You’ve Sorted the Divorce. So Why Don’t You Feel Like Yourself Yet?
There can be a strange moment after a long marriage ends when, on paper, much of the work appears to be done.
The lawyers have finished.
The property has been divided.
You may have moved house, changed bank accounts, updated documents, bought furniture, worked out where you will spend Christmas and learnt far more about superannuation than you ever wanted to know.
And yet you can wake up one morning and realise:
I still don’t feel like me.
This is one of the parts of divorce later in life that I believe we need to talk about far more openly.
Because rebuilding a life and rebuilding a self are not the same thing.
You didn't only lose a relationship
After twenty or thirty years with another person, your life becomes layered with roles.
You may have been a wife.
A mother.
Someone's partner.
Part of a couple.
The person who organised birthdays and remembered who brought what to Christmas.
The one who knew which friends you saw on Saturday nights and which side of the family you visited at Easter.
Perhaps you were the social organiser, peacekeeper, planner, supporter, caregiver or quiet CEO of an entire family.
Some of those roles may have been exhausting.
Some you may be relieved to leave behind.
And some you may have absolutely loved.
That matters.
Rebuilding does not require you to despise the woman you were.
Quite the opposite.
I want women to be able to look back at that version of themselves with enormous love.
She built a life.
She loved people.
She held things together.
She survived things nobody else knows about.
And now she gets to discover who she is becoming next.
The question changes
For a long time, many of our decisions are filtered through the word we.
Where are we going?
What are we doing?
Can we afford it?
Who are we seeing?
What do we want our future to look like?
Then suddenly the question becomes:
What do I want?
That can sound liberating.
Sometimes it is.
But when you haven't had to answer that question entirely for yourself for decades, it can also feel surprisingly confronting.
Women sometimes think this means they have lost their confidence.
I don't necessarily think that's true.
Sometimes I think you simply haven't exercised the muscle of choosing entirely for yourself for a very long time.
And muscles can be strengthened.
Start smaller than you think
There is enormous pressure around the idea of creating your next chapter.
It sounds as though you need a five-year plan, a new career, a new house, fabulous friends, international travel and possibly a linen wardrobe worthy of Instagram.
You don't.
Your next chapter can begin with much smaller questions.
What music do I like when nobody else gets a vote?
What do I want my bedroom to feel like?
Who do I actually enjoy spending time with?
What makes me curious?
What have I stopped doing?
What have I always wanted to try?
How do I want an ordinary Tuesday to feel?
These questions may look insignificant.
They're not.
They are clues.
Reclaim before you reinvent
At Recreate & RISE®, the first part of our work is Reclaim.
There is a reason for that.
Before you rush to create an entirely different woman, there may be parts of yourself waiting to be reclaimed.
The woman who loved dancing.
The woman who travelled.
The woman who painted, studied, surfed, dressed differently, laughed loudly, wanted more, dreamed bigger or simply had opinions she stopped expressing.
You may not want to become your younger self again.
You have lived too much for that.
But she may have left some things behind for you.
And there may also be a completely new version of you beginning to emerge.
You are allowed to take your time
There is no deadline for this.
You are not behind because somebody else started dating first.
You are not failing because another woman bought an apartment and appears to be thriving while you are still trying to work out where to sit at a wedding.
And you do not need to know exactly where your life is going before you begin living it.
Sometimes rebuilding starts simply by recognising:
The marriage has ended. I haven't.
You are still here.
And now, perhaps for the first time in a very long time, you have the opportunity to become deeply acquainted with the woman who is here too.
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