No matter what the situation, no matter who is leaving whom, divorce makes a person feel like something major has failed.
When you stand up in front of a pastor and promise to stay together through sickness and health until death do you part, and that promise gets broken in some way, it is a bad feeling.
There is healing that takes place after a divorce, but first there is grief, even if the divorce is something that should have happened a long time ago.
It takes quite awhile for this process of healing to be completed and in that time, people are vulnerable.
It is a time for reducing every other possible stress in life so that the healing process can happen.
This is not a good time to take up a new relationship because at this point, the divorced person has not truly separated from the ex-partner psychologically-the classic rebound relationship happens when people find new partners too soon after the divorce.
This can add to the grief and emotional difficulty.
The key to dealing with divorce in the long run is to make the experience of grief and hurt actually stand for something-learning.
Without developing insight into what the problems of the relationship were that led to the divorce, no matter who had the primary issues, people are likely to repeat the psychological dynamics.
For example, a person who leaves a violent relationship should be getting out of that kind of situation, but is at risk for getting into another violent relationship.
Sometimes an insightful counselor, church pastor, or good friend can really help with the exploration of the kinds of things that happened in the relationship as it was beginning and as it progressed.
It would be good to look at the signs that things were wrong back when they might have been changeable.
For example, when a person feels consistently disrespected in a relationship, the chances are the disrespect began happening early in the relationship and was tolerated rather than dealt with.
A person who listens well and is wise can help with figuring out what could have been done besides just allowing the disrespect.
Another good strategy is to write in a journal.
Writing is a great way to explore feelings and to reconsider events that have happened.
There are good self-help books that can inspire journal writing and provide opportunities for figuring out the things that went wrong.
Find a nice blank book for your journal or just use an old spiral notebook-whatever inspires you.
Divorce is survivable and second marriages are often lots happier than first marriages made when people were young and emotionally immature.
But in order to get into a happier second marriage, it is important to do some learning about what happened in that original relationship and take steps towards preventing the same thing from happening again.