Some experts assert that it takes a year for every five years of marriage to recover. That was about right in my case, and I've heard from many women that it took that long for them as well. This doesn't mean you are going to be miserable for the entire time. You may go through every emotion in the book, from despair to exhilaration.
There are three stages in the divorce recovery process. During the first phase, you flit from one thing to another. You may date different people, get rid of old friends and make new ones, travel to new places, try out new jobs. Abigail Trafford, author of the divorce classic, Crazy Time, calls this the Hummingbird phase. "Hummingbird people aren't able to reestablish themselves as new entities because they never allow themselves to confront the pain and anxiety of divorce or a new life. Their wings flutter too fast," she says. My Hummingbird phase included a long detour from grieving with Internet dating, which became an obsession.
The next level is foundering. You fall apart emotionally, you lose your job, your new romance breaks up, you can't seem to make enough money to get by, you despair that things will ever get better. Some people never stop foundering. We all know women (and men) who are still hanging on by their fingernails ten years after their divorce, bouncing from job to job, man to man, shrink to shrink. This is the stage where you can get stuck in cynicism and bitterness.
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