Post-divorce, I’m isolating myself at home alone. How do I get out of this funk?
I recently got divorced after 30 years. My choice as we weren’t happy. We parted on good terms. No kids. And while I was once very sociable and enjoyed working in an office – socialising with work friends – the pandemic has made me feel even more isolated.
I have a stressful job and I work from home and, since I now live alone, it’s so easy to just isolate myself with a home dinner, Netflix and early to bed. How do I get myself out of this funk?
Eleanor says: The end of a 30-year marriage, even an end you feel all right about, is a huge alteration to the way you spend your time. And I suspect you’re not alone in feeling markedly more isolated since the pandemic began. Working from home, losing routines – not everyone resurfaced into the same social world they left.
You sound clear that you want to change things, so I’ll take you at your word that this isn’t keeping yourself company, an enjoyable sort of solitude.
One strategy for change might be: let things disappoint you.
Part of why screens and nothing time can become such worn-in habits is that they’re rarely disappointing. No expectations, no outer appearances, no expenditure of energy. It’s a flat seismograph: no peaks, no troughs.
Sometimes that’s exactly what we need. But long term this can set a trap. A whole life of TV and early nights might not seem like much fun but, short term, each individual night can seem more fun or easier than whatever you’d have to do to break the funk.
Doing something new means risking being bored, tired, embarrassed. Because familiar nothing time has none of these risks, it can seem like the better option. This is how the tyranny of the middlingly comfortable takes hold.
So don’t set out to do things hoping they’ll feel better than the cosy alternatives straight away. Do things even though they might suck. Just have experiences – bad ones, stale ones, bitter ones, tiring ones – that mean you’re in friction with the world.
It might also help to write down why you want this pattern to change. There’s pretty good evidence that if we can hang on to the “why” of a change, our resolve lives longer than it otherwise might.
Repetition helps, too. Don’t wait to be gripped by the desire to see someone or go somewhere. Set up routines so these things happen regardless of how you feel. It could be as small as a morning walk, a trip to the coffee shop, taking yourself to dinner at the same pub once a week. The important thing is that it happens at the same time and place. That way you’ll start to become familiar with the other faces there with you. Nods of recognition will accumulate into a sense of being seen; being part of a group, a town, a rhythm. These low-level ways of “joining in” can be a lot easier than bowling up to strangers hoping for a great connection.
Lastly, it can be easier to maintain your rut-breaking energy when you’re trying to help others. Someone I admired used to say that any time you’re having a bad day, you should do something for someone having a worse one. Little bits of community involvement, whether it’s a soup kitchen, a phone campaign or volunteering at an animal shelter can connect you to your values and make you feel part of something when the world feels like a soporific blur.
New fun and connection will come in time, and it will take time after a change as big as your divorce. It might help to start by just leaping into the world – rather than planning for where you will land.
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