The ‘fight or flight’ response has been with us as a species from our earliest beginnings. It’s a survival mechanism that causes our bodies to respond to perceived threat. When you feel threatened, the brain starts preparing the body for action and it goes into a state of heightened alert. Those in the initial stages …
Divorce brain: How to put the “wise owl” back in control Read More »
You may not be aware of it but if you are in the throes of a late-life divorce, you are part of what is being called the “grey divorce phenomenon”. Some of the main reasons for this phenomenon are reflected in the infographic below. Statistics show that gray divorce figures are rising at a time …
You’re not alone if you’re living alone. There are many people in the world today that live alone – some have never married, others are widowed or divorced. In the United States alone there are approximately 95 million single adults. Although living life as a single person is more accepted than it was in the …
Living alone does not mean you have to be lonely Read More »
Most of us are familiar with the five stages of grief introduced by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. As a psychiatrist who studied terminally ill patients, she was in a unique position to observe and document these stages. She never meant for these stages to follow one another in a neat order. Grief is messy and does not …
It may not occur to you that you need to protect yourself when going through a late-life divorce. The process of divorce can be brutal and it comes at a time when your emotions are all over the place, making you very vulnerable. You may expect to be treated fairly because of all the years …
5 ways to protect yourself during a late-life divorce Read More »
With the rise in late-life divorce among baby boomers, many of us are facing living alone in the latter part of our lives, sometimes for the first time ever. Some of us may have gone straight from living with our parents to living with a husband and raising children. We are so accustomed to being …
It may feel as if your life will never be the same after the years of hands-on parenting end. You are right – it won’t ever be the same. It will be quite, quite different. But although it’s different, there are ways in which it can be very rewarding. You have spent years wiping away …
As babies we are completely dependent on our mothers and growing up is a process of becoming more independent. When we get married, it can be a battle to surrender some of that independence for the sake of the relationship. Over the years of marriage, some of us maintain more independence than others but during …
How to re-establish your independence post-divorce Read More »
An affair can be catastrophic to any relationship. When it happens in a long-term marriage, the consequences can be devastating. I had been married to my husband for decades but I was blind to the signs that he was having an affair. I was so firmly in denial that I managed to ignore all the …
A divorce is one of those life events that’s a perfect breeding ground for feelings of hurt, guilt, resentment and anger. The natural response to being hurt is to want to hurt back. You want that person who has hurt you to feel the full weight of what you are feeling. In the face of …
When you’ve been through a divorce and you are no longer a wife or husband, you have to learn how to be comfortable in your skin as a single person once again. After a long-term marriage, you probably don’t even remember what it’s like to be single. It’s exciting to go through the process of …
Adjust to being single after a late-life divorce Read More »
Divorce and Christian are two words that do not seem to belong together. As a Christian I went into my marriage with the belief that we were making a binding covenant with one another. I believed that we were equally yoked and that our mutual love of God would ensure we would be together forever. …
Why are so many couples who have been married for years getting divorced? ‘Gray divorce’ figures are rising at a time when other divorce figures are dropping. In a survey done by the Office for National Statistics in the UK, it was found that the number of over-50s who separated or divorced had risen by …
Your role as parents does not end when your children become adults. When you go through a divorce, you may no longer be a husband or a wife but you are still a father or a mother. Parents may feel that because their children are adults, they should be able to move on more easily …
I have the best of both worlds. I spend the week in my empty nest and my 21-year-old daughter comes home from university nearly every weekend. She has the attraction of a boyfriend who lives down the road from me but I don’t care why she comes – I just care that she comes. In …
While going through my divorce, I read many helpful books and received plenty of advice from other divorced women. Not all of the advice was helpful but I distilled what really did help me down to five statements that I call my post-divorce manifesto. I continue to remind myself of the following facts every day: …
It’s very hard to go from being in a long-term committed relationship to dating someone else. Just the idea of it is often so nerve-wracking that you don’t even attempt it. However, conquering any fears and taking the plunge may be just what’s needed. That’s what I’m telling myself at any rate. I know that …
Shame is an emotion that many people live with their entire lives. It prevents them from living life fully. A divorce is a life event that often leaves you feeling raw and exposed. You don’t realize how much the burden of shame is weighing you down until you start trying to move on. It’s ironic …
What are the signs of infidelity in marriage? This is a question that crosses the mind of anyone who suspects a spouse might be having an affair. The reason I am writing about this topic is that I was blind to the signs. If I had identified them earlier, perhaps the outcome would have been …
After a divorce, feelings of rejection are common. When a long-term relationship comes to an end, the pain of rejection is often severe for the person who has been left. It may be unreasonable for the person to feel this sense of rejection but it is severely debilitating none the less. Warning Signs When my …
