I found it painful in the early days of my relationship loss to see the Facebook photos pop up of all the happy times we shared… Of course, Facebook knew all our special occasion dates and shared our happy moments, our celebrations, our achievements and anniversaries on cue, but after a divorce, they were daggers to the heart, not celebrations.

What we rarely note publicly are the days of quiet grief or acknowledgement we experience as we mark our anniversaries of loss. The hardest I have ever felt was our first Christmas as a broken family. The second hardest was the first anniversary of my wedding. The third hardest was our daughter’s graduation.

It's really hard to believe it was 38 years ago that I walked down that long aisle at the Trinity Chapel in Perth on my father's arm, to marry my best friend and soul mate, who was later also my business partner and father of my three wonderful children. It's even harder to believe that it's been 10 years since our retirement holiday when he told me out of the blue he didn’t love me anymore and was leaving.

Even the most amazing relationships can fall apart under pressure and, oh my God, the destructive impact of ending a 28-year marriage... it's a lot like a category 5 hurricane ripped through our lives without warning or a chance to prepare for the storm and the craziness that ensured. It took a concerted effort to pick up the pieces and rebuild our hearts, family, and friendships and create a new life from all the bits that remained.

I know I'm not alone in working through this pain. As a founder of Women On Transition, I see thousands upon thousands of women struggling to come to terms with the pain of losing their husbands, homes, families, extended families, friends, neighbours, family businesses, retirements, assets, mental health, self-esteem, dreams for their life, and so much more.

In many, many cases there was really no choice, there was more pain staying married as the happily ever after had been lost, but I have gotta say, this does not lessen the pain of all that was lost and all that never was that should or could have been.… but in my case, I felt abandoned, blind-sighted and had no warning, no opportunity to fix things and left totally at a loss by the news. One day I was happily married and the next day my husband of 28 years was a stranger, saying things and doing things I couldn’t believe. It felt like the man I knew had gone and I just had to try to make sense of it all, while continuing to go to work, put on a brave face and process the pain of all that was lost and all that never was that should or could have been.

While divorce rates are falling among younger couples, the rate has doubled in the over-50 demographic in the years since I got married, such that this is now the most common age group to divorce. I know many men and women take too long to pick themselves up and find their way forward.

Having the support from an emotionally intelligent and healed coach with first-hand divorce experience is really helpful (so if you are trying to go this journey alone, PLEASE reach out for support as it will shorten your suffering and help you move on with dignity, grace and a plan for your new life. You won't regret it!

For me, my divorce and its fallout have led me much farther down the path of healing I was already on, as a dedicated student of personal development throughout almost the entirety of my marriage. I am so grateful for my learnings as they gave me the capacity and resilience in my nervous system to cope with stress and heal from the trauma of being abandoned and our divorce.

I've taken my healing and personal growth works many steps further since my divorce, studying the neurobiology of trauma and nervous system healing from many teachers, and adding Family Therapy, NLP, Strategic Intervention, somatic work, emotional intelligence transformational coaching and many other tools to my kit... as is necessary if you want to move more quickly from devastation and despair to hope and healing.

For the past nine years, I have been taking the hand of one woman after another, to guide and support them on their journey out of the darkness and to help them heal and grow and begin to thrive. It is such deep and meaningful work to me, I love every one of my clients and it makes my heart sing to see them embracing their own self-worth and moving forward in life with a whole new sense of themselves and who they can be on the other side of divorce.

I have room in my coaching/healing practice for two or three new clients this month in my structured 90-day program to guide them on their journeys to healing. If you or anyone you know is feeling lost in the post-separation apocalyptic fog, please reach out to me privately to see if my program's a fit. My heart goes out to anyone suffering. I know the struggle, and I'm here to help. You can book a free call here.

Fiona May