It is Saturday and I’m sitting in my favorite chair, coffee at my elbow, Sofi at my feet and my husband across the room reading his favorite news magazine. Alexa is streaming big band music and I am wondering what I can write about here on my blog. It’s a brain fog kind of day and my thoughts are all over the place.
My husband and I have been married close to 35 years. Ours was his first marriage and I came into the partnership a widow with three teenage children. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for us, but we have weathered the ups and downs of a late-in -life marriage and are still here.
Recently one female friend and her husband celebrated their 60th anniversary; another lost her husband and a third is divorced in her 70’s. Loss by death is one thing we understand is out of our control, but divorce has its own separate pain. Rejection. How does someone in what should be the best years of her life survive that?
A divorce in later life is not only a personal rejection by an individual, but a shattering of long-held values and one’s self-image as someone who thought she and her partner would live happily after.
Therapists suggest the next 7 steps to help ease that feeling of rejection.
1. Feel the feelings. …
2. Understand you will go through the stages of grief. …
3. Think of your pain like a wave. …
4. Gather your support system around you. …
5. Stop the self-blame. …
6. Practice self-care. …
7. Find a therapist who can help.
Life is not always mapped out the way we planned, but as women we have to look at ourselves and say every day to our mirror, “I am worthy. I am enough.”
Copyright Sandra Hart 2018©️
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Sandra's Hart My Over 60 Lifestyle Journey 