Your spouse just served you divorce papers and you never saw it coming.

Your spouse just served you divorce papers and you never saw it coming. You were blindsided. Maybe like my ex, they were living a double life and just couldn’t deal with the stress of it any more. Or maybe you had an inkling that something was wrong, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. Either way, your spouse, who had been plotting and planning their exit for some time, got up the gumption to serve you divorce papers. And maybe they did it in public, or at your place of work (mine served me papers at church, my place of employment at the time) or even at home. However it happened, it feels like someone sucker punched you in the gut and then kicked you in the head for good measure. I remember the document processor who served me my paperwork, the apologetic look on his face combined with a look of pity. I stood in front of him tears streaming down my face, while he had me sign his notebook, documenting that I had been duly served.

No matter how or where it happens, being served divorce papers that you don’t want, and never expected, can be one of the most painful, humiliating experiences of a person’s life. It is as if their whole world has been ripped apart and put on display for people to dissect and judge. Thankfully I had a safe community that allowed me the full gamut of grief, anger, despair and shock. Some people say that divorce is one of the most excruciating things that can happen to a person second only to the death of the child. If divorce is the death of a marriage, being served divorce papers is the bullet that delivers the fatal wound. Once you recover your breath, you find that your world is reduced to one moment at a time, one day at a time, and that is ok. That is what works. You need to give yourself permission to feel the devastation so as to really move through it.

Once you recover your balance, and it might take a while- so be kind to yourself, sit with a trusted friend or counselor and begin to process. If you are like me, you don’t even know what to do next; you don’t have any familiarity with the divorce process. Feel the fear, sadness, and desperation but don’t let them own you. You are in charge of your emotions, they aren’t in charge of you. Go talk to a divorce professional who can give you a grid for what lies ahead. The worst thing you can do is bury your head in the sand and avoid your reality no matter how painful. If anxiety is clawing at your throat, go to a medical professional and get some pharmaceutical help. It’s ok, you won’t be on meds forever, but now is the time to do whatever it takes to manage the situation. If you have kids, you will dig down deep to find the hidden reservoirs of strength so you can protect them from the brunt of everything. Goodness knows, you are probably the only one thinking about them anyway; your spouse certainly isn’t or they wouldn’t have done what they did.

And this is the most important thing–you will survive this act of cowardice. You are stronger than you think, and you are better than this shameless, gutless, expression of selfishness. You will take this horrible event and allow it to make you into a finer, more compassionate human being, than you ever thought possible.