Losing Your Best Friend During Divorce

When your spouse is your best friend and he or she wants a divorce, you’re hit with an incredible amount of stress. You may be struggling to cope with feelings of betrayal, mourning the loss of your relationship and wondering where to turn. While your  divorce lawyer can help you with the legal aspects of your case, it’s a good idea to reach out to others for emotional support as well.

Feeling Betrayed: Losing Your Best Friend to Divorce

At the core of it all, your strongest emotion might be the sense of betrayal. Your spouse, whom you have supported, helped and been there for throughout the course of your marriage, has walked away despite everything you’ve done. You may even feel like all the hard work you put into your relationship was for nothing or begin to question whether you were supportive enough, helpful enough or available enough.

Coping Strategies

Before you beat yourself up too much, ask your divorce lawyer for a referral to a local therapist. In most cases, people benefit immensely from talking to an impartial third party. Unlike talking to family or friends, a therapist can help you see things more objectively. There are also several divorce support groups near that you might find helpful.

There are a handful of steps you can take to help deal with your feelings, as well:

•Put away your pictures. While “out of sight, out of mind” is a little far-fetched, especially when your emotions are raw from a recent split, you don’t need the constant reminders of your ex and what you feel as if you lost—so take down the photos of you two together and tuck away your scrapbooks.

•Give yourself a free pass. You deserve time to mourn the loss of your romantic partner and best friend, so take some time to cope with your grief in your own way. Whether you choose to take your mind off of your ex through exercise, scary movies or great books, or by spending time with other family members and friends, you’ve certainly earned it.

•Set boundaries for yourself. Don’t jump into another relationship in an effort to get over your last; that generally only results in more heartache by delaying the normal grieving process. Don’t over-stress about the legal details of your divorce, either, because your divorce lawyer has those covered.

It’s never easy to lose a relationship that was once a vital part of your life. However, you can cope with the loss and, with the right support system, come out stronger and more resilient than you were before.