According to the results of recent evaluative studies, the stress experienced by a person going through a divorce is second only to the stress caused by the death of a loved one or a relative. These are indeed similar experiences in many ways.
You might have heard about this many times and read about it in various sources, but that will still not make facing a similar situation in your own life any easier. No one is ever ready for their family to collapse and for the model of their world to fall apart. You cannot prepare for this, but at the same time, you should not underestimate the chances that it could someday happen to you.
Not paying due attention to the small details in your current relationship can lead to bad things later. Neglected chronic diseases are extremely difficult to treat, and the same goes with problems in the marriage. If you don’t work on fixing them early, they will only get worse until it is too late.
Don’t avoid support!
You can start a family and be 100% ready for a serious relationship and its consequences, but it is impossible to be fully prepared for a crisis within that family. Sometimes this leads to a situation where divorce is considered to be the only way out. Nevertheless, this article is not about the reasons, but about some tips on how to deal with the consequences.
The main issue at the initial stage of the divorce process is that the negative emotional state and psychological stress can have a bad effect on your performance at work. Success at work is a crucial criteria for a normal life. And being fired or demoted because of poor work performance would make an already difficult situation even more impossible.
Even if you can’t boast of having a very trusting relationship with your boss, it is worth it to step over your principles and to talk with your manager or supervisor. Giving an honest description of your current situation can save you from having to search for adequate reasons to explain the possible decrease in productivity. And if your boss offers you support, don’t avoid it, especially if it is really loyal and compassionate!
Filter the advice!
Support from management will give you a little sense that you can cope with the problem. On the other hand, keep in mind that it is not always a good idea to make your divorce public and there is no need to hurry to share the situation with your colleagues! Especially if it is a large company where there is a spirit of rivalry and career races.
The last thing you need is fake sympathy and empty advice from people who are indifferent to you. Trust your feelings only to the people closest to you. This will help you to concentrate better on the really important things! This situation could even be an opportunity to filter your usual social circle from the toxic people who surrounded you earlier.
Use special online divorce services!
In order to reboot and fully return to the fulfillment of your immediate work duties, learn the benefits of web services, which can simplify your divorce proceedings. If you manage to qualify your case as an unconnected, you can save your time, money, and nerves. A special online service can prepare all the divorce papers without the need to turn to lawyers for help.
Beware of becoming a workaholic!
During a psychological load like this, it isn’t uncommon for people to completely immerse themselves in work to distract themselves from endless introspection! An intensive working schedule can become an escape from reality, much like drugs or alcohol, as a sort of "substitution therapy".
Suppressing your feelings and falling into addictive tendencies is not a healthy way to deal with the situation. The better decision is to take a timeout in order to figure out what happened and come to terms with your situation. It is important to give yourself time to heal emotionally, and avoiding work is one way to achieve that. Most likely, you won’t be allowed to take sick leave, since you are not sick in the traditional sense. So take a few days off, depending on what your work schedule will allow.
It is obvious that you won’t be able to focus on urgent work for some time. Such a break can literally help you to rebuild your consciousness and begin to accept your new reality. Life is about more than just work, so take some time to live again too. This means developing new habits and new routines. The more you get the rest of your life in order the more success you’ll start seeing at work again too.
Understanding and forgiving
Two key tasks for becoming whole again after a divorce are to understand and forgive. These are incredibly important skills, applicable not only to the situation with divorce but for all areas of life. First of all, try to objectively assess the degree of your own responsibility for the situation that occurred. Such an analysis can really make you sober and dissuade you from dividing the world into black and white. Awareness of the situation will allow you to stop treating divorce as a personal tragedy.
Next you need to forgive your spouse and forgive yourself. It is the only way you can truly move on with your life. The fact that your marriage ended doesn’t make you a bad person. Thinking less of yourself will only make you feel worse. So forgiveness of yourself is about having a positive outlook towards the future. Remember that forgiveness is a process. It will likely take some time to work through your own emotional issues before you can truly forgive your ex-spouse.
Paradoxical as it may sound, sometimes in difficult life situations, the simplest and most obvious things help. Now is the time to pay attention to yourself and your own psychological and physical stability, and to stop taking on overwhelming tasks and overestimating the importance and necessity of self-sacrifice.