Denial is the first stage of grief, it is a psychological defence mechanism to protect you from becoming emotionally overwhelmed. It is a numbing response that often follows the refusal to accept the end of the relationship.
Denial provides some kind of comfort, as it allows people to distance themselves from an overwhelming reality. It’s the resistance to change, even in the light of conflicting evidence. Your mind fights to accept that the relationship is over and you may dwell on the decision for weeks, months, and even years. The idea of getting a divorce feels scary, and you deny the pain of grief, so you try to find reasons to keep the relationship going, even if it is an unhappy one.
If the divorce is finalised you may still deny the fact that it is really over. It’s normal to feel delusional and believe that things may still get back to how it was. It is very common for people to try and initially deny the event in order to subconsciously avoid emotional pain; the thought of pending mental struggles is scary.
The relationship can be over even before you go separate ways, and still, you can struggle to accept this reality and fight to find solutions to your troubled marriage. You may think that if you do or say the right things you may reverse the situation, or may think that it was your inability to solve your marital problems. This may send you into a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts which prevent you from moving on.
It is always difficult to accept that you are in the middle of a divorce.
Examples of denial may include failing to complete and return the acknowledgement form when divorce papers have been sent by your solicitor. You may want to make the other person wait or may take time to make a final decision and hang on in the relationship for as long as possible. Another example is keeping contact with your ex for any other reason apart from parenting matters, or issues that are not related to the divorce.
Everyone reacts differently to divorce, and having an understanding of these different emotional stages can help you make sense of all the confusion you may be feeling right now. The best way to deal with your emotions is to sit and face them, by acknowledging and validating every emotion that comes to surface, without denying or suppressing them. Accept your grief, the cure for pain is in the pain itself, there is no way around it.