Four Years Later: A Conversation with “Linda” About Life After Divorce

When I first met Linda, she had been married for almost 30 years, and she was unsure whether a different life was even possible. She had done years of personal work, and yet the emotional and financial realities of her marriage kept her feeling stuck. 

Four years later, her life looks very different.

Not perfect. Not without hard days. But freer, steadier, and full of choices she once could not imagine.

I asked Linda to reflect on what changed, what was hardest, and what she would want other women to know.

What finally prompted you to consider separation or divorce?

“I had done a lot of work on myself in therapy,” Linda shared. “But I kept going back to some less than helpful patterns in order to get along.”

The turning point came while reading Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud with a cohort group.

“There it was in black and white: I was hoping for a change that wasn’t going to happen. There was no action being taken by anyone else but me,.” Linda realized. 

For her, that realization was painful but clarifying. She could no longer ignore the gap between the healing work she was doing and the reality of her marriage.

What were your greatest fears when you started considering divorce?

“I think my greatest fear was committing to make the change because I knew there was no going back; the bridge was burned.”

Linda had great support in her friend group, but that amount of change was still terrifying. It had been a long-term marriage, and her husband was part of her family. She did not want anyone to feel like they had to choose sides.

She also had to learn something that became central to her story:.

“I really had to learn to live in the uncomfortable.”

That discomfort did not mean she was doing something wrong. It meant she was in a transition that required courage, patience, and support.

How did working with Healing House Solutions impact you?

“I needed someone who could walk with me and coach me,” Linda said. “I needed someone who could think clearly, without being angry, because I was not able to do that at that point. I needed someone who had been there before.”

For Linda, the work was both emotional and practical. She needed space to process, but she also needed clear financial guidance.

At one point, we identified a significant financial error. “Had I accepted the first offer, I would have lost thousands of dollars that was owed me regarding the refinance/buy out of the marital house.”

That is why financial clarity matters. When emotions are high and the process feels exhausting, it can be tempting to accept whatever gets it over with. But the details matter. They can impact a woman’s stability for years to come.

What helped you start living again?

For years, Linda had not taken vacations. Her husband did not want to go, and over time she stopped imagining that kind of life for herself. She felt stuck in what she described as “Groundhog Day,” – going to work, coming home, not spending money, not going anywhere, and not knowing how to move forward differently.

That kind of stuckness is common for women who have spent years fighting for a marriage that is not getting better. When so much energy has gone toward surviving, managing, hoping, and trying again, it can be hard to imagine anything beyond the next hard decision.

During a goal-setting exercise with her cohort, Linda was asked to imagine what she wanted the next two to five years of her life to look like. She couldn’t come up with even one goal. With divorce looming, she could not yet picture life on the other side. In many ways, she had lost sight of herself.

SSo someone in the group challenged her to start with one small step toward rediscovery: take a vacation.

She began with what felt manageable: a short trip to Las Vegas. A friend joined her, and that one “yes” opened the door to more. Soon after, she went on a cruise over Christmas and New Year’s, and later accepted an invitation to Greece, spending and spent her birthday on a train to Haifa. 

That part of Linda’s story matters because it was not just about travel. It was about remembering that she was allowed to have joy, adventure, and a life of her own.

What helped you keep going when you wanted to give up?

Linda’s answer was honest and direct.

“You have to become willing to be uncomfortable for a while. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable and trust the process.”

For Linda, that trust was deeply connected to her faith. Looking back, she can see ways her life unfolded that she never could have planned herself.

“The biggest thing for me was trusting God,” she shared. “He had plans that I could never have dreamt about.”

That trust did not mean life suddenly became easy. Even after divorce, Linda has continued to face change, including job transitions and new seasons of uncertainty. But her faith helped her see those uncomfortable places differently, not as proof that something was wrong, but as part of continued growth.

She does not minimize how hard it was. There were lonely nights. There were moments of fear. There were times when the future felt completely unclear.

But she also wants women to know this:

“Know that the uncomfortable and the unhappy and the sadness and the tears, it won’t last forever. It is not always going to be awful. At some point, someday, it will be a new normal.”

What advice would you give women in the middle of it?

Linda offered this:

“Take the high road HIGH ROAD EVERY TIME, even if you don’t want to. People (, your kids), are watching, and you won’t always feel the hurt that you’re feeling now., Bbut you will always live with the poorwith poor behavior that you may have displayed.”

That does not mean pretending the hurt is not real. It means remembering that the pain of the moment will not always feel as sharp as it does today.  The way you choose to walk through it matters.

How has your life changed since your divorce?

“I think the best difference is learning to feel okay in my skin in all areas.”

Linda had confidence in her job performance and other parts of her life, but she never felt like she measured up as a wife.

“I have learned that my company is enough. I don’t have to be treated poorly in order to not be alone.”

She had done a lot of work on herself before the divorce happened, and that work helped her recognize her own value.

“KnowingBy knowing that I have value for who I am (, not what I can produce or bring to the table), it made the gap in the marriage really obvious and wide. I was changing and he was not.”

Since her divorce, Linda has also said “yes” to opportunities that once would have felt impossible.

“By saying “yes instead of “no” to the uncomfortable, I’ve done things that were totally out of my comfort zone. While doing these things, and being able to succeed at them, I’ve built confidence in myself that I didn’t have most of my life.”

The hope on the other side

Linda’s story is not about divorce being easy. It is about what can happen when a woman has support, financial clarity, and the courage to tell the truth about her life.

Today, Linda owns her own home. She makes her own choices. She has built a life that reflects who she is becoming. Maybe that is the hope. Not that the process will be painless, but that the uncomfortable season is not the end of the story.