The Stages of Grief in Divorce – And How Long They Last
After a divorce, you can expect to grieve. And it will take time for you to recover. But, as with all traumatic experiences, you will eventually heal — if you seek to learn about yourself and what you are healing from.
Don’t try to work out how long it will take to get over this. Remember: you are an individual, and how long it takes you to grieve depends on you, and your previous life experiences. It also depends on the circumstances around your divorce, including whether the divorce is a joint decision, or which partner initiated the divorce and why. And finally, how long it takes depends on your willingness to engage with the grief.
In this post we will discuss the stages of grief in divorce — and how long they last. It’s important to explore this because society doesn’t often understand you and what you are going through – for the simple fact that many people have not experienced divorce themselves. People may say things to you that might shake you to the core. Like, “What’s wrong with you? He was a louse and you are better off without him!” Or, “Snap out of it, you’ve been wallowing in pain for too long. The divorce is done!” Or “How could you be sad or mixed up, you wanted the divorce right? Aren’t you happy?”
And of course, an all too common one is “Are you dating yet? Get dating, get distracted. Don’t you want to get married again?” These flippant comments often meaning well, or coming from a place of fatigue hearing over and over about your pain or conflicted emotions, are instant messages that these people simply don’t understand your situation and that you are “in process” on the way to healing. Instead of taking in what uninformed bystanders say, make a point of learning from the experts so you forgive yourself.
Understanding the Non-Linear Stages
The fact is you will be flooded with many different emotions during your recovery from a divorce or a long-term relationship breakup, no matter the circumstances leading up to it. This is the normal stage of grieving for all the changes you’ve been through. Colorado-based therapist Indigo Stray Conger calls what’s happening in this stage of dealing with the grief in divorce the “waves of grief”:
“The stages of grief during divorce, as in any grief, are not linear.”
“They come in waves,” says Conger, “and the most important thing to do is to let those waves wash through you, trusting they will not stay.”
Let’s look at how they fit into a commonly understood “order” of grief. As an aside, remember – people believe that grief comes in a precise order, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Everyone experiences grief differently. But believing that there must be an order consoles some of us into believing we must be on the path to healing. For others, it can make us feel even weirder when our system doesn’t seem to be lining up with the hierarchy.
The 7 Stages of Grief
Although many believe there are only 5 stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance –grief expert David Kressler talks about 7 stages. His 2 extra stages are shock and testing.
According to Dr. Kressler, these 7 stages usually last in total between 1 and 2 years. They include:
- Shock: A feeling of “numbed disbelief”, a potentially healthy response preventing you from feeling overwhelmed.
- Denial: Denying the loss or any feelings related to the loss. It’s your system pushing the pain away. Once you can accept the loss, you can move forward and heal.
“For me, shock and denial came out of left field,” says Sally, 48, who divorced last year. “It was hard to come to terms with the fact that we’d ended the marriage and had broken up our family unit. I wasn’t ready to accept this. But counseling helped me through it.”
- Anger: You could be angry with your Ex, yourself, or others. This is an important stage of grief, that you need to understand and get through.
- Bargaining: Doing anything you can to get rid of the pain. You could find you’re bargaining with yourself a lot – “I’ll just have a couple of glasses of Chardonnay tonight, and look for support tomorrow.”
- Depression: It’s common to feel sad and empty when you’re grieving. The fact is normal patterns have changed around you and within you. There is an emptiness. The good news is that with this emptiness comes an invitation for calling in new and life-affirming things.
“I didn’t understand why I felt so unhappy,” says Margaret, 62, after her divorce three years ago. “I had initiated the divorce. It was all my idea. I should have been elated; I was getting what I wanted. But I was devastated. Coping with an ending – whether it’s the end of the life of a loved one or the end of a marriage – means mourning that ending. And this was what took me by surprise.”
Read: “I Wanted the Divorce. Why Am I So Sad?”
- Testing: Looking for possible solutions to help you through the loss. This is when you are looking for means and support for shaking off what you’ve been through.
- Acceptance: In this final stage, you start to accept your reality. You have metabolized what you’ve been through and you are attaining your “new normal.”
Consider reading, “How to Overcome the 6 Hardest Things About Life After Divorce”
On A Positive Note: Recovery Has 4 Phases
There is a positive for every negative in life; even grief has an ending and a new beginning. That’s why knowing you will recover, and what the stages of recovery will be are as important as the stages you go through when you grieve in divorce.
Recovery involves action.
During recovery, you will be coming to terms with your grief, what you are actually grieving, and metabolizing the loss. When you commit to doing this work, it will help you move forward toward a new life. Some experts like Kessler believe this will only occur after you have gone through all the stages of grief – which takes around 2 years after the divorce.
At SAS for Women, we don’t believe in tightly defined boxes or specific time frames, because again, your process is unique to you. To help you understand more about your divorce recovery and what you are aiming for – being healed, we encourage you to read our “46 Things Steps to Ensure Your Divorce Recovery: A Definition and a Guide.”
What does recovery entail? This is when you start coping in a new way with your circumstances, and you have a more realistic outlook on the new chapter of your life.
Recovery is made up of 4 phases:
-
The initial phase, the most acute
It’s sharp or dull, it erratic or static, but it hurts. Yet, as time goes by, you’ll find that you’re dwelling less on the negative – you’ll feel more confident about your relationships, even the difficult one with your Ex, and your future, whether you’re ready to move on and find another partner, or are creating your new identity as an independent woman, and/or your new role as single mother and coparent.
I distinctly remember my friend Linda telling me to “push your Ex away” and I would do that physically, pushing my hands away from my body to push my thoughts about him away. I never thought the day would come when I didn’t feel as if there was an umbilical cord attached to both of us.
After 16 years of marriage and cohabiting, I couldn’t believe we would lead separate lives one day. But we do.
These days, he is still part of my life; after all, we have a daughter together. But he’s like a distant cousin, an irritating person who thinks he’s always right, and whose presence I have to accept on her birthday and certain holidays. -
Acceptance
Acceptance won’t surprise you. It’s a gradual understanding that you can’t change what has happened, and can only look for constructive ways to cope moving forward. You cease looking in the rearview mirror and replaying, replaying what you already know.
-
Adjustment
It may take a while, but the day will come when you can look back and see how far you’ve come. You will have a newfound perspective. You’ll find that the next chapter of your life is not as daunting as you thought and that there are things that are calling, and yes, even pulling you forward.
-
Healing and recovery
How long this takes, and how you handle this depends on whether you are actively rolling up your sleeves to do the inner work of healing from within. It helps to be in a community with others who understand the divorce journey; people who get it because they are going through this same stage or they have healed from it. Talking with them, being with them, encouraging and challenging each other, the right group can normalize what you are going through. A good support group like Paloma’s Group or a therapist can help you feel less alone and also help you feel that there are action steps to take to break free from the yoke of the past and its trauma.
Stages of Grief: The Pain and Promise of Divorce
Grief is tough, and that’s because it’s related to love. When you love somebody, and that love is lost, for whatever reason, the feeling of loss is intense. The writer, Robert Stone talks about “the promise after the pain”.
“Surviving the breakup of a marriage or, for that matter, surviving the loss of any cherished individual, can leave us a little wiser about love,” he says.
And here is some good news – a better, healthier place is possible.
Read “Is Happiness Even Possible Post-Divorce?
Robert says that by distancing yourself from the pain, you’ll learn that:
- “Relationships can and do end”
- “Love isn’t cut and dried.” With every journey there are “twists and turns along the way”.
- We can and we will survive the loss.
The good news is that after the pain you’ll find a promise of a second chapter, which will include a meaningful relationship with yourself. It’s not about finding somebody new. It’s about retrieving you, who you really are, and reconnecting the broken pieces within you. Only when you do this work, are you really whole, and yes, in a position to show up whole for someone else. Or not. Many women post-divorce realize they are not interested in another relationship. They are truly —-interested in a relationship with themselves.
To help you on the road, read “Jumpstart Your New Chapter: 10 Must Do’s for Life After Divorce”.
Conclusion
The stages of grief in divorce bring with them varying degrees of pain and deep emotions, but while they may hurt or confuse you, you must take in that they are the natural result of loss and you being human. Don’t rush the process. Don’t run from the emotions. Let these stages wash over you. In time, you will be able to look back without tears. You will be proud of yourself for how far you have come and know that the next exciting chapter of your life will start soon.
NOTES
Sharon Preston is a writer and editor. She has edited numerous lifestyle magazines and ghostwritten several books. She lives in a cottage in Johannesburg, South Africa with her two cats. You can connect with Sharon here: sharpreston1234@gmail.com
Whether you are thinking about divorce, dealing with it, or recreating the life you deserve, one thing we see making a significant difference for women is the conscious choice to not do it alone. Since 2012, smart women around the world have chosen SAS for Women to partner with them through the emotional, financial, and oftentimes complicated experience of breaking up and reinventing.
SAS offers all women six free months of email coaching, action plans, checklists, and support strategies for you — and your precious future. Join our tribe and stay connected.
*SAS continues to support same-sex and nonbinary marriage. In this article, however, we refer to your spouse as husband/he/him.
