A lot of people who divorce find that it requires relocation.

Relocating with children is a complex and separate issue altogether. This article concerns itself with relocating as a newly single person in mid-life with grown children or without them — that is, when children, for whatever reasons, are not part of the equation.

If relocating, it could be helpful to keep several things in mind. As one not unfamiliar with this discombobulation of upending oneself, I share the following:

Expectations

Few things increase suffering quite the way expectations do.

Our expectations for ourselves and our lives are one of the measurements we employ to identify and to orient at any particular life stage. If expectations are a measuring stick, it is one more often used as a punishing stick than anything useful in gauging the distance between two points.

Relocating, which is inherently disruptive and displacing, often shakes the foundational sameness that we rely upon for our security. Additionally, a mid-life relocation, particularly when in response to unpredicted challenges or unwanted circumstances, can make one feel like a victim in his own narrative. When expectations look one way and we are turning in another altogether unknown direction, we can be up against a world of trouble.

One example of this would be going from homeowner to renter. Many believed owning our own home was a gauge of status and achievement. To relinquish a marital home and become a renter in one’s middle decades may feel like a hideous throwback to early independent life — a time when roommates and Ramen noodles were the norm. While the association may pull up a sense of struggle or impermanence, it can be helpful to counter that with the current reality. Many of us formed the home-ownership ideal in a time when homes comprised families’ largest assets (i.e. the pre-real estate crash era). In fact, many people now opt to rent instead of purchasing, appreciating homeownership as a poor investment on return and a good way to be tethered to unending maintenance, repairs, and unwanted obligations.

So we might relax a bit, and notice that our expectations, along with our judgments, are often based upon outdated data and concepts that have outlived their relevance. Judgments and expectations, while always available (albeit as largely unwanted) companions, are distinct from the situation itself. The judgments about the situation make things more discomforting than necessary.

Notice expectation biases. Make room for them on the sofa, and make room for a lot of other stuff too. Our world, our democracy, and for half the year, our planet, is upside down, so what you once adhered to as the “correct” or “only” way, may be as obsolete as the cutting edge medical breakthroughs of the Civil War Era.

Relocating as Part of Divorce — Part 2

What Brings You Comfort in New Place? Relocation tips for the newly single, continued from our last article.

Decrease Suffering, Focus on what brings comfort.

• What brings you comfort?
• What do you do to self-soothe? 
• When you return home, what is your first “go to?” 

It is probably the same things you do semi-consciously and have done for years; a continuous thread, regardless of where you have called home: from your dorm room to a special spot in the home where you grew up, to the specific accommodations you make in a hotel room to help you relax. 

Some examples: If you need good lighting in order to read before bed, that is important when establishing your new home. If you need WiFi and a working computer to relax, ensure you have both immediately upon occupancy. 

Now is not the time to be a martyr. (If there is a good time for martyrdom, I promise to let you know in a future blog.)

Even if you can rationalize or argue against yourself that something is not necessary, if you rely on it for comfort, it is a priority now.

If cable TV has been your norm, this isn’t the time to challenge yourself to be somebody who meditates for two hours a day and doesn’t watch TV. That’s a nice goal to have and might be something to tackle down the road, but right now get cable TV — even in the bedroom — and bathroom, too! — if it helps you unwind. 

If you like to have certain food in the refrigerator, even if it does not comprise the ultimate diet of your future triathlete-self, that’s fine. For right now, get the kinds of food that you enjoyed last week and for the last 20 years. First let’s tackle stability, then change. 

Focus on What is Wanted.

Start with a baseline of comfort and stability in your new place. Comfort will help regulate your system before more can occur. 

From a calm, foundational place, we can better turn to what is wanted.

From a calm, foundational place, we can better turn to what is wanted. In times of change, our whole system may want to cling to what was — however lousy it may have been. Losing something tends to elevate it to a throne of romantic glory — making whatever there was appear more desirable than what there is or can be. We are all likely wired this way.

Knowing this, perhaps it’s more possible to keep company both with attachments to the past, as well as a sense that they may be somewhat idealized at the moment. This may invite a bit of tenderness with oneself and humanity in general.

Rather than trying to “go back to” or “rebuild” what was, I like to invite approaching it thusly:

Indulge in unfettered dreaming and imagining. Unbridle yourself from inhibitions. 

What kind of space do you want to live in? What tickles your fancy? Your funny bone? What would you, your home, your life look like if you were irrepressibly impressed with yourself? Your own hero? What physical environment would help you mirror the you of the future? 

Maybe, for example, you want a large lucite writing desk. Perhaps that aesthetic inspires your sense of order and creativity, discourages clutter, and motivates you to sit down to keep up with bills and filing. Maybe you want minimalism; freedom from your old collection of one hundred hideous mugs emblazoned with insignia from every state you visited in the last 15 years.

Now is the time to bask in your own attention! Turn towards yourself, your whimsy, humor, and inspiration.

Not by abandoning necessity, reality, reason, of course, but here on earth you likely get a healthy dose of that everywhere else in life. Simply also make room for what might delight you and be obtainable with some ease and simplicity. Perhaps you wanted and now can create a reading nook or gift wrapping station. You can put a bean bag chair in the living room, or hang a yoga swing so you can, at long last, suspend from the ceiling like a vampire. Possibilities. Endless.

Often for the newly separated or divorced, who may have buried, neglected or abandoned themselves in order to maintain a withering couplehood, here is an opportunity to rediscover delight. Not only to occupy a space freshly but to inhabit yourself more freely and fully.

Finally, there is a place where your inner voice, expression, and amusement can come out for some sun and fresh air.

Relocating as Part of Divorce – Part 3

As promised, here we are with our third and final installment on relocation in divorce.

The Comfort of Impermanence

Wherever you are right now, you won’t be there forever. Simply because everything is changing all the time. This is great news if you are not overjoyed by your immediate circumstances. Don’t get too attached to them — they are already a-changing! Around 500 BCE, Heraclitus of Ephesus, the pre-Socratic philosopher, said this: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” (I find Heraclitus strangely comforting during difficult times.)

We humans have a tendency to take a snapshot of something we don’t care for and then project it, exactly as it exists in this moment, frozen and terrible, into the future. And this “future Polaroid” is magically immune from the natural laws imposing, well, change, upon everything else. In truth, whatever version of “now” you might be torturing yourself with has already morphed into something else. So maybe your spouse is in the marital home with his or her fiancé(e), but they might not be there next year for a slew of different reasons. Events in your own life, hitherto unseen and unimagined, may unfold days from now, replacing old desires with enlivening goals and serendipitous happenings.

Maybe you’re moving into a place that isn’t your first choice. There’s no reason you need to be there for any great length of time. It might be that this is a place where you’re going to be pulling together what is next. It’s a space and place for planning something much better.

Don’t interpret a transitional present as indicative of what the future holds.

Don’t interpret a transitional present as indicative of what the future holds. Refrain from assigning meaning to your current circumstances. Two years from now, and certainly 10 years from now, you can well be inhabiting a home and life more reflective of your heart’s desires.

It Takes Time

If enemies exist, impatience is chief among them. At a time of relocation in divorce, impatience with ourselves can be especially punishing. Give yourself some breathing room.

And remember to breathe!

Moving is traumatic and adjusting takes its own time. If Rome wasn’t built in a day, it’s fair to say that communities aren’t built within twenty-four hours and lives aren’t restructured overnight.

Patience, gentleness, and spaciousness with oneself are some of the best ways to approach the oft dramatic task of relocating.

In the words of Lao Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation), “Compassion towards yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.” Start reconciling.