Before You Love Again

Research bears out the extraordinarily high rate of second and third marriages ending in divorce. One of the major reasons is that one or both did not let go and did not focus their intentions on true healing. Only resolving the difficult feelings will ultimately lead to neutrality and heightened self-awareness. Personal growth and self-awareness are important by-products of this effort. Attaining a healthy level of neutrality means that we are no longer hooked into fighting and wasting our precious energy. We take back our power and refrain from getting into power struggles. When we have obtained our emotional divorce, we have chosen to be happy rather than right. We can respond with logic rather than emotion. As we grow in our understanding of what happened and what our part was, we develop wisdom along with compassion, both for ourselves and for our former partners. Eventually, we even start to notice the gifts the relationship provided. Loss is a dramatic, life-changing event. Divorce, like death, is a terrifying and dramatic life change. Research has shown that divorce can be even more devastating emotionally than a death. You find yourself suddenly alone; you have no one to share your thoughts, dreams, and even frustrations with. You are, for all intents and purposes, a widow or widower. You are fragile at this stage of uncoupling. The American Heart Association has a term for the physical effects of heartbreak: broken-heart syndrome. When you’re left to fend for yourself, it is imperative that you turn inward. You’ve just had the equivalent of open-heart surgery; you’re into the earliest phase of healing your broken heart. You need to give yourself the time, compassion, patience, and kindness you would give to your best friend or a child suffering a major loss. In death, there is no choice but to accept the finality of the situation. Loss hurts! It can provoke an extraordinarily high level of anxiety. The same emotional dynamics exist with a divorce; however, in addition to the loss of one’s partner and all that loss entails, most cases require an intense discussion and settlement about future arrangements for children, property and other asset distributions, living arrangements, holidays, friends, in-laws, and even pets. To add to the huge pileup of stressful matters, often, there is a change in the new financial situation of each partner. These are numerous complications that the death of a partner does not bring. There is mounting evidence that the act of forgiveness has emotional and physical payoffs. Research has concluded that when one does not forgive and chooses to hold on to bitterness, anger, hostility, hatred, and resentment, there are physiological consequences, including increased blood pressure, immune suppression, impaired neurological functioning, and a weakening of memory. The unwillingness to forgive affects our energy levels and mood and is linked to cardiovascular disease. Carrying anger, hatred, and resentment has a severe impact on your physical and spiritual being.