The marriages are made in heaven but break down on earth. It is a hard time when you see no future in your marriage and you come to the terms and reality of ending the marriage. It could be difficult for men to cope up with the breakup of a marriage. But it need not be an end of the world.
It is a misconception that it is only the women’s heart, which breaks upon a breakup of the relationship. The man feels equally emotionally and without shedding a tear suffers silently beyond letting the world know how devastated their life feels after divorce.
The recovery from a breakup can be easy or hard, slow or paced depending upon the nature of attachment, the man had in the relationship. There are three types of attachments:
1. Secure attachment
2. Anxious attachment
3. Avoidance Attachment
The man with anxious attachment had the most difficult time in coping up with the breakup. Such Anxious attachment obstructs an optimistic mindset and do not allow such men of acceptance of a breakup and enhanced the desire to regain the lost partner in marriage. Such responses when confronted with the outgoing partner initiate greater expressions of anger and feeling of revenge leading to poor recovery and adjustment in period post-breakup.
You normally be found to have an internal feeling… saying
“I am still in love with her”
To cope up and recover from a break up at the earliest and without further harming yourself emotionally, one needs to use the following steps.
Being optimistic about the future relationship
There is a sometime tendency of self-blaming for not being able to save the marriage. The ensuing guilt therefrom damages the self-belief and your capabilities for a future relationship. By being optimistic about the future relationship, one can easily sail out and cope up with the turbulence of the emotional sea of a breakup.
You tend to believe that after break up it would be hard to find a new partner. A focus on healing damaged self-beliefs, therefore, seems the most stable route to recovery from a relationship breakup.
In such times emotions would be running the show. You are emotionally hurt by your ex-wife/girlfriend, who has acted in a way to make you feel worse. Therefore, being in a positive state of mind and having an optimistic perspective on a future relationship is very critical.
Acknowledge Your Emotions/feelings
Being self-aware of your emotions is the starting point and one of the key social skill, in order the enable you to acknowledge and understand your emotions and feelings. It mitigates the difficulties arising in coping with the breakup of the marriage.
The acknowledgment of the feeling/emotions is important, the earliest it comes it is easier and faster to get over the emotions. It is necessary to acknowledge the pain ensuing from the prospect of severance of relationship, even if you think and perceive the action of your wife is wrong. Since then only you would focus on and understand the reasons for such actions. However, the time-lapse and the intensity of the emotions/feeling of love and longing in the marriage would depend on how deeper your love is in the relationship.
The acknowledgment of your feeling of anger, sadness, guilt or grief is the first step and most crucial one in coping the anxiety, depression of a devastating marriage and apparent loss of a relationship. The moment one acknowledges his/her emotions of anger, sadness, guilt or grief is arising out of continuous reluctance of the partner is not reconciling the differences and insisting for divorce. The emotional intelligence of a person then guides the person that these emotions are temporary and not reality. The anger of the partner may be associated with the threat of lodging multiple court cases on the reluctant partner avoiding reconciliation is because of his/her love and longing for the companionship/marriage.
We have learned that in the grief path all these emotions do not have a fixed pattern of occurrence and a person swings back and forth carrying these emotions. A person may feel the love and then switch to anger leading to sadness and then again would show/express love. This is because a reluctant partner is hopeful to regain relationship due to love in the marriage or his personality traits etc. Mostly, persons with anxious attachment are slow in accepting and acknowledging the situation.
In whatever state of emotions, a person has to cycle through the whole path of grief to reach in the state of acknowledging the feeling and reality and future of the relationship.
Use Your Anger
Sometimes passive anger could be used as a springboard to jump out of the messed up emotional state of mind.
In one of my Marital Mediation cases, the husband was quite angry about the continuous refusal by the wife to reconcile and persistent demand to seek divorce.
Most of the times it turns out that the ex-wife’s feeling of relief in moving out of the relationship gives a perception to the other partner of him being cheated. As the reluctant partner/husband still has a higher intensity of emotions of love and longing in the relationship. This leads to anger and frustration in the mind of the reluctant partner/husband.
However, this does not mean that the outgoing partner has not gone through the cycle of grief, which includes the emotions of love, anger, frustration, sadness, guilt, and grief. she may have been longing for love and care in a relationship for a long time and felt overlooked, which might have lead to frustration and then sadness and depression. During such a period, the outgoing partner/wife might have acknowledged the fate of the relationship and prepared mentally and financially to move out of the relationship by forging a new relationship/rebound relationship or otherwise.
Use anger as a deflector of other feelings like guilt and self-blaming. When anger used healthily, it motivates you to come out from a breakup easily and faster.
No Contact Rule
There is certain maladaptive behavior hampering the early recovery post-breakup for men and making it difficult to cope up with the breakup. Amongst them is a strong desire for proximity seeking, which sometimes results in stalking the ex-wife/girlfriend.
As is important in any physical injury/body scar to keep it protected to avoid any further injury. Similarly, to heal the scar of a breakup, it needs to be protected from any further emotional injury. You need to restrain from the temptation of seeking proximity of your ex-wife/girlfriend by making a no contact rule.
This rule is for you and your own well being and is not about your ex-wife/girlfriend. This no contact rule helps and protects you from getting any further new emotional wounds and helps heal the old emotional scars of the breakup.
Avoid Rumination
In most cases, the reluctant partner with anxious attachment had difficulty in managing his emotions during the process and post-breakup. When emotions take center stage and override everything, there is no control over your daily activities due to overwhelming emotions. One tends to get into a maladaptive behavior of being in continuous and deep thoughts of your ex-wife/girlfriend.
Instead, focus on reviving social connections with friends and relatives or find a hobby or activity to work on to keep you involved. Such mental distraction by keeping involved in a fruitful and likable activity would help you in avoiding excessive thoughts of your ex-wife.
However, this does not mean that you should try to forget all the memories of the previous relationship. One is bound to have some memorable and pleasant memories in past relations. Those memories could be a non-physical form or in physical form (Children) from marriage and therefore, remembering them and being associated with them is essential for your wellbeing.
Take Responsibility for your happiness
In the post-breakup situation, one could be in self-introspection mode, which could be good as it helps in self-improvement for the future relationship and also builds character. But, always be cautious of and avoid self-blaming. Don’t view your self as a victim. By doing this, you would be propagating pain for yourself.
Remember that you could be happy wherever you are in whatever situation you are.. believe in it.
Similarly, blaming other or external circumstances would also not help in overcoming your miseries. This mindset keeps you entangled in the victim position and will not allow you to move out of it.
Invest time and energy in things and activities which are in your control.
The Author, Legal Mind Ajit Kumar, is a Relationship Coach, Family Mediator and an expert in conflict resolution besides being a practicing Divorce/Family Lawyer. If you are in a dysfunctional marriage and looking for a quick divorce, visit our website https://medvorce.com for a free registration by creating an account to find if you are qualified for a mutual and uncontested divorce.
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