In my work with people going through divorce, one of the most common things I hear, usually said quietly and with some embarrassment, is this: "I'm the one who wanted this. I have no right to be this sad." If that sounds like you, I want to start by saying that your reaction is not a sign you made the wrong decision. It is a sign that you are a person who loved, hoped, and invested years in something that has now ended.
Many people assume that choosing a loss should protect them from grieving it. It rarely works that way. You may have spent months or years deciding, and you may be certain that leaving was necessary. But certainty about a decision and readiness for its consequences are two different things. You can know a marriage was no longer healthy and still miss the person, the routines, the shared jokes, the holidays, and the future you once pictured. Often what you grieve is not only the spouse but the version of your life that you expected to have.
Grief and relief can sit side by side, and they often do. You might feel lighter on a Tuesday morning because the tension is gone, then find yourself crying in the grocery store because you reached for the brand of coffee your spouse liked. Neither feeling cancels the other. Researchers who study loss have long observed that people hold mixed emotions after major life changes, and that this mix is a normal part of adjusting rather than evidence of confusion or poor judgment. In longitudinal work on divorce, psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington found that while divorce is a significant stressor, most adults adapt well over time, and that the path there often includes periods of both distress and renewed energy.
Part of what makes this grief so lonely is that it often goes unrecognized. The grief researcher Kenneth Doka coined the term "disenfranchised grief" to describe sorrow that others do not acknowledge or that the griever feels unable to claim. When you are the one who initiated the divorce, friends may assume you are fine, and you may assume the same of yourself. There is no casserole brigade for a divorce. Without that kind of recognition, people often push their sadness aside, and it tends to return later in less predictable ways, such as irritability, trouble sleeping, or a sudden wave of doubt at two in the morning.
That doubt deserves some attention. Regret after divorce is common, and it does not automatically mean you should have stayed. Often it is your mind searching for a way to end the pain, telling you that if you had only tried one more thing, you would not feel this way. Loneliness can have a similar effect. After years of sharing a household, even an unhappy one, the quiet can feel unbearable, and it is easy to mistake missing company for missing the marriage. Part of the work in counseling is learning to tell those apart.
Some of what you are experiencing may also be what psychiatrist Pauline Boss calls ambiguous loss, a loss without clear closure. A former spouse is still alive, perhaps still co-parenting with you, still appearing at school events and in your phone. You have lost the relationship but not the person, and that makes it hard for the mind to settle. Many of my clients find it helpful simply to hear that this ambiguity is real and that feeling unsettled by it is reasonable.
So what helps? First, let yourself acknowledge both truths without forcing them to agree. You can say, "I made the right decision, and I am still heartbroken." Second, give the process time. Grief does not follow a tidy schedule, and pressure to feel better by a certain date usually makes things harder. Third, find people who can hold the complexity with you, whether that is a trusted friend, a support group, or a counselor. Being able to say the unflattering parts out loud, like "I miss him and I'm also angry," often loosens their hold.
If you are in this place now, you are not broken and you have not failed at divorce. You are moving through a major transition with all of the feelings it brings. If you would like support while you sort through them, I invite you to reach out and schedule a consultation. You do not have to figure this out alone.
Written by Amy Palmer, M.Ed., LPC, CST
Amy Palmer is a marriage counselor and a relationship and sex therapist in Austin, Texas, serving clients statewide through in person and virtual therapy. She specializes in relationship therapy, intimacy concerns, desire differences, divorce recovery, LGBTQ+ affirming care, and non-monogamous relationships