Once your divorce is over you seem to really need to talk about it. Don’t push this urge away – it’s a good thing. Encourage it but don’t talk about it with:

• Your friends – they’ll get bored with the subject and you;
• Your married friends – they’ll want all the guilt, fault, blame details & take sides;
• Your new girl/boyfriend – they’re not interested, have their own issues & they’ll judge you.

You Need a Listening Friend

What you need around this time is a friend who is good listener. After a divorce, it is common practice for both parties to try to start dating again and to use their new partner to fill this role. This is a bad idea. Find a friend who you would not dream of dating. Someone that accepts you as you are – and for whom you feel the same. At this time you need someone with whom you can really be yourself without them being turned off or judgmental.

This person is your Linus /Security Blanket Friend. The one you can share everything with. With this person you can get it all out of your system so that you are purged/cleansed of the divorce demons of the past and can move on.  To this security friend you can talk about your adjustments to both being single and dating again. You can discuss your newly dating emotions and insecurities – and they can do the same with you.  Just dating again can be quite a daunting experience without it being affected by the death of a several year marriage. These are things you need to talk about.

Ideally, several of these friends would be the best solution, but at least start with one.

Talking About it – In the Right Situation - Does Help

In the time while you have been leading up to and then going through divorce, you have probably upset everyone around you by either not talking about it, or talking about it constantly. Either way – they will have judged you.

You do need to talk about it because it is therapeutic for you if you do it in the right circumstances. You need to talk it out of your system but then, don’t dwell on it. Just deal with it and move on.

The Death of a Relationship

It’s all about who you talk to and not how you talk about it. Talking with relatives never helps. They have or have had their own problems to process and they’re never neutral. The point of this is that you’re dealing with the death of a relationship that lasted for years – or tens of years – and needs to be mourned and then filed away in the past. You could hire a professional listener – a Psychologist – but that costs money and what you probably need now is the comfort of knowing that your Security Blanket Friend or your Support Group of Listeners are all the more understanding because they’ve also been there – where you are now.

Keeping It Inside Can Be Dangerous

The experts tell us that if it doesn’t come out of your mouth it will manifest itself in other ways. Somewhere, sometime in the future, someone will say or do something that will trigger emotions deeply buried inside you and your reactions will surprise both you and them. Rather than get derailed like that, deal with it now and put it behind you.

In old American movies the guy sits at a bar all night telling the silent Barman all his troubles and tales of woe. When he gets up to leave he tells the Barman ‘thanks a lot – you’ve really helped me’ yet the Barman never said a word and the guy himself could have just as well talked to the passed out drunk in the corner.

Whether you go to a Therapist, pay the medical bills, buy the drugs, take the days off work; or go to the pub, talk to the Barman, buy the booze, get drunk, buy the hangover cures and take the days off work; or talk to your friend/friends – it’s up to you. In the end, you need to know that by just talking it out you will find your own solutions and the healing process will begin. Right now, you have real pain so cry, scream, let the nightmare out and then you can let the laughter in.

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