lifetime of together, the trauma can devastate even the strongest among us.

      Sometimes we forget how strong we are. We forget how precious and valuable we are. We might lose track of what we gave, what we sacrificed, to get to this point. A sacred, not just a legal, contract has been violated. In our pain, we doubt our worth, question our judgment, and no longer trust our power of discernment. We feel discarded. The person who promised to love and honor us until death do us part has reneged. We are expected to just take what we are given and step aside. It’s over, we’re told; just accept it.

      The divorce process is particularly difficult if you were caught unawares by infidelity. While reeling from the discovery, you have the task of creating a new life when you had been happy with the life you had. You enter the territory of taking a long hard look at what you really did have–only this time, without the rose-colored glasses–and this hurts. You might for a long while still nurture the hope that he will wake up; he will see what he has destroyed and want to rebuild. But then, perhaps, he might remarry, or you might, in your efforts to heal, realize that you deserve better than what you had.

      This experience happens to even the best, the brightest, the most competent, and strong women. We forget our mobility and our ability to problem-solve, and we dwell in the house of pain. We lose our way, our sense of self, our confidence, and our place in the world. Being a wife is a central part of our identity—and then suddenly, it is not. We feel shame, humiliation, regret, grief, and anger.

      Our lives are shattered by divorce. We no longer have a partner to depend upon. Our financial status changes: at best we have half of what we had together, and the cold truth is it is often less than half. Our social status changes too. While you were once firmly rooted in a couple-oriented social scene, you are suddenly partnerless and no longer included. This is more painful if your ex has remarried and the new wife just slips into what was once your place. And what about all the traditions you built together over the life of the marriage? What happens on Christmas or other religious holidays? Who is with you to celebrate your birthday, Valentine’s Day, achievements in your career? Who is there to care for you if you get sick or experience some other kind of life

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