There are new responsibilities & obligations for married individual persons but, at the same time, they get some one to trust & a shoulder to lean on in all of life’s ups & downs. You & your partner share all personal secrets & merge individual finances to buy marital assets & improve the family’s social status. There is more. Truly, marriage is a wonderful bond between two individuals.

Not all marriages continue for a long time as happy :) relationships, however. Some of them end in a painful divorce & split. Regardless of how deeply the partners were in love with each other earlier, marriage is still like a long leap in the dark. Nobody can predict whether it will succeed or not. And, in many cases, it doesn’t. There’re many reasons for this.

The most important reason is incompatibility. The partners after marriage discover that the personality of the other individual isn’t what they thought it to be. There’re frequent quarrels & ego issues. There is more. Things become worse if there is some kind of physical or emotional abuse involved, with one partner trying to dominate or humiliate the other all the time.

Then there’re extramarital affairs which are a leading cause of partners leaving their marriages to follow a romantic interest. OK. Some marriages simply break up because partners become bored seeing the same face again & again for years. There is more. They split to bring back some excitement in life by starting new relationships.

Divorce is often a messy affair, with both partners fighting it out in the court. The objective of prolonged legal battles is usually not to get extra share of the property but to punish the other partner for breaking the marriage & ‘teach him or her a lesson.’

Outrageous claims are filed against each other & lawyers rip into personal lives of the partners in full public view. It’s quite a humiliating experience. The whole episode gives rise to caustic feelings that may last for years & make it hard for people to enter into new relationships.

How to make an emotional recovery after a messy divorce? The trick is ‘acceptance’ ? one should accept what has happened & not live in denial or assigning blame to oneself or the partner for the divorce.

There are many practical things that you can do to take your mind away from the painful episode & put some distance between you & your divorce so that you get time to heal emotionally.

  • Make new friends: You should leverage your social circle ? friends, relatives, colleagues ? for support. Arrange get-togethers & take part in social gatherings. There is more. Try to involve yourself in cheerful events & weekend outings, anything that will make you laugh & offer some light-hearted moments. Right. Watch movies or theatre, call friends home for dinner or do anything else that you really enjoy.

  • Get involved in a romantic relationship: As they say, the very best way to forget the previous relationship is to start a new one. There may be many people who were interested in you but backed off because you were ‘not available.’ Striking up a new romantic friendship with ‘old flames’ will often help you forget the traumatic divorce as you get intimate with another individual.

  • Get busy: The worst thing that you can do is to lounge around the house all day running all the episodes related to the divorce in your mind again & again. This will lead you into depression & sombre moods. Do not make the mistake of sitting idle. Get busy. Do a job. Learn a new skill. Take to Yoga, gym, gardening, sports or any other activity that you like.

  • Travel & see the world: Travelling to new far-away places broadens mental horizons. If you can afford it, take some time off & explore new countries. Seeing how big the world is helps to make you realise how insignificant your own problems are & you come back refreshed & with a new perspective about where you stand in the larger scheme of the universe.

  • Get involved with the lives of children: If you have children who live with you after divorce, make them the centre of your attention. Get involved in their lives & their studies. There is more. Take good care of them, dote on them & ensure that you regularly take them out on weekends where all of you have a good time.

James Walsh is a freelance writer & copy editor. For lots more information on getting a Divorce see http://www.quickie-divorce.com