Latest / Divorce Dialogues / How to Heal After Divorce with Oona Metz
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- Oona Metz (00:00): Divorce is not a failure. Divorce is a life transition and grief is not a failure. Grief is necessary. Feelings don't kill us. They are a necessary part of living. And I think you have to go through the hard ones to have the good ones too. Katherine Miller (00:19): Welcome to Divorce Dialogues. I'm Katherine Miller. This is where we have honest, thoughtful conversations about divorce, the emotional, financial, legal, and family questions no one prepares you for. From deciding whether to separate, to navigating the process with dignity, to rebuilding what comes next, Divorce Dialogues is here to help you find clarity, perspective, and a better way forward. One of the biggest misconceptions about divorce is that it has a beginning and an end. Well, the marriage ends and the divorce is finalized and life moves on. But that is rarely how people experience it because divorce is not just a legal process, of course. It's an emotional transition. And that transition often begin long before anyone files for divorce or even says they want a divorce. And sometimes it begins with, well, cures of disappointment, loneliness, uncertainty, and unhappiness. But sometimes it begins the moment someone realizes that the marriage that they're hoping for, well, it may never exist and it doesn't necessarily end when the judge signs off on the final divorce judgment or decree. (01:36): The grief of divorce has its own timeline and it doesn't move in a straight line. It can show up in unexpected ways. It can disappear for a while and then return just when you think you've moved past it, just like grief. And understanding that process matters because this grief is not something to fix. And the more we understand what it is that we're experiencing, the less likely we are to mistake it for failure or feel like you're just not getting on with your life or getting over it. If you're not really facing, it can quietly shape those important decisions in your life without you even realizing it today. So I'm really excited that my guest today, Oona Metz, she spent years helping people understand that process, that grieving process of divorce. She's a licensed clinical social worker, certified group psychotherapist and author who has guided hundreds of women through divorce and leads three weekly divorce support groups. (02:34): She wrote a book, Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women. And in that book, she introduces a five-phase model of divorce grief that reflects how people actually experience this transition. Not as a straight line as I said before, but as an evolving process of loss, adjustment and rebuilding. So today we're going to be talking about what these five phases can teach us, why grief can affect everything from decision-making to self-trust, and how understanding the emotional process can help people move forward. Oona, thank you so much for joining me on the show. Oona Metz (03:09): Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've really been looking forward to our conversation today, and I'm particularly happy that you also have a book out about the emotional side of divorce. It's so important. Katherine Miller (03:22): It is the thing that's important. And the rest of it is just our structure around it, ways in which we have created for getting through it when people can't get through it on their own. And it's really hard to get through it on your own without professional support. So tell us about the five-phase model of divorce grief. I think that you came to it after working with so many people. Let's just start with what is it? Oona Metz (03:48): Well, I'll tell you how I came to it first of all, which is that as I was writing Unhitched, I got to the section in the book where it felt like it was important to kind of give a little bit of a map of how divorce goes. And I think so many people in the beginning phases, and sometimes even in the middle phases, it's so difficult and can be so stressful and heartbreaking, and people worry that that's it, that's how their lives are going to be. And so I wanted to provide some hope also that it does for most people really get better, that there is an evolution. It's not a fixed state of emotional chaos divorce, but it is more of a evolution. And I loved what you said about it not being a straight line. So I kind of looked at all the literature when I was writing the book, and I realized that there wasn't a good model out there, or I didn't find that there was a model that really resonated with all of the clients, the hundreds of clients I'd seen through the process. (04:49): And so that's when I really began thinking deeply about my client's process and how I developed the model. And like you said, it's not a model where you begin a phase on a Monday and you end that phase on a Friday and then start the next phase on Saturday. It doesn't ever go in a straight line. Not everybody's going to go through every phase. The phases may or may not go in order. I think it's a general guide to help people to know that what they're dealing with is normal and appropriate. Katherine Miller (05:23): It does normalize it. My father died about a year ago and it's a different kind of grief, but it's grief nonetheless. I was so taken aback by how I just didn't know what to do with the feeling. I'm like, listen, I'm a doer. Give me some process to just make sense of this. And it took me a really long time not just to feel like, well, this is just this enormous thing and I don't know how to process it. Oona Metz (05:50): But I think what you were saying before, how important it is, you have to feel it to heal it. Feelings are meant to be felt and gone through, not to be avoided or criticized or drinking them away or they're really meant to be felt. And once we can feel them, we can go through them and get to the other side. Katherine Miller (06:10): Well, that sounds really terrible to me that you have to go through. I mean, those are sometimes feelings you just don't want to feel. It's just like, no, no, no, no, no. That's a deep pit of pain. And so do the five phases help people at least understand what's happening to them in a way that is maybe supportive through that process of allowing yourself to feel what you need to feel? Oona Metz (06:39): The first phase is always heartbreak, and it's heartbreak whether you initiate the divorce or not. And certainly I think if the divorce is initiated for you against you, then obviously it's not something you wanted, and so there's going to be heartbreak. But like you were saying earlier, people who decide to initiate divorce often do so after a long period of time. And I think after there are multiple smaller heartbreaks along the marriage. So the initiation only comes after the heartbreak of not being seen, of not being heard, of not getting your needs met over and over and over again in your marriage. That phase, whether you're initiating or not, can be a little bit different. Sometimes if you're not the one who's initiating, it can be a real shock and a real betrayal. And in that phase, I'm really telling people, you got to focus on eating and sleeping and not making any major life decisions right now. (07:44): We just have to get your central nervous system kind of back regulated because I think in that first stage, it can be very traumatic potentially. Katherine Miller (07:52): Before we move on to the second stage, I've had many clients say over the years, listen, I knew it was bad. I didn't think it was that bad. We've been busy with the kids. We've been really just trying to make things happen. And I didn't know that he or she was so unhappy that whatever happened, but that they were going to choose to end this for something either because they found something that feels more satisfying in another relationship or they want to end this so they can begin that journey. And so those people, usually there's a sadness. It's not like the kind of anger that happens when someone thinks it was great. Oona Metz (08:36): Right, right. Yes. Yes. Katherine Miller (08:39): And then Oona, I want you to talk a little bit about that smaller heartbreaks that you talk about along the way. I guess you were talking about realizing that your relationship, your marriage is never going to, again, fill in the blank or that the person isn't willing to fill in the blank. So can you talk a little bit about what that is like, the kinds of examples and how that feels for people? Oona Metz (09:00): Yeah, I mean, I think the most part, people have marriages that are sometimes good and sometimes bad, or sometimes hard. Most people don't have marriages that are horrible every single day. And so we're not seeing those people. We're seeing people where there were good days, there were good weeks, there were maybe even good years, but then it's also kind of punctuated by times that are very difficult. I work primarily with women, and I think for women, one of the hardest things to give up in a marriage is the hope that it's going to get better or the hope that your spouse is going to change. I read this thing that said, this is for straight marriages. Women get married hoping that their husbands will change and men get married hoping their wives will not change. Katherine Miller (09:52): Yeah, both of those things are not realistic. Oona Metz (09:56): That's right. That's right. Katherine Miller (09:57): That's right. Because of course everybody will change, but not necessarily in the way you want them to. (10:03): And I think there's this idea that, well, I'll find a way to fix them. Or if they love me enough, they'll fix themselves. I don't know. I've been doing this work a really long time, and that's not my experience of how it works. I think when it's working, people are individuals who work well together, but they're fully formed individuals. I really hate the scene in that Jerry McGuire movie where the people I think are there in the elevator, one says, I think it's in sign language, "You complete me." I'm like, "No, no, no, no, that's a failure. That's a failure waiting to happen." Oona Metz (10:36): Yeah. Yeah. I think there's also such a difference between changing a behavior and changing a character. When people have deeply rooted character traits, somebody is a generous person or they're a kind person or they're a person who's invested in relationships or they're a jealous person or they're a person who's really prioritizes money. There's all different kind of character traits. And I think you can change like, "Hey, can you pick up the socks, your dirty socks off the floor?" That's a behavior. But if the dirty socks are on the floor because it's not my job to clean up my own socks, you should be doing it for me. I'm better than that. You should be my servant kind of. If that's a character issue about the socks, that's very different than, "Hey, this is something that's going to make our lives better. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. (11:34): Okay. Sorry, I forgot. I'm going to do that from now on." Right? Katherine Miller (11:37): Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I really want to get onto the other phases. Before we do, I really want to say, because I think that people often mistake a careless thing for a lack of love. If you really love me, you should know you should pick up your socks. And that's not true necessarily. Some people maybe should know that or do know that, and other people are just really not observant in that way and really need a little remediation. But if it's a sort of passive aggressive, like I'm doing this because I feel entitled, or I'm doing this because I'm mad at you and I just can't tell you that I'm mad, that's a whole other thing. Oona Metz (12:14): Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. Katherine Miller (12:16): Let's talk about the other phases. Oona Metz (12:18): The second phase, I think, which comes after heartbreak is the rollercoaster phase. And one of the reasons I named it the rollercoaster phase is because I've heard my clients say that word over and over and over and over again. I think it's the longest emotional phase of the divorce. And it's just marked by having all kinds of emotions, some of them expected and some of them unexpected. And that you could have two seemingly opposite emotions at the exact same moment in time. For instance, you could feel incredibly angry at your ex and miss them at the same exact time or feel a level of relief and joy when you wake up in the morning and then the rain clouds come and you find yourself crying in your car or somebody cuts you off in traffic and you just yell like you've never yelled before because you're holding so much. (13:15): And this is what I want to normalize. Sometimes people say to me, I feel like I'm going crazy or my emotions are too much and I really want to normalize that this is a very difficult period and there's so many things that are changing and shifting and so many losses. So of course you're feeling angry and sad and worried and relieved and lonely and, and, and, and, and. It's like kind of put all of the emotions that you could think of into one time period. Katherine Miller (13:48): Yeah, I think it can be very disorienting and that all of those things are true. Okay, so there's the rollercoaster phase. Oona Metz (13:54): The third phase I call mending. And that's really a phase where after the rollercoaster and kind of far into the legal process or once the legal process is finishing up, that there's a time when people can, instead of focusing all of their energy on their marriage or on fixing their marriage or on the divorce and on the divorce settlement, that they get to return to thinking about themselves and what they want, what they need, kind of mending up, like taking a little needle and thread and mending your heart from all of those little nicks and bruises in your heart. So that's what I call the mending phase. And then I think that's really followed by the letting go phase and letting go in a divorce is so important. I love that saying of let go or be dragged. If you don't let go, that may not serve you very well. (14:48): But there's so many things to let go of. You have to let go of anger at your spouse. You have to let go of your identity of being a married person or being part of an intact family. Oftentimes people are letting go of relationships. Maybe they're in-laws. People need to let go of if they have kids of seeing their kids every day. So there's just so much to let go of, but it is an important part of the process. And if they don't let go, that's where I think people most oftentimes get stuck. Katherine Miller (15:19): One of my favorite expressions is that holding onto resentment is like swallowing rat poison and hoping that the rat will die. That is so true. And it really sort of lets the rat dictate who you are and how you feel every day. And that seems that's being dragged. Oona Metz (15:38): And I think part of the tricky thing is it's important to be able to feel your anger and to express your anger. So at what point is that a healthy coping mechanism? And at what point does anger turn into resentment and bitterness that does not serve you anymore? I Katherine Miller (15:55): Think that anger has a real purpose in life. I'll speak for myself. It drives me to do things that I might not otherwise do. It creates enough energy and sort of ahead of steam and a push through my own personal resistance to doing something that needs to be done. And so that I think is a healthy use of anger. And I actually think that even if something happens in traffic and you scream like you've never screamed before, that could be useful, like a relief of the emotional tension. But when you just spend every single day going, "I wonder what they're doing now. I can't believe they're out with this person. I'm going to go to the dry cleaner. I'm going to run into that ass," that kind of thing. Oona Metz (16:36): If it's five years later and you're still screaming your head off in traffic because you got divorced five years ago, right? Katherine Miller (16:44): Divorce dialogues is brought to you by Miller Law Group. We believe divorce isn't just a legal process, it's a human transition. At Miller Law Group, we help people navigate divorce with dignity, clarity, and respect, focusing on conversations that lead to better outcomes for families. Learn more at miller-law.com. Oona Metz (17:06): And then I think the final phase is really what I call moving on. And it's not that you ever forget you're divorced. And certainly if you're co-parenting, you're definitely not going to forget it. But I think being in an unhealthy marriage and going through a divorce takes so much energy. It takes so much emotional psychic energy to do that. And so once you're through those phases, how do you take that energy that you were using for those activities and reinvest it in yourself or in something that really brings you some level of purpose or meaning or joy? And whether or not that's changing your career or spending more time with your kids or your grandkids, or whether it's having a new relationship or taking up a new hobby, really figuring out what is it that I want? What is it that I need right now in my life to make my life feel more meaningful? Katherine Miller (18:06): I like to say that divorce is at the intersection between what was and what will be. And taking that new path and figuring out where it's going, really it's an incredible opportunity because you're burning it down when you get divorced. And not entirely, but I think people's identities form together. Their identity is related to their spouse's identity and their bedroom is shared and their living space is shared and they share children, they share money and they share vacations and they share experiences and they share family. And now they're teasing that apart and having to create an identity separate from the other person, at least mostly separate from the other person, it's hard to do. And it's a tremendous opportunity to make things better. Oona Metz (18:51): To really finally think about when it's just you and you and you're not thinking about what your spouse wants or what your spouse needs, that can free up some time and some energy. Katherine Miller (19:03): And to do things that you haven't done in years or you always wanted to try, I think that could be part of the mending process too, actually. Oona Metz (19:10): Absolutely. Yep. Katherine Miller (19:11): Let's talk a little bit about the non-linear because again, this is very frustrating for me. When I'm going through something that's hard, I want to be able to just go through it. I'm going to cyclically going to go one, two, three, four, five. And at four, I don't want to be thrown back to two, and yet that happens. I just emailed a client today to say that the court was signing the judgment of divorce. And I find that when I send that email to people, and I always say this in the email, you may find this actually quite disorienting. And I think they're thrown back to a rollercoaster for a long time, but that sense of, well, wait, what, what? Now I'm actually a divorced person. I'm a single person. I'm not filing a joint tax return. We're not on the same family health insurance plan. (19:57): All the sort of daily detritus of being a couple is now gone and that can put you back in that place. So I want to talk a little bit about that process and how the phases relate to each other. Oona Metz (20:12): Yeah, I think that's such a good point because divorce can have a lasting impact for years and years and years, and that's different than holding onto resentment. But it might be that people feel great. They feel like they've moved on. We have a new relationship, they have a new hobby, their relationship with their kids is going great. And then something happens. Whether it's a life event, like there's a wedding and they have to see their ex, or either their ex gets married or one of their adult children gets married or somebody dies. There's a significant life event which can throw you right back into some of those feelings. And I think the good news is the feelings tend to be less intense and they certainly are less frequent and they're not abnormal. This is normal life. Our emotions are not kind of neat and tidy things that we put in boxes even if we would like to. (21:13): It doesn't work that way. We also know that future losses bring up past losses. So for instance, you mentioned your father died recently. And my guess, and you don't have to answer this, but my guess is that that may have brought up some feelings for you of prior losses too. So I think it is part of life. And again, those feelings will be less intense and less frequent, but we're going to come around again even if you're kind of done, even if you've moved on. Katherine Miller (21:44): Let's talk about some real people for a minute, not naming names, but I know that you have a weekly divorce support group. I'm wondering if there are patterns that you've observed working with the people in your group, things that happen for people going through the divorce. And sometimes people think, "Well, this can only be me that's going through this." I usually find that there's a bunch of people who feel that the thing that's happening for them is only happening for them, but it's a very common thing. And usually when someone says, "But you probably see this all the time," that's when it's really maybe sometimes like, "Oh, maybe not quite like this," but I'm wondering what your observations are on there. Oona Metz (22:24): So that's one of the reasons I really love to run these support groups, and I have run three weekly groups for the last 16 years. People, when they first come to me, they say, "I don't understand how half of marriages end in divorce and I don't know anyone else going through it." And they feel very isolated and very alone. And like you're saying, this is such a weird situation. And I like to say to people in the group, "Your marriage is unique and your divorce is unique, but what is going to bond all of you and connect all of you in the group is the feelings that you're having." And that is so often true, is that if they focus on the very specific details, yeah, there's a lot of differences. But if they're focusing and talking, which we do in the group about what feelings they're having, they find that there's so much connection. (23:16): And the other thing I find in these groups is that people really borrow each other's strength and they get stronger when they see another person get stronger. So there's so much empowerment that happens in the group. And when one woman walks in and says, "This weekend, my dishwasher broke down and my husband was always the person who fixed the appliances. And I didn't know what to do, and I can't really afford to have somebody come over and fix it." So I went on YouTube and I figured it out. And you can see the rest of the group just lighting up like, yes, yes, you did. Good for you. And then it kind of gives them an inspiration of like, oh, maybe I can do something like that too. So I think a lot of people in the group are practicing doing new things or independent things, empowering things for themselves, and really borrowing each other's strength in that way. (24:14): It's such a pleasure to see that. Katherine Miller (24:16): That warms my heart too, and I think about the intersection thing, right? So you are at the intersection where I was a person who didn't know how to fix the dishwasher, and now I'm the kind of person who might not be able to do everything with the dishwasher, but I'm going to try. That is a wonderful experience to feel like that. All right. I know that you really wrote Unhitched inclusively to include the LGBTQ+ women. And I do think that it is slightly different experience. And I'm wondering from your perspective, where you think the traditional divorce resources have failed that community? Oona Metz (24:54): I'm all over the place pretty much. I just think the LGBTQ community has been really excluded from marriage. There are some legal protections for marriage and very excluded from divorce resources. Just even if we think about language, I really try to be conscious to when I'm referring to a straight marriage to say a straight marriage rather than just a marriage. And I don't always succeed in that. But even just thinking about language, I think that community really does get excluded. I'll tell you what I've seen in my groups is that I think the biggest difference for people is not their sexuality. It's actually whether or not they have kids divorce. And in my groups, when people come in that don't have kids, that can be a different experience. Every divorce is different and every marriage is different. But when I have lesbian members of my groups who have kids and most of them have, the issues are very, very similar. (26:01): What they don't have is the kind of gendered expectations that kind of come in our society about who does what work in the marriage. So that is something that they're not contending with as much. Another thing is that sometimes people in the LGBT community for a variety of reasons are very good at creating community and friendships and this kind of idea of the chosen family, that many members of that community are not close to their own families because of their sexuality. So they have a chosen family of friends. And so they tend to have a pretty good support system. And of course that's not every case, but oftentimes that's what I see. When I think legally there can be issues about custody and the birth parent and the adoptive parent and all those kinds of things that can be different. But most of the time I see the feelings are very similar. Katherine Miller (27:01): Yeah, it's interesting. I think just in general, in any divorce, it's very different with children than without children. In my observation, parents can usually agree that they both love their children and they can see setting aside what might be what they think is the right result in order to have the best interest of the child met. And that can make things actually easier to reach a resolution that they're doing for the sake of the children that might not be. And we're all, I think, try to do what's best for our children over ourselves. So I do think that that gives people another perspective, the perspective of our child, our children, that we care very deeply about that perspective. And that opens up sometimes the opportunity to talk through the options in a way that people who don't have children don't have. Oona Metz (27:53): And I think that is true sometimes. And I think sometimes it really makes things more complicated because there's so much more contact. If you don't have children together, you really can go your separate ways and make a decision to never speak to that person again if you want to. Whereas if you have children, you have to have an ongoing relationship. And I think that relationship oftentimes evolves too. I've seen starting out as very high conflict and then really reducing tension over time. Katherine Miller (28:25): 100%. It took me seven years before my ex-husband didn't trigger me on occasion. All right. Well, we only have a few minutes left, so I have two questions that I'd just like to ask you. And the first one is, what is one piece of advice that you wish every person understood about divorce grief before they got into it? Oona Metz (28:46): I think it's really the reason that I developed this model is I really want people to know that it's not a static state, that it will change, it does evolve over time. For most people, it really does get better. If you're in the terrible beginning phases, you're not stuck there. Katherine Miller (29:04): Right. Well, that is a great setup from my last question that I had in mind to ask you today. And that is, Oona, what is the reframe that you would offer someone who believes that continuing to grieve means that they're not healing and they're not moving forward? Oona Metz (29:17): Well, one thing I would say for a reframe is that I really believe that language is important. And I would say divorce is not a failure. Divorce is a life transition and grief is not a failure. Grief is necessary. Feelings don't kill us. They are a necessary part of living. And I think you have to go through the hard ones to have the good ones too. So use your feelings as a guide to understand yourself better and your relationships better and welcome them even when they're hard. Katherine Miller (29:56): That's great advice. Oona Metz, thank you so much for being my guest on diverse dialogues. It's been really a pleasure to have you on the show. Oona Metz (30:03): Oh, I've loved being here. Thank you so much. Katherine Miller (30:08): If this conversation was helpful, share it with someone who might need it. And if you're navigating divorce yourself, you'll find more resources and episodes at Miller-Law.com. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.