Start here if you’ve decided on divorce

If you’ve decided on divorce, you may be wondering what to do next. Starting the divorce process can feel overwhelming, especially when you don’t know where you’ll live, how finances will work, what will happen with your children, or what your life will look like after divorce.

The truth is, you don’t need to have all the answers right now. When I decided I wanted a divorce after more than a decade of marriage, I didn’t know exactly how I would get from the life I had to the life I wanted. I only knew that I couldn’t keep moving forward in the marriage I was in.

If you’re at the beginning of your divorce journey, that may be enough for now. You can take the process one step at a time, figure out the practical and emotional pieces as they come, and build a new life without knowing exactly what it will look like from the start.

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Let’s start with the end.

I’m at home, working remotely at a job I love, feeling as much purpose as I have yet to-date in my life. I have meaningful friendships, make decisions for myself, and co-parent two well-adjusted children. My life still has lots of challenges, but it finally feels like mine.

I had no idea that I’d ever be here.

All I knew eight years ago was that I couldn’t move forward with the marriage I was in.

I’m here to reassure you that’s all you need to know right now if you are at the start of your process. You don’t need to know exactly where you’ll live. You don’t need to know what your parenting schedule will look like. You don’t need to know what your finances will look like a year from now, or what holidays will feel like, or how you’re going to explain all of this to everyone in your life. (I have plenty of material on the blog here to keep you company as these questions and experiences arise.)

You don’t even need to know exactly how you’re going to get from where you are to your version of a better life. You just need to know that you can do it.

The mental exercise I used to play to keep me moving forward

I was married for over a decade before deciding I wanted a divorce. I knew the person I was with, I knew what our life was like and how it would progress over the years if I stayed.

I felt myself changing A LOT in my early 30s and knew it was going to be a problem staying with someone who had already demonstrated they were not capable of change. The arguing would continue. Or I had the option to keep myself quiet and look the other way with things that bothered me. This option scared me the most because it would mean I would have to disconnect from my values and the values I hoped to pass down to the kids.

So, in the rare moments where I felt like I might not have what it takes to make it through the rigorous process of divorce, I would automatically think, “Well, I don’t really have a choice do I?” Because in my mind, the alternative was not okay. I’d probably suffer from a breakdown if I chose to continue and I didn’t want to test those waters.

Not knowing what comes next

I place myself back in that first week after I told my then-husband I wanted a divorce and I was genuinely a wreck. I knew it was coming, and yet nothing prepared me for the level of uncertainty and confusion that I felt when I actually started upending this part of my life. There is something very different about thinking about divorce and actually saying, I want a divorce.

Until you say it, it is still only a possibility. Once you say it, things start moving. It was terrifying and difficult, and yet I still knew it was the right move for me. I was met with relief that I had finally let the cat out of the bag, and grief that it had all come to this. I share this not to scare you, instead so that you know mixed feelings can be part of the experience.

You don't have to figure everything out at once

This is probably the biggest thing I wish I had understood at the beginning. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know how it would work, how long it would take, what would happen with the kids, where I would live, how I would pay for things, and what our new life would look like. I wanted some kind of guarantee that I was going to be okay, but there wasn't one.

Instead, there were just a lot of individual things that needed to be figured out, and that turned out to be okay. You don't have to solve your entire future when you decide to get divorced. You have a chance to deal with each thing in its own time.

There will be practical things that need your attention, emotional things to work through, conversations you don't want to have, and decisions you don't feel prepared to make. But they don't all need to happen at once, and they certainly don't all need to happen today.

I learned to take things one at a time, one step at a time. It sounds simple, but when you're in the middle of something that feels completely overwhelming, it can be surprisingly difficult to remember.

You’re not alone in this

If you’re at the beginning of this process, I hope you take away one thing from my experience: you don’t have to have it all figured out before you begin. I certainly didn’t, and somehow, one step at a time, I built a life that I couldn’t have imagined when I started. There is a lot to navigate along the way, and that’s exactly why I created the rest of this divorce blog—to share the things I learned, the things I wish I had known sooner, and the practical pieces that helped me get through it.

If you’re not sure what your next step is, take a look around. There are posts here about the different parts of divorce and starting over, and hopefully something that makes whatever you’re facing right now feel a little less overwhelming.