(((((Lemon)))))

I am a fellow divorce traveler, locked in this seemingly never-ending process. I think I feel better now than I did a while back, but a huge range of emotions comes and goes. Lots of sadness and grief. Anger. Numbness. Elation. Who knows what will manifest at any given time. My long depression is over but I know how it is to be there. Lemon, you are partway through the process. It will continue and you will make it to the other side.

It has helped me to cope by getting other things off of my plate and not trying to do too much, or even a normal amount of things. I started strongly rebelling against doing work obligations outside of work in the evenings and weekends. I stopped reading work email at home and going to evening seminars. I tried getting more sleep. If I had to take one of my girls to soccer practice, instead of dropping her off and jetting around doing 3 different errands while she played, I just stayed at her practice and read a book or slept in the car. If things got to be too much, I asked other people to do things I normally would have taken responsibility for. It helped me a lot to have fewer responsibilities and obligations. You need all your energy and resources for the divorce.

One thing that has not helped much is talking with friends and family about the divorce. They are all very negative and vitriolic and it can get to me. Everyone has the "divorce from hell" story to tell and it is not helpful to me to hear these. I need to be strong enough to take these people's negativity in order to be with them. If I am feeling too vulnerable and weak, I can't take them and change the subject or avoid being with them.

Therapy has really helped me. Lemon, I hope you can continue to see your T as frequently as you need to. It is OK to feel like crap with her! And to tell her your frustration.

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I actually try to get to that lack of emotion state so I can just give T a report of what happened since I last saw her without breaking down.

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I saw you wrote this in another thread. Don't be afraid to break down with your T. That's what she is there for. Breaking down with T helps relieve stress. It's OK.

Another thing that helped me was to go to couples therapy (actually uncoupling therapy) with my husband. We had 8 sessions. It wasn't a bed of roses and wasn't designed to help us fix our marriage. It was to help us end our marriage, to disentangle ourselves from each other. It really did help, even though I'm not sure I knew it was at the time. There were some things I knew I wanted from the breakup process and I think I got them. I needed them to heal. And getting them helped move me along the path. I felt more at peace with myself and my decision and the marriage's history.

I think learning what I needed to heal took a long time, but as it became clearer, I really went for it, as it seemed like the road to survival. It helped to know what I wanted and move toward it, instead of just letting events happen to me. We spent many months in therapy with me discovering the path I needed to take. If things feel too rushed, do what you can to slow them down.

I hope some of that might resonate with you. But I'm not sure if it makes sense.

(((hugs)))