How to Be Good to Yourself, Not Hard on Yourself During Divorce

3 steps to forgiving and loving yourself again

I just read a comment on something I wrote. It’s called My Ex-husband Did a Number on My Otherwise Solid Self-Esteem-How in the hell did I let that happen?

The reader wanted to know something.

How I found my way back to self-love.

It’s a good question and as I say in the aforementioned article, it wasn’t easy. It was a hell of a fight. But I do like myself again. There was a day I didn’t know how I would reclaim that core confidence.

The solid self-esteem I thoughtlessly discarded attempting to save a man and a relationship that didn’t deserve me.

Here’s the reader’s exact question:

What steps did you take to prioritize your own well-being and regain a positive sense of self? How did you overcome the challenges of self-doubt and self-loathing that you mentioned?

1. I had to forgive myself for my mistakes and for the divorce

I couldn’t move forward because I couldn’t forgive myself.

My children suffered because of the choices and mistakes I made. Yes, they were good-intentioned. I was trying to keep their family together. But they were incredibly misguided.

My ex-husband may have been drinking and behaving badly.

But my continued forgiveness of repeatedly bad behavior wasn’t healthy.

I wanted to see the best in my husband. I wanted to believe he was a good person in a bad place. I wanted to believe it was a mid-life crisis. I thought I was sticking with my spouse in good times and in bad.

But it brought out ugly behavior in me.

I said things I regret and I yelled and I perpetuated an unhealthy cycle. My husband wasn’t going to address his behavior. All I did by remaining in that bad situation was I made so many mistakes I found it hard to forgive myself.

My marriage counselor said something that allowed me to forgive myself.

It stopped me from repeatedly beating myself up.

“Colleen,” he said. “Our greatest strength can become our greatest weakness. You were overly caring to a fault and it took you down in your relationship.”

It was at that exact moment, that I was finally able to forgive myself.

Because it was a better part of me that contributed to my mistakes.

But my marriage counselor said something else that got my attention.

“Colleen,” he said. “You’ve told me you grew up without your dad. And you believe everything happens for a reason and that it was the path you were meant to take. Did it occur to you that this is the path your children were meant to take?”

At that moment, my counselor took it out of my hands.

And reminded me of my own spirituality.

2. I had to determine why I liked myself before my divorce

It was hard to reclaim myself when I felt like I had lost myself.

This step was equally as difficult as forgiving myself for my mistakes and divorce. I didn’t know how to find myself again. I had let the marital misery cycle go on for too long and then experienced an overly long five-year divorce.

I barely remembered when and where I had misplaced myself.

I tried to act happy. I tried to force it. I tried so hard.

Until one day, I had an epiphany.

I didn’t love and like myself because I was a great marketer or writer, or fancied great outfits, threw great parties, or made people laugh. Those were aspects of who I am. They were passions of mine.

I felt good about myself for one reason.

When I left my home every day, I lived by a strong set of undeniable values.

Maybe I can explain it better with the following excerpt from my About Me — Colleen Sheehy Orme story.

I am a foundational girl. I believe in God, family, and friends. In the kinda values that make you do the right thing when no one is watching. Because Irish Catholic mommas make you think they always are.

My passions are writing and marketing but they’re not where I derive my sense of self. That comes from stopping to help an elderly person with their groceries or paying for the person in front of me whose card was declined.

I am from a long line of first responders who taught me the word stranger doesn’t exist. I try to live my day to day with kindness and respect. But I’m human so this is cumulatively speaking, not saintly.

My epiphany made it apparent I didn’t need to keep attempting to find the person I used to like. I just needed to go back to the core thing that gave me the strongest sense of my own core self and confidence.

How I lived my day-to-day life.

And forget the mistakes I was ashamed of that made me less than that person.

3. I had to surround myself with people who still loved all of me

I needed to make my world smaller during my divorce and afterward.

Divorce is an unfortunate dividing line in friendship.

I was doing a pretty good job of beating myself up.

I didn’t require any help in doing so.

I had incredible family and friends who never lost sight of me. They fought for me. They lifted me up. They forgave my mistakes. They thought the best of me. They recognized my truth.

They describe me the way the psychologist marriage counselor did.

But there were other friends who judged me and judged me harshly.

As I once wrote, “Anyone who walks away from you at your worst, never had the ability to love you at your best.”

Intellectually I knew this.

Emotionally it devastated me.

It made me feel bad about myself when I was with the type of ‘friends’ who thought the worst of me. It wasn’t always about me. It could be that they were judgy as all disrespectful communicators are.

It could be that they were ignorant and naive to the brutality of divorce. And said insensitive things, like they didn’t want to take sides, or they thought I shouldn’t be talking about my pain, or whatever.

They were opinionated and judgemental and made me feel bad.

I made my world smaller as my marriage counselor said I needed to.

He was correct.

The emotional see-saw stabilized.

I was now only with those who truly saw me, knew me, and loved me.

These are the 3 steps I took to forgive and love myself again.

They seemed impossible to reach during the worst of my divorce and afterward.

I was so exhausted, devastated, stressed, and preoccupied that I couldn’t imagine how to restore any feeling of true self-love again. I wondered if I would ever forgive and like myself again.

Even a tiny bit.

It was that devastating and drastic.

I am here to give you hope.

We make mistakes in our relationships. We love people to the point of self-abandonment and self-deterioration. We think it’s what love and relationships demand of us.

But it isn’t.

That’s how unhealthy relationships fool us.

I forgive me and I love me again.

And you will too.

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