Divorce is comparable to the experience of grieving over the death of a loved one. We all understand such grief as a painful process that we go through but from which we eventually recover. The stages, identified by Elisabeth Kubler-Rosss in her book On Death and Dying, are:
- Shock and denial
- Anger
- Depression
- Bargaining
- Sorrow
- Understanding and acceptance
While the experience of the leaver can be quite different than that of the person who is left, you are likely to feel yourself going through most of those stages regardless of your role. The divorce recovery or adjustment process typically takes from one to four years. Some people, usually men, can rearrange their lives a bit faster. Others have great difficulty and need even more time to let go, establish a new identity, rebuild their social ties, and adapt to a new parenting role. The important thing to know is that, although divorce can be extremely painful, people do get through it.
