Getting Divorced? Keep your Sense of Humor while Dealing with a Breakup
If your relationship is going through a rough patch or if you’ve decided to get divorced, life can seem difficult at best. Coping with divorce is one of the most challenging life transitions a person may ever have to make. Here are some tips from real people who have been through it and who say keeping your sense of humor is a must.
1. Look at things in perspective.
“Your situation is never as bad as someone else out there,” says Kate Halprin of Dayton, Ohio. “You can always say, ‘Look, it’s not as bad as (insert celebrity name here) — at least I’m not going through this in the tabloids!'”
2. Keep your children in mind.
“You can always find something funny in something that a child has done that day, or week to chuckle over,” Halprin suggests.
3. Rent a lot of really sappy movies one night and have a huge cry-fest.
“Getting all the tears out over something that’s not related to your situation is very cathartic,” Halprin says. Then you have a better handle on things and it’s easier to be cheerful.
4. Become a bit fatalistic.
“Once you are actually taking the steps to divorce, it’s pretty much over,” Halprins says. “I found that many people commented on how well I was taking/dealing with it, but honestly by that time it was a relief to have it over. I had already gone though the first few stages of grief,” she comments.
5. Find a support group either through work, a book club or a religious organization.
The ups and downs of life are much easier to handle if you can go through them with friends. Why not put yourself out there? There may be people out there just like you, who would love to have someone like you as a friend.
6. Laugh!
Try it — “even if you have to turn on Saturday Night Live and force yourself to giggle at the stupidity of it all,” suggests Lynn Pickett of Indianapolis, Indiana.
7. Spend time with children.
“If they can’t pry a smile out of you, you may be a lost cause… but I don’t believe in lost causes,” Pickett says.
8. Spend time with teenagers.
“They will make you remember why you’re glad you’re not a teen anymore,” Pickett suggests.
9. Spend time with old friends and allow them to tell stories about you!
10. Keep a thankfulness journal.
“Promise yourself that you will only be thankful for the funny things that happen to you each day,” Pickett says.
11. Pray God grant you a light heart and a bit of humor every day.
12. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
“If it all starts and ends with you, you won’t see the humor in the room or in creation but will only look at yourself,” says John Buckles of Westerville, Ohio.
13. Humor can be a superficial coping strategy or a powerful thing.
“But humor must be real to be a powerful thing and be effective,” Buckles says.
14. Be careful if you use humor as a minimizing technique.
“It doesn’t always fly with other people,” Buckles adds.
15. Humor is a tool.
“Like a lot of tools, humor can be misused. It’s a gift from God, use it as such,” Buckles comments.
