Excerpt from Divorced! (Joanna Romer): Introduction

INTRODUCTION 

You’re recently divorced, and you’re having a little trouble handling it all. It’s bad enough that you’re alone and feeling almost worthless, but you can’t stop wondering what you did wrong to make your world come crashing down. How did this happen? More to the point, how did this happen to you?

You’re not alone. Since the mid-1970s, the divorce rate in this country has hovered around a surprising 50% for first-time marriages. For second marriages the figure is even higher; about 60% of these end up in divorce court. While television shows and magazine articles usually focus on the court battles during divorce, the real trauma often takes place after the papers are signed, when the newly divorced person faces life alone. These singles must carry on their daily lives despite battered egos, diminished bank accounts and sometimes even the loss of friends who have “taken sides” in the battle.

As a twice-divorced woman, I know about these issues and the toll they take on one’s self-esteem. This book will offer advice for the embattled divorced person, both male and female, on everything from coping with being alone to re-building self-esteem to embarking (fearlessly) upon a new relationship. The men and women interviewed in this book have shared their stories in an attempt to provide guidance during the difficult period which afflicts so many recently divorced people.

As a newly divorced single, you’re probably raw and hurting—especially if you are the “abandoned” one. Feeling abandoned is the primary state of mind we need to heal—even if we don’t call it that in our conversation with others. There is a part of us that feels totally, hopelessly abandoned. That’s why divorce is so difficult for the one who is left. Our co-dependency with our mate has catapulted us back into the role of a needy child, and that’s a tough place to be at 40, or 55, or 69.

The good news is that these feelings can be healed because, after all, we are not children. And with a little help from God, our friends, and perhaps a sympathetic therapist, we can learn how to climb out of abandonment and back into the fully empowered person we know ourselves to be.





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