Divorce can be beneficial for your mental health. Many marriages become harmful to both parties in their final stages. However, the divorce process can also come with damaging emotional stressors that you need to be aware of.
How can divorce affect your mental health?
Here are some of the negative emotional impacts a divorce may have:
- Anger: Divorce battles can bring a host of past wrongs to the surface as couples try to prove how the marriage’s failure was the other person’s fault, not theirs.
- Grief: However awful your marriage, there will likely be days when you mourn what you have lost. You might tell yourself to toughen up and get over it. However, the loss of a relationship is a significant event. Grieving is a necessary process.
- Anxiety: Gathering a group of friends around you can help you deal with anxiety. Do not try to cope with it alone. You need people to talk to. You might even need to consult a doctor.
- Depression: Maybe you cannot wait to free yourself from your spouse, but the jubilation can soon disappear as you adapt to a new reality alone.
- Fear: Becoming single again can feel like a big step into the unknown. You may wonder how you will earn enough to pay the bills or balance work with raising children. While some fear is natural, it may get out of hand.
In Louisiana, you can choose a fault-based divorce or a no-fault divorce. Our divorce information page can help you understand some of the differences and why a no-fault divorce can reduce the emotional stress involved. While divorce is rarely easy, it may be a far healthier option than staying in a harmful marriage.