How I Held Myself Together Through a Divorce at the Holidays (and What I Want You to Know)

The December after I told my ex I wanted a divorce hit me like a ton of bricks. I was stepping into a season I’d walked through a thousand times… except everything was different now. We had already sat through couples therapy. We had already had the hard conversations. He had already moved out. And even though I was the one who initiated it, even though every bone in my body told me it was the right decision, nothing prepared me for how brutally the holidays would hit once the house was half-empty and I was finally honoring my truth.

There was no dramatic blow up or final fight. It was the opposite, actually. It was the slow burn of years of disconnection and holding the status quo.

The silence felt heavier. The air felt colder. The house felt like it had shifted into a version of itself I didn’t quite know how to live in yet. I’d wake up in the early dark of a December morning, the tree lights casting that soft glow across the wood floor in the living room, and feel the reality of it settle deeper into my body: this was the first holiday season where I wasn’t pretending anymore, where I was finally moving through the reality that my family was changing.

Everyone around me was gearing up for joy: the matching pajamas, the cookie exchanges, the endless stream of #blessed posts that cluttered my feed and made me want to puke a little every time I saw them. And there I was, sitting at the bar in my kitchen with a cup of coffee that tasted like nothing, staring at a holiday to-do list I no longer had the emotional stamina to perform. The traditions felt heavier. The expectations felt impossible. The version of me who used to carry it all suddenly felt so far away, like I was watching my old life on a tv screen. And for the first time, I couldn’t lie to myself about how much of the holidays I had been carrying alone.

What no one tells you about going through a divorce during the holidays is that the pain feels sharper not because things are getting worse, but because the holidays themselves have a way of magnifying the truths you’ve been tiptoeing around for far too long. The lights are brighter, the nights are longer, the expectations are heavier, and suddenly every tradition becomes a piano you’re carrying on your back.

I remember walking through Target one afternoon, pushing the cart past the ornament aisle, and feeling this wave of grief, because I realized I had spent so many years trying to create holiday magic for everyone else while slowly disappearing from my own life. I was the one making the plans, doing the emotional labor, smoothing the tension, buying the thoughtful gifts, anticipating what everyone needed, and smiling through exhaustion shielding the kids from the undercurrent of sadness I could feel every day in my marriage.

And as painful as moving through that holiday with my marriage falling apart was, a part of me felt relief. And a sense of freedom. I finally was able to stop gaslighting myself about how lonely I was. I stopped whispering the truth in the dark and started saying it out loud, first to myself and eventually to the people who needed to hear it. I stopped telling myself, “it wasn’t that bad” and “I should just be grateful.” I stopped trying to convince myself I could be happy if I just tried harder.

In those weeks, the messy, confusing, aching weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, I found myself moving through the world with this strange mix of grief and clarity. There were days I cried in the shower. There were nights I stayed up too late replaying memories, wondering how I was going to hold my kids through this. There were moments where guilt would crash over me so intensely I thought it would swallow me whole.

And yet, woven into that grief and guilt were these tiny flickers of something unexpected, something I didn’t recognize at first. A morning where I realized the house felt peaceful instead of tense. An evening where I watched a movie alone and didn’t feel lonely, just… quiet. A moment in a store where I picked up a candle and thought, “I like this,” and it felt strange to remind myself that I have needs and preferences, too.

The holidays are brutal during divorce because they force you to confront what your life has been, what it is, and what it could be if you finally stopped abandoning yourself. And even though that confrontation feels like a punch to the gut, it’s also helps you start to see things clearly. It’s the moment you feel the gap between the life you’re living and the life you know you’re worthy of, and once you see that gap, you can’t unsee it.

I didn’t have to spend that holiday season pretending anymore because everything had changed. The kids knew. My ex had moved out. I sent a Christmas letter letting friends and loved ones know. And even though it was December, I wanted things to move forward. Because once a woman has been alone in her marriage too long and finally makes up her mind, there’s no going back. knew if I didn’t keep walking, I might get pulled back into a version of my life I no longer belonged to. I wanted momentum. I wanted clarity. I wanted the next chapter to start taking shape. But even with that urgency inside me, I still moved with intention. I wasn’t rushing out of fear; I was moving decisively out of self-love.

Here’s what I want you to know if you’re in your own December, navigating your own unraveling: you don’t need to make big moves right now. You don’t need to force aything. You don’t need to perform. You don’t need even to be who you’ve always been.

You need honesty.
You need courage.
You need self-compassion.

The holidays will come and go. The noise will fade. The decorations will be put away. But what will remain is the version of you who finally stopped betraying her own truth. That’s the version of you who will lead you into whatever comes next, whether that’s rebuilding, redefining, or finally choosing yourself in ways you denied you even wanted.

If you’re standing in the middle of your own divorce sh*t storm this season, overwhelmed, exhausted, ashamed, guilty, hopeful, terrified, relieved, all at once, I see you. I’ve been you. You’re not alone. I’ve coached so many women through this exact moment, and every single one of them found solid ground again, even when they couldn’t imagine it at the time.

If you need support, real tools, grounding, reassurance, and the emotional steadiness I wish someone had handed me, I created my Holiday Divorce Survival Toolkit exactly for this season. It’s not about making big moves, pretending you’re okay or even forcing holiday cheer; it’s about making sure you don’t abandon yourself while navigating one of the heaviest moments of your life.

You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through December.
You don’t have to hold everything alone.
You don’t have to collapse under the weight of guilt, grief, and expectation.

You’re allowed to hold yourself instead.

Let this be the December you decide to stop abandoning yourself and you finally choose you. Let’s get on a free call to see if the Toolkit is just the thing you need.