Why Am I So Lonely After Divorce From My Husband?

When someone gets divorced, they go through an emotional roller coaster ride that lasts at least six months and may last up to several years. It’s important to recognize these consequences of divorce. Throughout your divorce experience, you may have feelings of social loneliness. We want you to be aware so that these emotions don’t turn into a much deeper depression after divorce.

Does Your Situation Sound Like This?

“I’ve been divorced from my husband for over a year now and am still feeling lonely, sad, and angry at times. Why is this happening? What do you suggest I do about it?”

-Sandy

Dear Sandy,

It’s normal to have feelings of sadness and loneliness after divorce when you’re going through a difficult time in life like a separation from family. But if you find yourself feeling lonely or having feelings of depression long after your divorce has ended, there could be something more than just “normal” going on.

You Have to Stop Lingering Feelings from Loneliness After Divorce

Some studies say that it will take as long as half the time you were together with your ex to fully get over the divorce. So let’s say you were with your ex in a relationship for 20 years. That would mean you can easily expect 10 years of “getting over” the relationship. 

Of course, this is going to vary. For instance, in the case of abuse, infidelity, or another kind of tough divorce it could go much faster, however that isn’t going to be the case for everyone. Another way to speed up divorce recovery is to work with someone who has experience in divorce coaching.

During these periods of loneliness, you will feel sad, angry, and experience other negative feelings. You may also experience depression or anxiety. These feelings are normal and will last for a period of time. They will pass during your healing process.

You shouldn’t try to speed this process up with a rebound relationship just to appease your sense of loss. 

Change Your Routines in Life After Divorce

What can you do to change how lonely you feel without your former spouse in your life?

Changing your daily routine can be one of the most rewarding things you can do. It can also be really easy once you consider some of the options to take advantage of which can help your mental health during this period of time.

1. Shop at a different grocery store.

2. Get into an exercise routine if you didn’t have one before and if you did maybe it’s time to explore another form of exercises like hiking, bowling, or even darts and billiards with friends.

3. Change where you live, or even the city/suburb.

This is just a shortlist to get your thinking going. What you have done, and more importantly what you want to do, is going to fill your list. But, think outside of the box as they say. Who knows just how much fun you’re going to have trying all of these new things!

Is Your Former Partner Controlling Your Emotions?

Many times your ex can ‘control’ your emotions. They might text you, or do something with a once close friend that affects your emotions toward them. That feeling either being hateful, resentful or even happiness – your emotions might be, being controlled.

Many people who have become divorced need to move away because they can’t even stand to be in the same city they lived as a married couple. There are just too many strong emotions tied to history that can be really burdensome to someone dealing with chronic loneliness after divorce.

Grief of Divorce

There is a process that you have to go through post-divorce. Sometimes you might start the process while your marriage is fizzling out. When this happens your divorce recovery might go faster than you expected.

There are stages to grief and just like grief after someone has passed away, your relationship has passed away and you’re going to experience all the stages of grief. I would actually be worried if you didn’t experience them to be very honest with you.

The stages of grief don’t happen in any special order. And, once you’ve experienced each stage of grief don’t expect them to be gone and done with. Many times the stages of grief come and go, and will happen “out of order”. Don’t worry because this is the path you need to take to be a much happier person.

The important thing is that you experience each stage, you deal with your emotions occurring from that stage, and then you move on. You cannot live in the past and expect to come out a new person on the other end.