08 Aug 172 0  

After breaking up from a toxic relationship it will take you a lot of time to recover and all the people in your life will tell you how to move on.

But no one tells you how to move on from your parent's divorce, as if it is a normal thing and it will affect the parents only and as you’re a grown-up it’ll be ok for you, but sadly, it isn’t and it will affect you and affect your relationship with all the people in your life. Even if you don’t notice it, and whether the divorce happened peacefully or after a struggle. 

“After my parent's divorce no one came to talk to me to help me understand how to move on from what happened as if the situation won’t affect me and  I am just a secondary character in their story, until my relationship with the man I love started to change” 

 

Divorce itself is not the problem, the problem starts way before, when you see arguments, control, insults, physical and mental abuse. All that happens in the time you start to gain awareness of the importance of relationships with the opposite sex. Instead of growing up understanding the importance of relationships and marriage you grow up hating men and the whole marriage institution or you may have a perspective that all marriages are like what you saw in your life and then you may go love someone who isn’t suitable for you. Or get attached to the idea of the prince on the white horse who will rescue you from all you saw, and you find yourself searching for the one and your mind gives you unreal signals and you find yourself repeating your parent's story again because you didn’t know how to choose the right person.

And that isn’t only in romantic relationships but also in your relationship with your siblings, friends, and colleagues because like we said it starts way before the divorce. Your parents' relationships may affect the formation of your personality and you may turn out to be indecisive or a people pleaser, you accept everything even if it would negatively affect you, or you may become an aggressive person who doesn't accept any criticism from anyone and much more.

After divorce, everything starts to be clear because all the struggles that were happening before become so much less or even disappear and you begin to go through different stages.

**It is not a must that you go through all the stages because some people know that their parents are toxic or the divorce itself was after an agreement between them, so it’s not a must that you go through all stages. Every relationship is different and our capability to handle what we go through is different too**

 

In the beginning, you start to ask yourself a lot of questions like how is that happened and why, and how your life is gonna be after that or is that normal in a marriage or something went wrong, and sometimes you ask yourself if you were a part of what made their relationship unbearable?

You start to be angry with everything and everyone because you don’t understand what happened well yet.

**At the anger stage it’s important to talk to someone close to you or to a Psychologist because hiding your anger and sadness will affect you badly and make you heal slowly, we’ll talk about the healing process later**

After the divorce, your relationship with the people around you would change and you would see things you didn’t see before. Your mind may convince you that all relationships are not permanent and that all people will leave you someday. At this point you would end your relationship with the people around you just because they didn't end it first or if a misunderstanding happened, you don’t try to fix it because you’re convinced they’ll leave you anyway. All that is not true, your mind is trying to make a defense to protect you, don’t believe what you feel at this stage.

In this stage your relationship with the man you love may be ruined or become healthier, why’s that?

You may find out that you love a toxic person because of all the things that happened in your life - The toxicity may not be visible in the beginning- and you may be with him for so long and get attached to him very much. But after your parent’s divorce your doubts about yourself and about the people around you will increase, and the fear of abandonment will make you do things that don't look like you. 

At this point with the wrong person, your relationship will be ruined because from the beginning you chose wrong, but if that happened don’t doubt yourself because if this relationship had continued you wouldn’t have been happy.

Or, from the beginning you chose the right person and after all that happened in your life he stands by you and supports you in every step, then your relationship with him will be stronger than ever.

 

• The Healing Process

We talked about the feelings you would face after your parent’s divorce and now we must talk about the most important step, The healing process:

You will go through some steps in the healing process

• The denial stage and disbelief, with the feeling that all this has not happened or that everything will change.
•  Then the anger comes, you will be angry about everything in your life.
• Then the depression period and I want to say to you that this stage is totally normal after a toxic relationship in your life. And in this stage, you will lose hope about the future and all relationships and you would find yourself unable to feel loved or belonging to anyone.

This stage is the hardest stage of the healing process because life is very depressing and you may feel that you can’t do anything in your day and even your work you do it hardly.

It is essential at this stage that you know that it will be temporary and then it will pass. Don’t listen to your dark thoughts and ask for help from someone close to you or a psychiatrist to begin the most important stage in the healing process.

• The acceptance stage is the most important in the healing process and it comes after the depression stage. You start to accept everything that happened in your life before and after your parent’s divorce and you accept the abuse you faced and you start to see the good in what you lived through and you will believe that you deserve the best.

- Don’t forget to ask for help and talk about what you feel because you may not see the light at the end of the road by yourself, you’ll need someone to show you the right way. 

Support doesn't always mean that someone will tell you what to do or how to live, it can only be someone by your side and telling you that everything will be okay and that he loves you and knows how you feel.

• It is important to write what you feel 
• Do the things you love and break the fear of trying new things

 

In the end, I want to tell you that I know how hard every stage is and how every step takes a lot of energy from you, but everything will pass, believe me, just try not to lose yourself, trust in yourself and accept your sorrow. EVERYTHING WILL PASS!