HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO RECOVER FROM DIVORCE?

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO RECOVER FROM DIVORCE?

Dear Playboy Author Boy,

How long does it take to get over divorce?  I've heard people say that if you've been married ten years, the recovery will take five.  So, half the length of the marriage.  Is this true?  I've heard it can take even longer! I want my life back!  I can't imagine waiting years and years to feel like myself again!  Please help me,

Divorced in Detroit

Dear Detroit Divorcee,

I used to think I knew all the answers to this question.  I thought dating would be the way to forget.  I never dated much before the marriage, and after it ended I thought I would make up for lost time.

The end result was numbing the pain for a few years.  Perhaps that was a good thing.  When the pain did come I was stronger and had a loving girlfriend by my side.  But processing the pain eventually meant I lost her.

Have you heard of post-traumatic stress?  A present partner will do something that will remind you of your ex and it will set you off.  There I was, happy as a lark with my new girlfriend, when she put her hand on mine and asked if we could get married and live together.  I freaked out.  I went into a trance and spouted more anger in sixty seconds than I thought possible.  I tried to recover from that one bad moment but I never did.

A year and a lot of therapy later I met the woman I'm with today, and fortunately she's used to my post trauma issues, soothes the pain, and has her own post-divorce spazzes that I'm able to help her with.  But the point is, we are both too damaged after the divorce to consider marriage again.

So with hope I continue on.  Every so often I'll have a dream so real about my ex.  We're together and unhappy -- the nightmare -- or we're together back when we were mutually deeply in love -- and then waking is the nightmare.

Bottom line is that divorce is like surviving a heart transplant.  Eventually you can heal and approach a normal life, but the scars remain and your health is more fragile.  You are never really the same  as you were before.  There is hope but there is also damage right beneath the surface.

I see this in the eyes of every single person who tells their divorce story.  It is almost universal now.

I take heart in that the only pain that is worse is the pain of being in a loveless marriage which eats away at you like a cold acid.  Divorce may be awful, but with time it fades to the occasional nightmare and an ache brought on by a memory.  It can be part of the background.  Always there, but no longer what you are about.

Courage,
PBAB