Today, I'm going to continue with my Tips to Heal from Abandonment. Today's tip is pretty easy; it only requires a little bit of motivation.
Tell me if this sounds familiar: You just discovered that your spouse is having an affair. He also left you for the other woman. You are devestated. Your feel like an empty purse: someone picked you up, turned you upside down, shook you vigorously, and now all of what you used to know and believe is lying on the ground. You have no idea what to do next. You can't even process what has just happened to you, let alone begin to think rationally enough to make a plan for how to deal with it.
As you reel from the shock and pain of adandonment, you find yourself sinking into a depression. You have no motivation to do anything. You just want to stay in bed all day. You cry every moment when you're awake. You would love to just sleep the rest of your life away. You stop eating, stop showering, and have been in the same pair of yoga pants for five days. You can't even think about taking care of yourself or your home because you are so traumatized by what has happened to you. You have no idea how you are supposed to cope with this, and you can't imagine that you will ever feel better, let alone overcome this. You are filled with terrible
emotions like anxiety, fear, self-doubt, and hatred. Your depression and anger might even be making you physically ill.
How many of us went through this? I know I had at least a few days like this. There is no shame in mourning the loss of your marriage and being overwhelmed by your emotions. You experienced a tremendous emotional trauma. Your reaction is completely normal. You are allowed to give yourself time to grieve.
Here's the thing, though: you cannot let this phase of grief linger forever. I know it is tempting to try to ignore the reality of your situation (and your feelings) by sleeping all day. I have been tempted to take a sleeping pill and go back to bed at 10:00 am. I have gone way too many days without brushing my hair or changing my clothes. It's a good thing my son is still too young to notice. Sometimes I look back on this time in my life and wonder if he ever thought I smelled bad when I hugged him or tucked him into bed.
But this phase of self-despair has to stop at some point. You will never be able to pick up the pieces of your life (or put all your belongings back in your purse) if you don't pick yourself up and get out of bed, take a shower, and face your situation. I wish I had some magic formula I could give you to help you find the motivation to begin to move on. Because you do need motivation to make yourself get out of bed and to take care of yourself and your home. I guess my best advice is to find one reason, just one thing that is worth living for again. For me, it was my son. Even though he's pretty self-sufficient, I knew he still needed me to drive him to and from school, to pack his lunch, to help him with his homework, and to make his dinner. Plus, he would never take a bath, brush his teeth, or go to bed on
time if I didn't make him. So he gave me the motivation I needed to get out of that depressive funk. I know you don't all have kids, so your motivation might be different. Maybe it will be remembering that your dog really loves to go on walks. Maybe you will decide to throw yourself into a new project at work. Or perhaps you will remember a hobby or activity that you used to enjoy but never had time for while married, and now you have time to do that activity again. Whatever speaks to you, grab on to it and hold on tight. Focus on it and use it to bring you back to yourself.
Once you've found the motivation to get going, I urge you to stay busy. While we all need to think through and process what happened to us, you've probably already done that a lot while you were in the stay-in-bed phase of grief. You've already asked all the what if questions, called your husband and his tramp every dirty name in the book, thought about all the things you did wrong or could have done differently (reminder: this would not have changed a single thing, so you can put those thoughts to bed now), and pondered the difference between what you thought your future was going to look like with your spouse and the stark reality of what it will look like without him. So give yourself a break and let your mind rest.
The best way to stop focusing on your situation is to distract yourself. That's why staying busy is so helpful. Find something to occupy your mind. I chose to dive into work and get way ahead on all of my projects. (This really came in handy when I later had to schedule doctor appointments and go to court hearings as my pregnancy and divorce progressed.) I also chose to read fiction for pleasure. I have always loved to read and lamented the limited time I had to do this in the past. One thing I enjoy about reading is its ability to temporarily transport you into someone else's story for a little while. For me, this was the perfect distraction from my own life. Once I had been out of the funk for a little while, and started to have more control over my emotions, I returned to some hobbies I always enjoyed but had stopped doing during my marriage. I started baking, sewing, and crafting again. But whatever I was doing, I was focusing on the task in front of me, and not on Wusband's abrupt departure from my life. The less I thought about him, the better I felt. I believe this will be true for you, too.
It turns out that there is an additional benefit to staying busy, one that I wasn't even looking for. I started to keep busy to ensure I never had idle hands or an idle mind simply to protect my sanity, but I found that this also helped me find my way back to myself. I believe that we all progress through different versions of ourselves as we move through life. Self Version 1.0 might have been you in high school, then Self Version 2.0 might have developed in early adulthood as you went to college or started a career, and so on. For me, there was a version of myself that existed prior to Wusband. That version of myself truly found the joy in each day and was constantly engaged in activities I enjoyed. I loved life and was happy with the choices I had made and the way I spent my time. The next version of myself was my Wusband self. This version is currently unrecogizable to me, as I lost a lot of my independence and sense of self. So this new version of me, the one that is developing now as I continue my own healing process, is a version I am excited to see. While I am sure that I will not be the same person I was before Wusband, I am pleased that some of my pre-Wusband self has remained. And engaging in my old hobbies has really helped me to reconect with myself. I succeeded in distracting myself, but I also ended up finding a little bit of joy and remembering who I used to be. And I was happy to see that girl again.
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