Many people go through a ‘grieving period’ when their divorce takes place. The death of a relationship can be felt as deeply as the death of a loved one. While it is quite natural to grieve in this way, there may be occasions when prolonged grieving becomes counter productive, even maladaptive - and this can start to cause problems in relationships with friends and family.

It’s often all too easy to continue to muse over the ‘what ifs’ of any relationship: what if I had said this, what if we had done that. Becoming preoccupied with events that might have taken place or conversations that never happened can be as futile as continuing with the ‘blame game’. Putting things into some kind of perspective often helps.

Good Times

In any relationship there are normally good times and bad times, good years and bad years. When things go wrong we tend to focus on the bad times. Thinking about the good times can give you more resources to cope with the change happening in your life. For example, if you had five happy years with your ex-partner, think about all the people who never get that amount of happiness in any relationship. The fact that you have had good times is also an indication of your success at building relationships – and this is of paramount importance for the future.

Re-framing

This way of re-examining relationships is called re-framing. Re-framing gives us an opportunity to look at the way we approach situations and to change problems into opportunities. One of the ways in which we can do this is to examine the statements we make about our lives to other people, and ourselves, and try to restate these in more positive terms. For example, the statement: “I always spend too much money on clothes” can also be stated, more positively as: “I’m the kind of person who cares very much about my appearance.” Psychologists have found that re-framing negative statements into positive ones has a startlingly beneficial effect on mood, outlook and even health.

A New Start

Divorce is a way of starting afresh. Look at the positive things in your life – the things you are proud of accomplishing and the people who know and love you. Look at the future as an opportunity, a challenge. Change does not have to be painful – it can be exciting, wonderful and adventurous. Nobody knows what the future has in store, but if you face up to it with positivity and creativity, you will find yourself starting to enjoy life (and relationships) again.