While you may feel a sense of relief after your divorce, you may also experience a variety of other feelings after a divorce in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Those feelings are normal.
According to experts in the field, you are experiencing a loss of your future dreams as a couple; you may feel that the years that you spent married were wasted. What follows are some of the most common feelings after a divorce in Tulsa.
Grief
Feeling grief is a natural and healthy emotion that occurs when you lose something or someone that you love. According to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the stages of grief include denial, anger and resentment, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Kubler-Ross is a psychiatrist who first introduced the five stages of grief based on her studies of patients with terminal illness.
Those stages have since been generalized to include other types of loss and life changes. Not all people experience all five stages; for those who do, the stages may not appear in that order. It takes time to work through feelings of grief. However, the feelings should become less intense and shorter as time passes, you begin to accept the loss, and move forward with your life.
Guilt
Guilt is a normal reaction when your relationship ends, and one of the most common feelings after a divorce in Tulsa. The guilt may take the form of feeling that you have failed, because you did you feel you did not stay married for life as your family, friends or community expected of you.
It can also take the form of self-reproach for things you did or failed to do before the divorce. Feelings of guilt are painful; these sometimes lead to other feelings that are more tolerable to experience such as anger and resentment.
Another form of guilt occurs when you have committed a wrongful act that was a cause of the divorce. These powerful feelings can make it difficult to maintain your perspective and can make you feel that you have no right to ask for anything in the divorce process. The result can be unbalanced settlements in the areas of child custody, property and debts that you may later regret.
Fear
Fear is another common emotion that must be worked through after divorce. You may fear facing the future without your spouse and the responsibilities that you must now face alone. Fear, like the emotions described above, is a factor that can cause you to make a divorce agreement with your spouse that you later regret.
How to Deal With Your Feelings After a Divorce in Tulsa
Divorce is an emotional journey. One day you may feel relieved to be free from the marriage while the next day you may feel some or all of the above noted emotions. The amount of time that it takes to recover and move forward with your life varies depending on how you deal with your feelings after a divorce in Tulsa.
While some people may have very little trouble moving on, others have a hard time getting past their feelings of grief and loss. This is especially true if the divorce was difficult; sometimes it is all too easy for someone to begin feeling that their ex-spouse took advantage of them and got more than he or she should have from the divorce settlement.
Free Consultation: Tulsa Divorce Attorney
When you are going through the emotional states of grief, it can be difficult to think clearly and make good decisions. Once the divorce is final, you may find that you made some bad choices and ended up losing possessions or rights that you would not have if you had not been suffering from grief and other emotions.
If you feel that you made bad choices during your divorce and may be entitled to a larger share of your marital assets, you should speak with a Tulsa divorce attorney to discuss your options. There is a statute of limitations in Oklahoma law that gives you a limited period of time to attempt to make changes to your settlement. Call Divorce of Tulsa Law Office at 918-924-5526 to schedule your free consultation today.
