Your Marriage Ended…

Give Yourself Some Room

Divorce is a loss, even when it is also a beginning.

You may be grieving your spouse, the marriage, your home, your family structure, your financial security, or simply the version of your future you had carried around for years.

You may also feel freer than you have in a long time.

Both things can be true.

Some days you may feel surprisingly strong. Other days a small thing — a song, an empty side of the bed, a form asking for your marital status — can knock the wind out of you.

You do not need to perform healing correctly.

Try to make your life a little gentler while things are raw.

Talk to someone you trust.

Eat something decent.

Go outside.

Keep the appointments you know you need to keep.

Sleep when you can.

Step away from people who insist you should already be “over it.”

And if sadness, anxiety, hopelessness, or isolation are making it difficult to function, reaching out to a therapist, counselor, doctor, clergy member, or support group can help.

You do not have to be fully healed before you start rebuilding.

A lot of the rebuilding is part of the healing.

Get Clear About the Money

This may be the part you least want to deal with.

Deal with it anyway.

Divorce after 50 can affect income, housing, retirement, health insurance, debt, taxes, Social Security, and the financial plans you thought you had.

You do not have to understand everything immediately.

You do need to know what you are working with.

Start by getting the basic picture in front of you:

• What money is coming in each month?
• What are your actual monthly expenses now?
• What bank, retirement, investment, and credit accounts exist?
• What debts are in your name?
• What bills was your spouse handling that you now need to understand?
• What insurance do you currently have?
• Where are your tax returns, pension records, mortgage or lease documents, and other important financial papers?
• What passwords or account access do you need to change?

If you have never managed all of the household finances yourself, please do not be embarrassed.

A lot of women haven’t.

You can learn.

And you do not need to learn it all in one weekend.

A financial planner, accountant, divorce financial analyst, or attorney may be able to help you understand the decisions in front of you. If paying for legal help is difficult, the Legal Services Corporation has a directory of civil legal-aid organizations across the United States.

Questions worth asking

Depending on your situation, ask an attorney or financial professional:

• How will retirement accounts or pensions be divided?
• Do I need a Qualified Domestic Relations Order, or QDRO?
• What happens to my health insurance?
• Should I update my will, health-care proxy, power of attorney, or beneficiaries?
• Will spousal support, pension income, or investment withdrawals affect my taxes?
• What Social Security benefits might eventually be available to me?

If your marriage lasted at least 10 years, you may qualify for Social Security benefits based on a former spouse’s work record if you meet the Social Security Administration’s other requirements.

Do not make major financial decisions because someone tells you, “That’s just how divorce works.”

Ask questions.

Get copies.

Read things.

And if you do not understand something you are being asked to sign, get help before you sign it.

Protect Your Information

Separation and divorce are also a good time to make sure your personal information is actually personal.

Keep copies of important documents somewhere secure, including:

• tax returns
• bank and investment records
• retirement and pension information
• deeds, mortgages, leases, and vehicle titles
• insurance policies
• employment records
• wills and estate documents
• divorce and court paperwork

Change passwords for your email, banking, social media, cloud storage, phone account, and other private accounts.

Turn on two-factor authentication where you can.

If you believe your spouse may have access to your devices or accounts, be careful about making changes from a device they may be monitoring.

And if abuse, stalking, threats, intimidation, or coercive control are part of your situation, your safety comes first.

You do not owe anyone a dramatic confrontation.

You are allowed to quietly get help and make a plan.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline provides confidential support at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

Figure Out Who You Are Now

This part can feel surprisingly strange.

For years, maybe decades, you may have been somebody’s wife.

Maybe you were also the mother, the scheduler, the caregiver, the person who remembered birthdays, kept track of everyone’s appointments, handled the holidays, made dinner, worked, cleaned, worried, and somehow kept the whole machine moving.

Then suddenly one of those identities disappears.

And underneath all the practical questions is a much harder one:

Who am I now?

You do not need a dramatic answer.

You do not need a reinvention montage.

Start smaller.

What do you like?

What did you stop doing years ago?

What do you want your home to feel like?

Who makes you feel more like yourself?

What are you tired of tolerating?

What do you miss?

What are you curious about?

What would you try if you did not have to explain it to anyone?

Maybe you take a class.

Maybe you change your bedroom.

Maybe you travel somewhere by yourself.

Maybe you reconnect with someone you lost touch with.

Maybe you go to church again.

Maybe you stop going.

Maybe you start painting, walking, writing, dating, gardening, working, resting, or doing absolutely nothing for a while.

The point is not to become some dazzling new version of yourself.

It is to get reacquainted with the person who was there all along.

Let People Help You

Divorce can be incredibly lonely.

And one of the hardest things about being the person who usually takes care of everyone else is learning how to say:

I need help.

Not everyone in your life will know what to do.

Some people will disappear because your divorce makes them uncomfortable.

Some will give you spectacularly bad advice.

Some will want every detail.

Some will pick sides when you never asked them to.

Pay attention to the people who make things feel a little lighter.

You may need different people for different things.

A friend who listens.

A sibling who helps you move.

A therapist who helps you make sense of what happened.

An attorney who explains what you are entitled to.

A financially savvy friend who sits beside you while you open statements you have been afraid to look at.

A neighbor who invites you for coffee.

You can be specific when people offer to help.

“Can you call me Wednesday night?”

“Will you sit with me while I go through these papers?”

“I need company. I don’t need advice.”

“Can we go for a walk?”

You do not have to make one person carry all of this with you.

If You Have Adult Children

Divorce can shake adult children too.

Even if they have their own homes, careers, partners, or children, the breakup of their parents’ marriage can change the family structure they thought would always be there.

They may feel angry.

They may feel protective of you.

They may feel protective of your spouse.

They may want explanations.

They may not want to hear any of it.

Try not to make them your go-between.

Try not to make them responsible for your emotional survival.

Let them have their own relationship with each parent when it is safe.

And remember that new traditions will probably feel awkward before they feel normal.

The first separate holiday may hurt.

The second may still be weird.

Eventually, new patterns form.

Dating Again… or Not

There is no prize for dating quickly after divorce.

There is also no prize for staying single.

You get to decide.

You may want companionship.

You may want romance.

You may want sex.

You may want nobody touching your thermostat, your bank account, your bed, or your peace for the foreseeable future.

All perfectly reasonable.

If you do start dating, go slowly enough that you can hear your own instincts.

Ask yourself:

• Do I actually like this person, or do I just hate being alone?
• Can I say no without feeling afraid?
• Do I feel respected?
• Am I keeping my financial independence?
• Am I ignoring something because I really want this to work?

Be especially careful about combining money, housing, property, or debt early in a relationship.

You have already lived enough life to know that love and judgment do not always arrive together.

Take your time.