How does divorce affect a man?
Divorce is always psychologically difficult, and the more you have lived together, the harder it is. Divorce completely changes the usual way of life for both spouses. For some reason, there is a widespread belief that divorce has a negative impact on a woman and that only she is very worried.
Although in the vast majority of cases it is the woman who demands divorce. The fact is that a man suffers no less. But crying and complaining to everyone around, as women do, is not acceptable for a man, and therefore he will keep everything to himself and worry in silence.
Separation from family is a great stress for a man, especially if children were born in this marriage. The psychology of men is such that many become depressed for a long time, feeling very lonely.
Constantly staying in this state can lead to various physical and mental illnesses, for example, panic attacks and heart problems. Some even try to commit suicide during the period of withdrawal from their family, which can last more than three years.
Many people immediately after a divorce try to find a new woman and sometimes start a serious relationship with almost the first person they meet who will console and give affection.
Psychological differences emerge much later, and this relationship also ends.
Men after a divorce can behave differently: some try to harm their ex-wife, others try to “part as friends” and maintain good relations with their wives for a long time, while others try by hook or by crook to bring their spouse back to themselves, sometimes they even succeed.
A small part of men after a divorce are even very happy, because they are finally free! But getting used to living alone is not very easy or pleasant, and therefore the euphoria passes quickly.
It is sometimes even easier for women to survive a divorce - they have no time to suffer, because they need to raise children, earn money to provide for them, and take care of themselves.
After a divorce, men lose such goals and begin to go to extremes - they have unprotected sex, drink a lot, take drugs, and commit crimes. They feel useless, self-esteem plummets, and a bunch of complexes appear.
How to survive a divorce from your wife
“You don’t really know a woman until you meet her in court.” With this quote from Woody Allen, let's look at the advice of psychologists to help a man survive a divorce.
Accept and let go
Divorce proceedings are not a problem for a man. The problem begins after it, for example, fear of loneliness, depression, financial problems. Any of the above can knock a man off his feet. Therefore, the most important thing is not to break. There is life after divorce!
Understand and accept two things: the support of true friends and acceptance of what happened. Divorce is not the end, but rather the beginning of something new.
See how women cope with divorce. They cry, calling their friends who come to them and cry with them. Funny, right? No, that's the best you can do. Release your grief and pain after a breakup. It is not necessary to cry, you can scream, howl or chop wood, the main thing is to “blow off steam”, remove anger and stress from the body, otherwise the heart will refuse to obey.
Therefore, do not hesitate to ask for support from friends or loved ones. Ask them to help you deal with your emotions. And trying to escape from reality by immersing yourself in alcohol, drugs, or immersing yourself in creativity, sports, or work is delaying acceptance of the inevitable - the marriage broke up, the wife left.
Don't make yourself a victim and stop whining
Considering yourself a victim, especially because of betrayal, there is a chance, firstly, to fall into total self-pity - a state that depresses, rather than motivates, to survive your wife’s betrayal and divorce.
Secondly, you can start cursing everyone who is supposedly to blame for the fact that the wife filed for divorce and left. While the goal of a real man after a divorce is to begin profound changes in himself, says psychologist Lobkovsky.
Therefore, give yourself time: a month, two or three to suffer “enough”, and then stop. Time to move on to other issues. Consider the divorce situation as a kind of “kick” that sobered you up, helped you come to your senses, throwing away the unreal image that you wanted to appear to be. (Advice from the article will help you with this: What kind of person should a real man be?)
The dissolution of a marriage after, for example, the betrayal of your life partner gave you the impetus to become the real you should be. Start digging deep inside yourself to understand who you are, what makes you happy and what do you really want from life?
Once you find the answers to these questions, set the right goals, and then start working towards achieving them. Thanks to this, you will achieve happiness in your new relationship. After all, your future life partner needs a real man who will be an inspiration and protection for her, and not a self-pitying man who accuses all women of lying.
Get rid of things that make you angry at your ex-spouse
Do you want to quickly start life from scratch? Then don't transfer things from your old life to your new one. If your financial situation allows you to remove anything from your home that reminds you of your past life or causes pain, then throw them away, sell them, or hide them in the deepest part of the garage. This will make it easier to get through all this.
If you are thinking about how to help your son survive a divorce from his wife or want to help a man you know, then share with him the advice from this article.
Take care of yourself
Do what you previously denied yourself as a married man. Make your old unrealized dream come true. Perhaps you wanted to study something, learn something, visit somewhere, or change your job to another, less prestigious, but more enjoyable one.
Filter your desires or preferences, removing any nonsense from them, and leave only those that can help you become a self-sufficient man in a short time. Now is the perfect time for you to dive into things that truly interest you. Learn to respect yourself today, if yesterday you just went with the flow, living a hateful life.
Think about your health
Typically, health after a divorce process leaves a lot to be desired (eg stress, high blood pressure, headaches), so it's time to address it. Try to eat right, get enough sleep, and go to the gym. On the one hand, this will distract you from painful memories, and on the other, it will improve your physical condition.
Stop living in thoughts of revenge
This is a bad idea, because revenge sucks. Don't waste your energy seeking revenge. Do you want to change or become better or achieve something? Then do it for yourself, and not for your departed wife.
Remember from Dumas's novel about the Count of Monte Cristo, when the count took revenge on his enemies, he became a poor, lonely and sad man.
Wanting revenge, you continue to live for someone else, when you had the chance to live for yourself. So enjoy gradually improving yourself. And try to forgive your ex-spouse, and not live in thoughts of making your ex-spouse come crawling and belittling you to come back, realizing what she lost.
Work on Forgiveness
To many men, this advice may seem absurd. “Forgive me for what she did to me? Never!" These are natural reactions. But holding a grudge is the most harmful thing you can do to YOURSELF. It is unlikely that this can teach your ex-wife anything; rather, on the contrary: you are limiting yourself in being a happy and satisfied person.
In a divorce situation, forgiveness means that you no longer carry or accumulate anger, anger, but have not forgotten what happened. You just don’t have time for hatred anymore, even if you can’t fully understand what happened or what your wife was thinking when she cheated on you or left you.
This is the final stage of the journey to restore self-esteem.
How can I help my brother during a divorce?
Not only his mother, but also his sister may worry about a divorced man. Often a brother shares with his sister those experiences that he does not even tell his mother about.
It happens that a sister practically observes how all stages of a divorce go through: at first, the husband and wife become dissatisfied with their relationship, often quarrel, but they fail to make peace, even with the help of children, relatives and friends.
Then there is a legal registration of divorce, division of property and responsibility for children. Then each spouse tries to start building a new, more successful life, as it seems to them.
In this case, the sister can provide moral support - prevent him from drinking too much and quitting work, take him to a consultation with a good psychologist (take him, not advise him; the man himself is unlikely to go to him).
You can introduce your brother to good and interesting people (not necessarily women) or together start doing a hobby that he likes.
What can help a person return to normal?
Consolations may not always be useful, but you need to look at the person’s condition. For example, a psychologist will not console a divorced man, but will try to figure out the situation together with him. He will explain that the separation, since it has already happened, will only benefit both him and his wife.
The following points can help a man a lot:
- communication . A man in such a difficult period for him simply needs human communication. There should be someone nearby with whom he can share his experiences without being afraid to show his emotions. Chatting with friends, like-minded people, maybe even going somewhere to relax will be very useful. It is advisable to make new acquaintances during this period;
- work and hobbies . It would be very useful to start a new life with a new job, which for one reason or another was not possible to get during marriage. A career will bring new impressions and interesting acquaintances - a man will be constantly busy, he will not have time to worry. Some new or old hobby will also be very useful - now you will definitely find time for it. It could be anything - sports, drawing, even breeding aquarium fish;
- support . Psychological support may be needed throughout the entire period of withdrawal from the family, that is, until the man finally returns to normal. Most often, he will simply need to talk to someone about painful issues from time to time, and such support will be quite enough. In severe cases, it is best to visit a professional psychologist and with his help try to solve the problem.
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How can I help a man survive a divorce if he has a child?
If there was a child or several children in the family from which the separation occurred, then the man will also suffer because of the separation from the children.
Many ex-wives, for one reason or another, limit and even completely prohibit the father’s communication with the children, although he can regularly pay alimony or provide other assistance. It doesn’t even matter that he treats them well, and the children also want to see their father.
Legally, the negative attitude of the spouse is not always justified - the father has exactly the same right to communicate with the child as the mother. He can defend this right in court and even, in rare cases, sue the child for himself in order to live with him.
In practice, the matter does not always come to court - often ex-spouses reach an agreement on their own. For example, dad will take the child to his place every second weekend of the month and on some holidays.
It is the separation from children that men often experience the hardest; they perceive children as their continuation, their future, which was taken away from them.
Prolonged post-divorce depression in men
Divorce is not only a formal break in a relationship. In almost all cases, this is a loss of energetic support and connection that the spouses have formed. It is this connection that is the basis of marriage; it does not break after leaving the court and signing the documents. Each spouse must adapt to the changed situation, but men cope with this much worse than women.
The psychology of men after divorce is characterized by great interest in the life of their ex-wife. This is very easy to explain: the energy connection has not yet been broken, and the spouse cannot tune in to life outside of it. Surprisingly, even the appearance of a new boyfriend for a woman cannot stop her ex from visiting and talking about her past life. Often, women who begin relationships with recently divorced men do not notice that they are depressed and are consumed by jealousy towards their ex-spouses. But in reality, a man simply cannot improve his life in the absence of the usual process of receiving energy and exchanging it.
