Embrace Your Divorce to Find Your Brighter Future

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The overriding goal of Divorced Over 50 is to help everyone move through his or her Divorce and into a brighter future. In order to do that, it’s vital to accept that the Divorce has happened, and use it as a pathway to self discovery, which in turn will lead to that better life.

In this article for movingpastdivorce.com, Rosalind Sedacca suggests four important steps we can take after our Divorces that will help propel us into that brighter future. They are:

  • Boost Your Self Esteem: It’s certainly easy to be down on yourself after a Divorce, especially if it wasn’t your decision. But pushing yourself to adopt a positive attitude about yourself, and your future, can help make it happen. Be pro-active, seeking out new friends and engaging in new activities. Explore sides of yourself that may have gone dormant during your marriage. Rediscover who you are, or hit the reset button and become who you want to be.
  • Use Divorce as a Lesson in Self-awareness: Ask yourself what you might have done differently. What role did you play in the Divorce? You can’t change what happened, but you can learn from the experience so you’ll do better next time.
  • Forgive Yourself and Your Ex: Blaming yourself or your ex only holds you back; it keeps you from moving forward. If you were wronged, you don’t have to forget what your ex did, but forgiving means you won’t be hurt by those actions anymore.
  • Re-explore Your Expectations About Healthy Relationships: Is it obvious now that you married the wrong person, or for the wrong reason? Is it clear now that your expectations about marriage were way off? With the knowledge you’ve gained, you can do so much better if you decide to find a new partner for the next chapter of your life.

Take Care of Yourself – You Deserve It!

If there’s any time in your life when self-care is called for, it’s when going through a Divorce. The process can be absolutely overwhelming, with all the turmoil, emotion, and tremendous levels of stress. So what do most people do to keep themselves well and ease the burdens they’re feeling?

Absolutely nothing. 

The Right Way to Say “I’m Sorry”

Remember that old catchphrase from the seventies, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”?

Whether it’s true or not, Divorce very often means you, or your ex, really should be saying you’re sorry. But just uttering those words is not enough. To really do its job, the apology needs to be offered correctly. So what’s the proper etiquette for saying you’re sorry?

How To Become a “Superager”

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If you’re still looking for a New Years resolution that will pay off big time, how about becoming a “Superager”?

So what’s a Superager? It’s someone of an advanced age who’s still got a mind like a person many decades younger. And though that’s a worthy goal regardless of marital status, Divorced Over 50’s have even more motivation, as we’ve got that brighter future coming, and want to fully enjoy it (Right?).

There’s a catch, though: It takes hard work, and you’ve got to push yourself through some pain.

Overcome Divorce Over 50 Loneliness

divorced over 50

In late April, I offered DivorcedOver50.com users a survey built around two simple questions: What are the best things about being a divorced person over 50, and what are the worst?

Here’s a link to the survey, if you want to check it out or take it.

Not surprisingly, the overwhelming winner for best was “freedom.” And the most common answer for worst was “loneliness.”

I wrote a piece for Huffington Post discussing the loneliness aspect, aimed at the Di-Curious. The premise is that loneliness can be attacked and overcome. And that a Di-Curious person, weighing his or her options, should not be scared off from Divorce due to that specific fear.

For the Divorced Over 50 community, that decision has already been made, whether by you, your ex-spouse, or mutual agreement. Because such a large percentage (including many who wanted the divorce or whose split was mutual) are facing loneliness, it’s important to discuss it on these pages as well.

Find the Happiness Within

Being Divorced Over 50, we’ve had to let go of plenty of things from our lives.  For one, the expectation of living out our days with our spouse and keeping our family intact.  For many of us, no matter how badly we wanted out of our marriage, that was difficult.  It was painful.  It hurt.

But are there things in our lives that we should actively try to let go?  And by doing so, can that help make us happier?