divorce has to do is let go. It's vitally important that you immediately let go of the other person; realize that the marriage is over, and begin setting your own life in order.

Of course all of this is much easier said or written than done, but these things you must do, and you must do them - or get started on them - immediately. You've got to think about yourself - finding some sort of work with which to support yourself, and maybe your kids; writing out a plan for the management of your money; figuring out your transportation needs; and what you're going to do to fill your spare time.

You cannot allow yourself to just sit and waste away! You've got to take hold of yourself and go on living! You can do it, and you must! The best way is to busy yourself with all the planning you've got to do, and all the things you've got to do to make those plans pan out. Sit down with paper and pencil immediately, look at your situation as it really exists, and lay out a "road map" of things that you're going to have to do in order to survive.

In the meantime, the pain will still be there but you've got to keep forcing yourself not to think about it or dwell upon what was yesterday. The more you think about the past - what went wrong and why it happened to you - the worse it's going to hurt, and the longer it'll take for you to recover.

 

It Hurts, You Bleed

 

What has happened to you can be likened to a cut on your hand: It hurts, and you bleed, but you wash it off, perhaps apply some medication, then a bandage and allow time as well as the healing processes of the human system to make it all well again. So it is with the dissolution of a marriage, but the bottom line is still: You must cure yourself of the hurt before you can be happy again.

You're going to feel lonely, lost and deserted. You're going to grieve. You are going to mourn the loss of your loved one. You're going to deny that it's over, and think of it as a bad dream. You may fall into a state of deep depression and pretend that it's only a game that will soon end.

In order to counter these feelings, you must try to keep yourself busy - cleaning the house, washing your car, writing out a budget, studying and/or working - you must force yourself to "keep moving and working" on the kinds of things that make you self-sufficient as well as a person that can hold his or her head up in any crowd or situation.

You're going to become so angry that you'll want to do things "just to spite" your lost loved one. Women in particular, have a difficult time coping with the anger phase. They become bitter because of the rejection they feel, the abandonment, and what they consider the lack of honesty on the part of their former husbands. It manifests itself as a result of final property settlements and child support agreements. They sometimes withhold visitation rights with the children in order to punish or get their point across.