In uncharted waters...

[Dmac4026]

I am 43 yo and have been divorced twice. My second one just recently. My 2nd ex and I are great friends. My problem is that I have no idea what to do with myself. I have little or no desire to get involved or even date anyone which is my usual way to cope with the loss of a significant other. I have discovered through therapy that I have absolutely no self esteem. I would really like to improve upon that and get to know and love myself. I have no clue where to start. I don't even know myself. I have always attached myself to the one I was with and adopted the things that they liked and wanted. I have no idea what I like or want. I am both excited and frightened about this new chapter in my life and would like any and all perspectives and/or advice.

[witabix]

Take some time to explore your self. There may be somethings you have come to like from your exes influences, keep them. They may be other things you might to like to check out now that you have the time and space.

 

Don't be in a rush to get into anything romantic, just consider what you may have enjoyed when you were younger, hobbies, interests, books you liked to read, or movies. Maybe revisit a sport you enjoyed.

 

Get some confidence back by realising that you are a unique individual, with skills that you may not have given yourself a chance to develop.

 

Do you like music? Art? Travel? You can try all these things now, on your own terms.

[Dmac4026]

Thank you for your insight and advice. Also for taking the time to offer both. I will give it a try.

[witabix]

No problem.

 

Do you have children? Maybe you could get involved in something they are doing?

[The-Zen-Warrior]

I am both excited and frightened about this new chapter in my life!

 

I can totally "validate" your feelings here, that you are both "excited" and a bit "frightened" as to what is to come next for you, during the the next chapter of your life.

 

Forum member witabix gave some great idea's to you, some of what I might say may overlap witabix's words.

 

A little history here, in regards to me, I've been divorced for over 2 years. I was married for little over 14 years, after the divorce and the very day that my ex-wife moved out, I felt very much like you have described. I was "alone" on my own, pretty much for the first time in my life. I was 38 years old at the time of my divorce, and it was the first time in my life I was alone. As a young guy, from kinder garden all the way to getting my high school diploma, I lived with my parents. After high school I lived with 50 other guys in a barracks while in the Untied States Air Force. I married my ex-wife about 6 months before I got out of the USAF, all the while living with my new wife in base housing. After, we moved into our own house and started our new life together! So I never really lived alone, so after the divorce, the reality of that fact hit me like a ton of bricks.

 

I was down in the dumps, sad, grieving, scared, nervous, excited, you name it, I was feeling it. I had to kind of "re-learn myself" all over again, I had to start from scratch and try to re-build my life, one day at a time. At first, tv watching, DVD watching, and computer web surfing was ok, but it really didn't do anything as towards helping me with my "self confidence"!

 

I had to venture forth and learn to do other things, I started walking at night, about a mile to start and slowly built up to more. Walking for me, at night, when the "alone" feelings were at their worse really helped me out. Next I found that listening to music helped calm the mind and kind of lead to opening up my mind and helped me with my imagination. But be careful here, don't fall into a trap, which might make you start feeling sad or gloomy, don't play stuff that might have been avidly played during your relationship. There is nothing more powerful than an emotion that is born upon the notes of music! Get into things that are different, change your genre a little, think "outside of the box" in regards to your music listening. Who knows, you just might find something that you like and helps open up your mind and engages your imagination and helps your self confidence levels.

 

Next, I learned that your environment is key! If your ex-wife was living with you, and she has since moved out, is your house set up the same as it was on the day of her move out? Is everything as it was? Well if it is, I think that a change of scenery might be a good thing for you. Start plotting a change in your house, gut out your living room and put everything in another room. Walk around in the empty living room and start using your imagination. In your mind set up your new-ish styled living room. Then when your ready and you have a good idea of what your doing, start putting the furniture back, this time in different locations, set up different, heck do as I did, move around the artwork on the walls as well. Do this for every room in your house, took me about an week and half to complete, but it sure felt good when it was done!

 

If you remove the "same ole, same ole" in regards to your environment, and change it up drastically from when your ex-wife was living with you. You have therefore helped yourself remove the visual reminders of time gone by and this will help you "take back ownership" of your space. By taking control of your space and setting it up the way you want, this will help you gain confidence and it will help you learn about yourself.

 

Also, for me, I would choose a hobby, something that I might be or might have been interested in as a child. I choose the hobby of "coin collecting"! I primarily kept my collection of an oriental nature. Collecting Chinese coins, Korean coins, and Japanese coins and paper currency. Picking this hobby for me helped me gain self confidence and helped me take my mind off of my separation. Also a side benefit of this hobby, with some of the coins I collected as well as paper currency, I would buy cheap frames and background paper and a clue stick and would make art work out of the currency and hang some of it up on the walls of my house. So I gained a hobby and the ability to use that hobby in regards to home decor.

 

Something else that helped me "learn" about myself, I got into reading books. At first thriller novels but as time went on I started to get into books of a spiritual nature. One day, while at Barnes & Nobel, I found a book..."Introduction to Zen Buddhism", I thought "why not", bought it and began reading it. Talk about some powerful stuff in there! This book was so powerful and everything in it felt so right, I converted, this was little over a year ago. Best damn change I had ever made in my life! Now in no way am I telling you to covert to any religion as towards helping you "discover" or "learn" or fulfill the next "chapter" of you life, this might not work for everyone, but it worked for me.

 

Also, this is something that might not work for everyone, but in regards to helping me evolve as a single person, I went ahead and adopted a kitten from my local SPCA. This might sound nut's to do, what would a kitten do in regards to helping one move on with the next chapter of their life? My answer to that, is that my new kitten gave me something to love, something to care for, it helped fill the void of emptiness that was left in the wake of my ex-wife leaving. Plus each day that went by, that I remained a responsible person and keep the kitty alive and healthy, feedings, litter box cleaning, vet visits, the more I showed that I could love and help keep something alive, this helped me learn about myself, it helped me with my next chapter of life. This gave me self confidence and helped raise my self esteem.

 

Something else that helped me, when I was in your situation was music. Now I know I already talked about playing music on your stereo or MP3 player, that not the kind of music I'm talking about now. I made a choice to learn to play a musical instrument, I choose to learn the guitar. Talk about a confidence and self esteem and imagination booster! This really helped me fill the void, this made me learn new things and it helped keep my mind off of my ex-wife.

 

Also, during my marriage I never really put much thought and energy in regards to learning anything to do with the kitchen. During my marriage my ex-wife was the one and only cook, she fixed all the meals, so when she moved out and took her wealth of cooking knowledge with her, I was kind of up sh*t creek without a paddle. So one day, after eating my 100 some odd Swanson hungry man meal, I decided to learn to cook for myself. I started small, hot dogs, hamburgers, pasta salads, spaghetti ect. ect ect. the easy stuff. I found having my lap top computer in the kitchen and on web sites like Rachel Ray and Martha Steward ect. ect. and looking at and following their recipes, I was learning to cook! This did loads for my self confidence an self esteem, plus this was a good skill to be learning as far as hosting the ladies.......you know what I mean!

 

Well that's about it from me, there are many.....and I mean many other things that I learned after my divorce, as to help me write out the next chapter of my life, but I'm going to hold off on those. I will wait until you read my post and maybe pick out one or two good idea's, after that I will post some more stuff.

 

I hope this all helps.....

Edited September 20, 2010 by The-Zen-Warrior