How Midlife Women Can Survive the Holidays When Their Marriage Feels Like It’s Falling Apart
I remember the feeling, standing in the kitchen, staring at the holiday calendar wondering how the hell I was going to get through the next few weeks without losing my mind. Everyone else was talking about holiday magic, parties, and gifts, while inside I was barely able to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other.
For so many midlife women, even without the pain of divorce, holidays feel incredibly heavy.
You’ve carried decades of emotional labor; making all the magic, smoothing over tension, remembering who likes what, getting ALL the stocking stuffers, keeping the peace. You’ve been the glue for so long that now, if your marriage has quietly started to unravel, you’re not sure how much longer you can hold it all together.
And the guilt that comes with that? It’s crushing.
“How can I even think about the unhappiness I feel in my marriage right now?”
“What’s wrong with me? I should just be grateful.”
“What about the kids?”
You’re not a bad person for having these thoughts. You’re a woman who’s been taught that her worth is tied to everyone else’s happiness.
And I get it, the timing couldn’t be worse.
The Hallmark Holiday Channel doesn’t leave room for loneliness, resentment and that quiet ache that just won’t go away during the “most wonderful time of the year.” This is supposed to be the time of family, connection, and gratitude, not questioning and anguish.
You wish you could just flip a switch and feel happy again, but you can’t out-decorate, out-bake, or out-gift the emptiness you feel.
And trying to show up for everyone else during the holiday madness, while carrying this pain, is next level heartache.
The truth is, you don’t choose when your clarity starts to show up. You can’t control when the cracks become too visible to ignore. You’re human. And sometimes, the most human thing you can do is admit that the season that’s supposed to bring joy is actually breaking your heart.
The Disconnect We’re Not Allowed To Talk About
The world tells women to make it magical. Bake the cookies, deck the halls, show up at every event with a smile. But what no one talks about is what happens when the life you’ve built feels hollow inside, when the sparkle doesn’t cover up the ache in your chest?
You wake up every day silently asking yourself how long you can keep pretending everything is fine.
You’re not alone in that. I see this with my clients all the time. Women who’ve spent years performing “fine” until one day, they realize they just can’t do it anymore. And they’re ready to snap.
So I get it if you can’t muster up holiday spirit when you’re just trying to get out of bed in the morning.
What’s Actually Keeping You Stuck
Most women think they’re stuck in indecision because they’re afraid.
Afraid of being alone, of hurting the kids, of what people will say. And don’t get me wrong, those are all DOOZIES to have to go through.
But if you’re like me, fear isn’t the thing that keeps you frozen.
Guilt is.
Guilt convinces you that keeping everyone else comfortable is what you’re supposed to do no matter how much you’re shriveling inside. It tells you that wanting more makes you selfish, that leaving would destroy the family, that maybe you should just suck it up and be grateful for what you have.
But guilt isn’t a good judge of character. Guilt simply supports our conditioning.
It’s the voice of generations of “good women” who were taught to put their needs last and disappear so everyone else could be comfortable.
And we’re not here for that anymore.
Here’s what I tell my clients:
Feeling guilty doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.
It means you’re doing something differentYou’re pushing back against generations of messages that told us our needs are last on the list because a “good” woman sacrifices.
It feels wrong because we’ve been raised to believe shining a light on our own needs is selfish.
Different feels wrong when you’ve built your whole identity around what you do for others.
But going against how we’ve been trained and doing something different is how you start to come back to yourself.
What You Actually Need Right Now
If you’re in the painful place of questioning your marriage, especially at the holidays, you don’t have to decide anything right this minute. Just take a breath and realize you’re not alone.
And you certainly don’t have to blow up your life in the middle of the Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa chaos.
Whether you stay in your marriage and commit to making it better, or end up walking away, you need support and clarity without pressure.
And just so we’re clear, clarity isn’t about certainty. It’s about believing you’re worthy of a life and a marriage that feels good.
It’s about being brave enough to be honest with yourself and say, “I’m not sure what I need right now, but something needs to change.”
And this clarity starts with one small, powerful daily ritual I teach all my clients in this stage.
✨ The Quick ad Dirty Self Reflection Prompt
Each night before bed, take a quiet moment and ask yourself one simple question:
“How did I feel in my marriage today?”
No judgment. No overthinking. No filtering.
Just radical honesty.
Write it down. Over the days and weeks ahead, you’ll start to see patterns. The moments of numbness. The flashes of peace. The places of resentment or longing. The tiny sparks of hope. And you’ll start to see what you need to feel whole again.
Those one-line truths are how you start to remember who you are.
You can’t make a life-altering decision from a place of guilt, insecurity, and disregulation, but you can make one from a place of truth.
How I Work (and Why It Works)
What makes my approach different is that I meet women where they’re at. We leave openings for all possibilities.
Whether they are unsure about what they really want or are confident in the next step.
I work with brave women who are done pretending everything is “fine” and ready to tell the truth about what’s really happening in their marriages, and in themselves. No matter how hard it is.
My coaching blends real, actionable tools with deep emotional insight. Together, we:
Untangle the guilt that’s been keeping you stuck.
Rebuild trust in your own voice and instincts.
Develop boundaries that let you protect your peace without apology.
Ground your choices in truth instead of fear.
This isn’t therapy and it’s not self help, it’s coaching that meets you where you are and gives you practical ways to find your footing again. And it helps you create a plan so you can thrive in your next chapter, whatever that looks like for you.
Because when your marriage feels like it’s falling apart and you’re not sure where to turn, you don’t need another person telling you how grateful you should be, you need someone who understands the heartbreak, the exhaustion, and the fierce desire to find yourself again in the middle of it all.
The First Step Toward Peace
Stage One of Holiday Divorce Survival is clarity without pressure.
If you’re standing in that “What now?” space, not ready to leave, but not sure how to stay, first of all let me say,
I SEE YOU. I’VE BEEN YOU.
This is the place where support matters most. Someone to say, “it’s okay, however you’re feeling, and there is nothing wrong with you.”
I designed the Holiday Divorce Survival Toolkit for this exact season. Because I want women to have something to lean on when they start to shame themselves and it all feels like too much.
In the toolkit you’ll receive:
✨ One laser focused coaching call with four weekly personalized coaching emails from me, written to give you individualized new insights, practical tools, and also give you next level support as you head into the holidays.
✨ A ready-to-use boundary script for when people make inappropriate comments or you’re afraid of your lines being crossed.
✨ Journaling prompts that help you process guilt, grief, and confusion.
✨ A five-minute pep talk audio you can play before family gatherings or those quiet, tear-filled moments when you just need to feel stronger and remember who the f*ck you are.
You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to start being honest with yourself, one day, one choice, one breath at a time.
It will be the hardest, and the best thing you ever do.
Learn more about the Holiday Divorce Survival Toolkit here.
You deserve more than “fine” in your marriage. You deserve more than survival.
You deserve peace, passion, and the freedom to start believing in what’s next.
