I have written about how we often experience intense grief during and after a divorce — even where we chose to end the marriage. We mourn the loss of the chapters of our life — trips, retirement, small moments as a pair — even if it turns out that our lead character was miscast. When I wrote about this, I didn't anticipate the magnitude of the response — apparently there are many people for whom the message resonated. Divorce really does cause grief that society doesn't have structures set up to manage.
One challenge is that divorce proceedings don't offer room for grieving. They require you to have your most exacting attention, your top analytical skills, exactly when you feel the most drained and exhausted.
There are no perfect solutions — sometimes in life it is what it is. Example: my first divorce attorney disappeared. The rumor is he moved to Paris. It is what it is.
Nonetheless, we should still give everything we have into making sure that when we eventually stop grieving, our life is — as best it can be — set up for happiness and success.
Having been through the process, I can say that there are a lot of divorce resources out there, but volume doesn't mean quality and many important issues never get addressed. They also routinely assume a traditional household structure — husband as income provider who gets a paycheck twice a month.
But our lives increasingly don't look like the model developed decades ago. Women as the primary income provider, increasingly complex compensation structures and asset types — these changes and more mean the advice often doesn't meet the actual circumstances.
To address some of these gaps, pursueyourpink developed the resources you will find in Planning For Your Divorce. I hope you find them helpful, that they at least provide a point of reference for you as you move through this transition in your life.
The women I've watched come out of divorce most themselves are not the ones who felt the least. They're the ones who let themselves feel all of it and still asked the unglamorous questions early — before the big decisions hardened into terms.