What Nobody Tells Midlife Women After They Decide to Leave Their Marriage
What Nobody Tells You After You Decide to Leave
Here’s what nobody tells you:
When you choose divorce after decades of marriage, especially when you’re the one who initiated it, it can feel like you’ve single handedly burned your whole life to the ground.
And in a sense, you have!
Even if it was the right decision.
Even if the marriage was dead.
Even if you tried everything you knew to fix it.
Even if your soul was quietly dying inside.
You will still question if you made a colossal mistake.
You will still lie awake wondering if you just blew up your family for nothing.
You will still hear the voice in your head that says,
“Maybe I should have stayed and kept sacrificing. For the kids. For him. For the life we built.”
And nobody prepares you for that.
No one tells you how isolating it is to be the woman who left.
Not because of infidelity. Not because it was terribly toxic. But because you chose yourself.
Because you wanted more. More authenticity, more fullness, more depth, more truth, more passion, more joy.
Because you couldn’t keep shrinking inside a life that looked fine from the outside but where you were slowly disappearing on the inside.
It’s a brave and radical act. Because our society doesn’t say unhappiness, stagnation, and failure to thrive are good enough reasons to get divorced. If there’s no abuse, alcoholism. or infidelity, you are supposed to suck it up and suffer in silence.
You will have people in your life who will question you. Who will doubt you know what is best for you.
And you won’t be strong enough to counteract their questioning….YET.
This will cause you to doubt yourself in ways that will bring you to your knees.
AND you will still know, deep in your soul, you made the right decision. And this little glimmer will keep you going.
This is the beginning of your reclamation. The first baby step toward the most empowered, inspired, and joy filled version of yourself.
The version of yourself that will rise from the ashes as a beautiful phoenix. The version of you that will make all the suffering worth it.
The Messy Middle Is Where You Rediscover Yourself
This is the part where you watch your identity disintegrate.
It’s the part where everything you knew to be true starts to vanish. Where you don’t know if you’ll ever feel whole again.
Not because you miss the marriage, but because you’re grieving the part of you that was a wife. The part that was the matriarch of a family unit. That had dreams and plans. That grieves the past and future holidays, traditions, and memories.
It’s not just the leaving.
It’s the unraveling.
Of habits.
Of emotional dances.
Of a whole lifetime that’s no longer feels like yours.
And in that unraveling, there’s deep and lingering grief.
But there’s also profound truth. There’s also the knowledge of how f*cking strong you are.
Because the woman you’re becoming, the one who dared to say, “this isn’t enough,” is coming to life.
Here’s What Helped Me Get Through the Self Doubt of Divorce
I didn’t have a map. But I had a few lifelines:
Journaling helped me get to know myself again. Helped me process the minefield of emotions. And helped me learn to be the strongest version of myself.
Support from a therapist helped me see things I couldn’t see. Held me accountable. And helped me love myself fiercely, inside of my guilt.
People I Could Reach Out To who had been where I was. They helped me feel less alone and see that things would, in fact, get better.
If you’re somewhere in the middle of the unraveling, I f*cking see you. And I’m sending so much love and compassion.
I’m here to help you pick up the pieces, not to glue them back into the old shape, but to build something new and beautiful that feels like you.
I’m here to chat. No pressure.
Because the messy middle, IS freaking messy. You feel like you’ve lost the amazing, loving, strong woman you used to be. And you don’t have the foggiest idea how to find her.
Just know, this uncertain, cracked-open part of your life, is the just the beginning.
You didn’t ruin your life. You saved it.
It’s time to figure out what’s next.
Let me walk beside you.
Grab these free tools I created for women just like you:
✔️ Midlife Divorce: Making The Decision - The Toolkit
✔️ Still Standing: Help With The Shame and Guilt of Divorce-A One Page Shame Buster
✔️ Rebuilding After Divorce-10 Journal Prompts to Help You Heal
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