Without a doubt, divorce is one of the hardest things most people will ever deal with. In most cases, psychologists say that divorce can't be compared to the death of a spouse because the dynamics are vastly different.
While some may be happier after a divorce, research indicates most adults that divorce have lower levels of happiness and more psychological distress compared to married individuals. Divorce can bring up new conflicts between couples that cause more tension than when they were married.
The grief of losing a spouse or partner affects not just emotional and mental health, but physical health as well. Numerous studies show that the surviving spouse or partner is likely to develop health problems in the weeks and months that follow.
You are in mourning—feeling grief and sorrow at the loss. You may feel numb, shocked, and fearful. You may feel guilty for being the one who is still alive. At some point, you may even feel angry at your spouse for leaving you.
As the chart above shows, people who lost spouses saw GHQ scores more than double, from just below 3 to 6.3 the year of the loss. People who lost parents experienced more moderate increases in distress than those who lost children or those who lost parents.
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive.
This effect has even been documented by researchers. A 2013 study that appeared in the Journal of Public Health showed that people had a 66% higher risk of dying within the first 90 days of losing their spouse. This discovery held true for both men and women.
It's common for the grief process to take a year or longer. A grieving person must resolve the emotional and life changes that come with the death of a loved one. The pain may become less intense, but it's normal to feel emotionally involved with the deceased for many years.
No matter how long you were married or how strong your relationship was, it's a significant life change when your spouse dies. And along with that change, you might feel a range of emotions. You could feel numb or find yourself overwhelmed by sadness. You might feel guilty that you're alive while your partner is not.
Widow's Fire: The burning desire for sex following bereavement of a spouse or partner. It's time to talk openly about other realities o. Sex, intimacy & dating! Health & wellness website.
Step 1: Take care of immediate things
In addition to managing your grief, you will have to handle certain affairs immediately. Notifying family members, loved ones and family advisers will likely be one of the first things you must do. Decisions about organ donation and funeral arrangements will be the hardest.
Mental health experts agree that divorce is comparable to the death of a loved one, which makes sense given that you're suffering the loss of a marriage and all that goes with it. That's why you experience grief and its commonly known phases: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Losing an only child resulted in 1.37 times the level of loneliness and 1.51 times the level depression as losing a spouse, and life satisfaction was 1.14 times worse for those who lost an only child vs. their spouse.
In our final data, 7% of children had lost a parent, 2% a mother and 5% a father, when they were 23 or younger ( Table 1 ). The average age of experiencing parental death was approximately 15 years.
More than intense grief, the loss of a loved one can have another unexpected effect on the marriage. Death can alter the way couples feel about each other. Couples may experience communication problems or intimacy issues. Marriage is a delicate balance and after a great loss may not be the same.
Traumatic grief
Losing a loved one in a horrible, unexpected way (such as due to violence) can result in heightened emotional responses. The distress from traumatic grief may cause someone to be unable to function as usual.
One of the first steps in combating loneliness is being around others who share some of the same interests as you. Try your best to pull yourself out of your grief enough to volunteer a weekend or two each month at a local charity or food bank to help those in need.
This study has found that children of divorce fare much worse than children whose parent dies. His long term study found “Parental divorce during childhood to be the single strongest predictor of early death, many years into the future.”
Grief and loss affect the brain and body in many different ways. They can cause changes in memory, behavior, sleep, and body function, affecting the immune system as well as the heart. It can also lead to cognitive effects, such as brain fog.
Research has found that when parents are in an unhappy marriage, the conflict compromises the social and emotional well-being of children by threatening their sense of security in the family. This in turn predicts the onset of problems during adolescence, including depression and anxiety.
The years between eight and thirteen can leave you feeling like a parenting beginner all over again. They bring backchat, rudeness, defiance, highly emotive responses (SO many big emotions!), selfishness, “I hate yous”, sulking and door slamming.
The scariest time, for those dreading the loss of a parent, starts in the mid-forties. Among people between the ages of 35 and 44, only one-third of them (34%) have experienced the death of one or both parents. For people between 45 and 54, though, closer to two-thirds have (63%).