How to Start Over After Your Divorce

The divorce is final. The love you thought would last forever is dead and gone. Everywhere you look there are reminders of your past as a couple. With all these daily reminders, how do you rebuild your life when it is so easy to linger in the past.
While starting over takes a lot of determination and hard work if you follow these steps, you just may find yourself leading a happier and more fulfilled life than you ever dreamed possible.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. The first and most important step in getting over your Divorce and moving on with your life is to accept that it is final. Many women and men hang on to the hope that their partner will change their mind and come back.
   
   While this does happen on occasion it is more rare than you think and even then the reconciliation more often than not does last. So, do yourself a favor and instead of prolonging the agony and dragging out your feelings of unhappiness, simply accept that that though your marriage is over your life is not.

2. Next, start by putting reminders of "What use to be" behind you. Go through your house and examine every room and get rid or at put away anything that will make you dwell on the past.
   
   Thrown out those cookies only he liked from your kitchen shelves, Don't keep the toothbrush or the sweater she left behind.
   
   Put all those pictures of the two of you as couple in a drawer. You can take them out again when the memories are less painful and you have started on the road to a new life. For now, they are simply a sad reminder that needs to be put aside for awhile.

3. Start making small changes that you make you feel more like "you" and less like "we".
   Change banks from the one the two of you use to bank at to a new one that is your choice.
   Take a different route to work than you use to take when you were married
   Repaint the bedroom and make it your private space instead of our room.
   Rearrange the living room, get new furniture, or simply change the decorations on the wall to make it pleasing to you.

4. Rediscover your old single self. There are probably things you enjoyed when you were single that you did not have time to keep up with in the day to day living of married life. Why not take a few of these things up again.
   
   It's never too late to go back to that old book club or find a new one. Start jogging again. Whatever it was that you enjoyed when you were single is probably something that you can pick up again now.

5. Try some totally new things. Perhaps get a pen pal that lives in a different city, state, or even country. Go on that road trip you have always wanted to go on. Whether your interest lies in doing volunteer work for charities, or attending art exhibits there are many new things for you to see and do that will give you a whole new lease on life.

6. Try some totally new things. Perhaps get a pen pal that lives in a different city, state, or even country. Go on that road trip you have always wanted to go on. Whether your interest lies in doing volunteer work for charities, or attending art exhibits there are many new things for you to see and do that will give you a whole new lease on life.

7. Don't sit at home. Simply staying home makes it too easy to dwell in the past and leads to at least temporary depression. Instead invite a co worker to lunch and get to know them on a more personal level. Take up line dancing, or an exercise class.
   
   This will give you a chance to meet new people and make new friends who have no association with your old life at all.
   
   Ivana Trump said it best when she said "The best revenge is living well." It also is the best way to help your move on to a happier life. The adventure of a lifetime awaits you. Just start by taking the first step,

[goodselfme]

on 9/6/2009 Good tips to starting over a fter a divorce. TX

[jenng]

on 9/6/2009 Great article on How to Start Over After Your Divorce 5*