Going through a divorce is an emotional time for many people. Although that might seem like the understatement of the year, some people actually don't feel a range of emotions during a divorce in Arizona or in other parts of the country. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to each individual. All emotions discussed here are normal for people to feel during a divorce. Some are so strong that they can impair judgment and make it hard to make rational decisions. Recognizing these emotions is the first step toward being okay with them.



Sorrow and grief are often the first emotions felt during a divorce. These are healthy emotions (even though they probably don't feel like it at the time) to experience during a divorce. The sorrow and grief felt during a divorce can be just as painful as the sorrow and grief felt with the death of an immediate family member. Divorce is the death of a relationship after all. It can seem overwhelming at first, but the pain and sorrow do gradually go away over time. Many people take at least 18 months to four years to finally recover from a divorce.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a pioneer in the hospice movement, first created the stages of grieving and recovering a major trauma such as divorce. The stages are as follows: denial, anger and resentment, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Denial is when people don't acknowledge or accept the divorce is happening. Anger and resentment often follow quickly, mainly aimed at the spouse. Next, people try to bargain with their spouse to keep them from divorcing. Finally, depression sets in as the person starts to accept the divorce is happening. Acceptance comes after depression, and is when the person starts to move on because he has accepted the divorce.

By understanding these stages that people go through, whether they're getting a divorce in Arizona or another place, you can better understand your emotions. Understanding your emotions leads to better decision making.

Many people also feel shame and guilt at the end of a marriage. These feelings come from thinking about the divorce as a failure to the marriage. This feeling of failure may come from our personal expectations, or it may come from culture's expectations. Many people are shameful when facing their friends or family because they feel as though they've failed the so-called subject of marriage in the school of life.

Oftentimes, shame and guilt turn into more tolerable feelings, like anger or depression. Shame and guilt aren't as tolerable because they reflect back on the person too closely, whereas anger can be transferred to the other spouse. This is why spouses tend to blame each other during a divorce in Arizona and elsewhere, and why spouses don't want to accept responsibility for any part of a failed marriage.

Guilt can cause a spouse to feel as though he or she doesn't deserve anything in the divorce, which causes unbalanced settlements that are later regretted. Shame often turns into blame and anger directed at the spouse which comes out at settlement negotiations. The anger, shame and guilt need to go somewhere, so they are often taken out on the court system, in matters that the court can make orders about.

After these feelings of sadness, guilt and shame, fear and anxiety tend to creep in. Fear and anxiety are often centered around financial arrangements, especially if one spouse is unemployed. Divorce in Arizona and around the country is scary because you are parting from someone you've spent years with. You've built your identity, or at least part of your identity, with someone else. But you can build a new identity once your divorce is final; your own identity.