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Hello, and welcome to the Single Girl’s Guide to Life, your weekly guide to embracing single life in your twenties and thirties. Expect relationship chats, single life living and learning to be yourself as I share weekly insights during this podcast, wisdom and knowledge that will help you navigate your single life status. I'm Chantelle the Coach, a quarter-life and confidence coach that helps women who are single separated or divorced to overcome doubt and uncertainty through their quarter-life crisis or other life change. I'm a mentor and a guide having been in that position myself and continue to be a single lady. I'm also a coach, someone that helps you unlock the answers for yourself, find that potential in you by asking you and prompting you with questions so that you can work out what you want, make decisions with absolute confidence and take action towards living a life that you can thrive in.
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In today’s episode, I'm going to be answering and discussing a question that was sent to me. It hadn't been something that I had put a lot of thought into, but given that it is summer season, it is traditionally when a lot of people have at least been married. There's a lot of weddings going on right now, not just because of COVID, but actually summer season is always more popular. There are a lot more weddings in August than there are in any other month. Therefore that means that if you particularly have gone through a divorce, say, it's very possible that your anniversary is now, or you might just be finding that with all the weddings going on, it's making you think about your own. Today, I'm going to be addressing how to deal with anniversaries after a divorce or breakup of any kind of description.
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Now, this is a real tough one because anniversary dates were obviously a commemoration as it were of how long you'd been together and all of that time, that journey that you had been on with your ex. It starts to bring up all of these memories; the first date, the proposal, if you did get married, moving in together, going away on your first holiday, all of those sweet moments. The gifts, the cars, the little things that you miss that were the comfort to you when you were together all come back up. You also start thinking about what could have been, the places that you said you'd go to, the things that you said you do together. The family that you said that you would raise together and the names of the children, even that you might have spoken about contemplated and got a bit excited about. All of that magic, all of the things that happened, all of the things that you thought were going to be come back up just because of an anniversary date.
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That's completely okay. There's nothing wrong with that at all. I think that's the important bit of this, that managing this time is really valid. It's something you need to acknowledge and work through, but this is what's going on. We're getting lots of things being brought up that maybe hadn't been on our radar very much because we've been doing other stuff and the date hadn't really meant anything, but this was what used to be a fairly special day or something you looked forward to if it was your wedding day for a long time, and now it's tainted. That's really tough because you're now not in that scenario.
Now, some of this will depend on how things ended, what the circumstances were in terms of the end of the marriage in this case or relationship if you're talking about a breakup. It will depend on who ended it, what reasons were given, how all of the changes took place and how friendly you were towards one another and how your relationship is now. I think it very much differs depending on what you've had to go through in that process as to how the anniversary date can go.
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Either way, just because you ended it doesn't mean you're not allowed to be upset. There might have been reasons that you really needed to end it, but that doesn't mean that you still don't get emotional about it. You might be upset that they ended it and it was kind of more their choice and you feel that that's going to bring up that kind of like unfairness. It might have been that you both agreed that it wasn't the right thing to do anymore, that you had grown apart. Whilst you had a good run for however long you were together, you needed to separate because you could see it.
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It made sense not to be together anymore. You're both holding one another back. It still doesn't make it entirely easy to just walk away from. There was a lot of investment. An anniversary date brings all of that back up, no matter what the circumstance of how you are with your ex now. What happened during that time and who ended it and why, your feelings are entirely valid for however you feel about this day and what it is bringing up for you. Please don't think that you shouldn't feel that way because you ended it or it's been such a long time now, why are you getting so upset about it when it was years ago now? There are going to be all kinds of different reactions coming up today; anger, upset, disappointment. You might start to question that worth as well if you've been trying to date and it's not happened for you. It brings up lots of things of the, “Why couldn't it happen for me?”
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If your ex has moved on as well, you might even be going through that kind of comparison element. It's really, really tough, depending on all the different circumstances. I encourage you to lean in and feel and knowledge all of those things that are coming up, listening to the thoughts, considering them, and just being at ease with them and letting them all out because suppressing them is not going to help anything.
Now, the problem with looking back, what was happening and did happen and how your relationship really was and looking forward to what it could have been and the dreams that you had is that these are highlight reels. It’s very cliche, but when you look back, you think about the best bits. This would have happened when the separation or breakup was happening at the time because of all that you know about that person or that you've been through with that person. The comfort, the familiarity, the hope, the dreams, it's looking back at all the good stuff, because that's of course what comes up because you do have to look at those things when you're separating and consider does the negative, the reason that I'm looking to leave, or the reason they're looking to leave outweigh the bad? It's easy to see all of those things.
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At the same time, there was a reason that you split. Either that they weren't prepared to put the work in, that you both acknowledged that it wasn't the right thing to be putting the work in or you knew that you weren't ready to keep working on it. No one wants to find themselves in a relationship where it's one-sided or there aren't those kinds of elements that were in a previous podcast episode on what is love, which spoke about intimacy, passion, and commitment being the kind of three. Now, obviously if you have a relationship that you were happy with two of those really being maintained and one not, that was up to you guys, but maybe between the two of you, an element in that for each of you or for one of you. Those were the reasons, and it's all this kind of evaluation of what it really was and what you really want and need in your life now.
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On your anniversary date, it's very easy to look back at the “best bits.” Looking forward is your imagination. It's your expectation. It's letting your brain go wild and imagine what could have been. It very much is the old expectation versus reality concept. Have you ever imagined an event, even just something at work, as simple as a conversation that you've got to have at work. You kind of play it out in your mind because you're trying to prepare for it. You want to make sure that you've thought about what you might respond with if they ask a particular question or say something and then come round to having that conversation in real life, and it is nothing like you thought it was going to be like. They didn't ask any of the questions you came up with and they asked you the complete curveballs, a bit like an interview as well where you kind of prepare for something and it goes a different way.
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That's the problem with our imaginations. They're wonderful things, but things don't often quite match up to what we think about in our brain. This can be the case with any kind of relationship. It reminds me of what I've been listening on Audible, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. There's an element in there of where the midnight library allows her to kind of replay sections in her life, had the outcome been different. She does go and revisit back and considers if she'd actually got married and walked down the aisle with her ex. She doesn't actually do that in her life as it were. She backs out a couple of days before the wedding, but she then does play it out. The Midnight Library, I would recommend it. I haven't finished it yet, but just that concept of being able to play certain things out to see what they were like, you know, actually experiencing what it would be like.
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She does go through this phase when she's reliving what could have been the elements that reminded her, “Oh, hang on here. I do remember that this was a problem, that thing that he used to do,” and so on. It’s a really interesting way of presenting it. As I say, I haven’t finished it, but I think it's one that I will recommend even just being sort of a third of the way through the book. Even just that has had an impact on me. Now much like last week, people think that when they are having to deal with an anniversary day, you should keep yourself busy. Yet again, distraction is the one thing that's going to keep you from processing what's really happened, what's going on and how you're feeling. If this day is on your radar before it's even coming up like it's here, then you're thinking about it.
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You're ruminating on some could have beens, what if's, looking for answers maybe that might not even be there, but your brain is starting to think about it. Therefore you can't distract yourself from that. Of course, if it is having an impact significantly on your life and on your work, then I would suggest that you seek some help with that very specifically, as opposed to leaving it. They will then be able to help you in the best way possible, but if this is just something that's coming up, it is there, but you're still able to get on with life. But when you're then free at home, particularly if you're feeling that loneliness that I spoke about in last week's episode, then that's slightly different. It's something that you are able to manage yourself. By all means, you can always reach out for help from anyone; friends, therapists, anything like that, but it is something that you can manage and you might not need to seek any particular help or further. Always keep that open as an option if things are interrupting significantly in your life.
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My anniversary in fact is coming up now and the marriage took place three years ago. It has gone so quickly. I imagine that the pandemic has made it go that little bit quicker in that sense. It seems mad, really. We've been separated for two years now, divorced officially for a while. Before the separation, I had this idea that I would spend each subsequent anniversary or whatever activity we did for the anniversary in my wedding dress. Now my wedding dress was to me, fantastic. It was the epitome of me and my personality in an item of clothing. It was from Candy Anthony. It was a gorgeous knee-length dress with a blush pink petticoat. It was very clever. It had like silk, very slightly pink dress.
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You wouldn't have called it a pink dress looking at it, but it very lightly blushed as opposed to like pure white or cream. It then had a tulle layer on around the waist and then a lace layer over the top. I had two different belts and a lovely veil. As I say, my plan was to spend each anniversary with my husband, whether it's specifically on the day or near to it where if we went for a meal, I would wear that dress. Given the layers, you could take things off so it didn't look so wedding-y and you could accessorize as I did in the night. I changed it halfway for the party and had like a little jacket on and changed my hair, things like that. Ultimately it was like a prom dress, a very nice one. My plan had always been to spend each kind of anniversary, doing something in it, as mad as that would seem.
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Now, it seems slightly different to do that. Continuing on, I put it on last year just to check if it still fitted. That was one of the elements I was like, “Oh, I wonder.” However, actually looking at what I'm going to do with it going forward, that tradition has kind of changed. Some people would look to, I think they could like divorce photo shoots. For some people, that's going to be a really interesting way of processing it where they take their wedding dress, they go on a photoshoot and it usually involves some sort of paint or very strong colors, to a degree, celebrate. That might make some people feel really uncomfortable. Why would you be celebrating something that is so sensitive?
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Some people see their divorce as something that has enabled them to do things that they would never have been able to do. It's given them the opportunity to develop their own strength and to prove it to themselves. It's this sense of certainty that some people go out there and celebrate in a particular way, and that can include to a degree that sort of trashing their dress but in this really impressive, “This is my dress,” kind of way. Personally, my dress means too much to me for that. It's very much now in my will. It’s one of the few items that I actually have that I want to have it move on to other people. How you actually look and frame your separation, divorce or breakup is really important. As I say, if you need to process things still, then you go for it and you take each and every year. Take that time, as long as you need, to do that.
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This is an opportunity for you to process it again and again even if you don't do it on the day, but nearby the minute it starts to come up, because they say that things will keep coming back up until you're done with them until you've dealt with them properly until there's no unfinished business for you to deal with in terms of how you feel about it, what you've got attached to it. If you need to go and cry it out, then cry out. If you need to scream, then go scream into a pillow and do that. Do you need to laugh about certain things? How silly it was that you did that, or the mistakes that you made, for the red flags that you missed, for all of those things, you need to get it out, process it in whatever way makes sense to you.
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Actually, this isn't dissimilar from any kind of grief. Yes, losing a loved one seems much more unfair to a degree because they're taken away entirely, but you tell me the difference between someone leaving your life and never wanting to speak to you again and ending a marriage. Okay, maybe you can talk to them again, but maybe you can’t. They might not want speak to you. Chances are in some cases, they really don't want to speak to you again. You had hopes for what could have been, and that's the same as if someone's passed away. You thought life was going to be a particular way. You thought you were going to have these memories with someone, these conversations, this life, this family. In much the same way, it's a mourning of what could have been. There is a significant loss in your life. You can't ignore that. Whether it's a celebration, some sort of photoshoot or some sort of event that you do, and whether you do that publicly, or like a photo shoot would somewhere be shared, I imagine.
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If you keep it more private, because this is still a private event to you, it's something that only you went through. Yes, other people have broken up and got divorced, but your experience with your ex in your life, the way it happened, is only what you experienced entirely. Now, another thing that you may or may not want to do, which is similar to, for example, if I did choose to keep getting into my wedding dress is to look at the memorabilia. Do I still own memorabilia of my wedding and relationship? Absolutely. It has taken time to get rid of some of it, don't get me wrong. Cards from my ex have gone over time, but there are still things that I have. I know I've got still some wedding presents and items from the wedding day. We had lots of things personalized, particularly my bouquet.
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I had frozen and framed and it looks stunning in the box. It’s currently in my mom's office because originally I moved back in with my mom and I didn't plan to have my own place. I just haven't moved over yet, but I have every intention of that going probably above my dressing table in my bedroom because it's beautiful. I think there's this misconception that you shouldn't be able to appreciate what your anniversary was, what your wedding was, what your entire relationship with that person was. However long you were with someone is still a significant amount of time. I was with my ex for seven years I think it was entirely. That's a long chunk. Being 28 now, that's a quarter of my life, not forgetting that you don't remember much of your life before 10. That's a good chunk of my life that involves a person.
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I'm not going to eradicate everything to do with them in an instant. Again, this is a personal choice. If it's been that tragic an ending, if things are unforgivable and that you can't come back from very easily, you might have got rid of things because they were just too strong a reminder, for example. For me, seven years, in fact to that point my whole entire adult life, 19 to 26, nearly my entire life involved them. I'm not going to go through my Facebook and delete every single photo because that's pretty much my entire adult life. I'm not going to get rid of absolutely everything that was to do with the day. My wedding day, I love. It's going to be more difficult if there was a hidden secret that meant the wedding day has been tarnished.
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I think that's a slight scenario. If your wedding date was great and you had a lovely time, you can still call it one of the best days of your life. You don't have to think that it can't be one of the best days of your or one of the most enjoyable, most fun, most exciting, just because it didn't last. The memorabilia that I have, and whilst I don't necessarily sit down and look at it, I could if I wanted to at any point, not just on an anniversary day. For some of you, it will be therapeutic to go and find maybe the photo book that you had made for the wedding or some old photo albums, or just going through the album on Facebook. Looking at that time, I think nostalgia is something that is enjoyable. We look back. I don't know if you've got yearbooks from your school. I love looking at my yearbook. Is that 10 years ago. Really? I should sit down and have another look at that, and it's really hard.
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Moving on from anything is difficult because when we're in it in the moment and enjoying it, we don't think about it ending, even if we're bored of it, such as school. We're like, “It's never going to end when you're at school.” So many people look back on their school lives because obviously the lack of responsibility that you truly had, you couldn't recognize until now when you've got so much more responsibility. You didn't enjoy it necessarily too much at the time, but you can look back and appreciate it for everything you've got to experience and for all the things that you didn't get to quite do the way you probably should've or could've made more of, and a relationship is exactly the same. Maybe you didn't enjoy all of it all the time, but you look back and you go, “But I got these memories. I learned these. I know what I want if I go into another relationship next.”
There's nothing wrong with so many of those things. I don't think you should be erasing unless you feel you really must, but if you've got memorabilia, if you've got photos, if you've got memories, then another way to process this day is to really look at that and just take them in. Whatever reactions you have to them, process them, good or bad as it were, positive or negative. However you want to frame it. Really, those things don't exist. They're just interpretations, but your time with that person and that magical day is still as magical as it was, or as magical as you choose to believe it was. It wasn't a waste of time.
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So far, you've got a few things such as making sure you process it, maybe celebrating it in some way, or at least acknowledging it and looking back on it. The last thing I'd want you to do and reflect on is look back at what you were doing this time last year. If you've had more than one anniversary at this point, it's an interesting point always to look back at what you've done in the year. How far have you come from the last anniversary to this anniversary? What have you done? What have you learned? Have you grown? Just take the time to consider how much you've managed to do in this year and all that you've done between last anniversary and this anniversary. It's an exercise that I previously spoke about as a mid-year and an end-of-year event.
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If this is a key point for you and you want to turn it into something positive as it were or something to generate some action and momentum, then yeah, you reflect on your last year and then you set goals for what you want to achieve by next year. How far do you want to have moved on? What do you want to have achieved in your life? It's really important. If this is a key point in your life of reflection, then use it. Use that energy, use that evaluation and that consideration to push you forwards into the next year. You only got to look to the next anniversary and suddenly you're changing the association. This isn't about the day and this isn't a distraction, by the way, it's just using the energy and the focus that you had. What it's doing is it's allowing you to build it into something else.
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Yes, still do all the things I've mentioned already. Process it as this being that day, but look what I've done in the year. Let's imagine what I can do in the next year, even though I'm not with my ex. The other thing to reflect on in that time is what have you been able to do in your life now that you have not been with that person? If that means that you're still single, that's possibly a bit easy to even say like, “I'm currently sat recording this in a yard in Norfolk on my own.” Don't get me wrong, me and my ex used to go on trips. However, this whole road trip experience that I've had, darting about country and going wherever I wanted, choosing where to explore and sort of just taking my initiative, it just wasn't something that one, I even knew I wanted to do.
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Two, I didn't feel confident enough to try it because it was so easy to just fall back onto, “I should be going away with my husband. We should be doing this together.” Why would I ever think to go on a week-long trip, going to place somewhere, in festivals on my own, events, living in a year and putting up campfires and keeping a wood burner lit and things like that when there was someone else that would have done that with me? That's for sure one of the key bits that I could speak about right now in terms of what have I been able to do now that I'm not with someone. If you are in a new relationship, your new relationship, I would like to think has a very different dynamic to the relationship that you were in before. Hopefully, that will have unlocked different things for you to do that were different to what you could do with your ex.
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Maybe they're different personality types. Maybe one's introduced you to exploring different countries. Maybe one of them has taught you how to be more easily yourself. You know, there are still opportunities that come with each and every person you meet. On the note of speaking about being in a new relationship, you might be listening to this episode being in a new relationship and feeling uncomfortable about the anniversary that is coming up for you that was with your ex. You are still entitled to have feelings on that day, even though you might be entirely happy with how things are with this new person in your life. It doesn't take away from the fact that there was a time that you spent time with someone else, and that is difficult. You might be in a position where you can talk to your new partner about that, or it might not be something they're prepared to talk to you about, but still process it. Still take that time for yourself to go through it.
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I don't know the circumstances of why you aren't with your ex and for some, it might be a real sensitive issue and it's not your fault or things like that. Sometimes we have anniversary dates because people are taken from us as well. I hope that this episode has given you some different ways of looking at your anniversary date, making sure that you acknowledge it and accept that this is completely valid to feel upset all over again, to feel angry. If you feel like a choice was taken away from you or that it's not fair, that you'll never know what would have happened. I suggest listening to the Midnight Library or reading it because I think that concept is addressed there. It really puts it in a way that just plays out exactly what you'd expect it to.
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Remember that you're always looking at the best bits. You have to really consider what it was truly like being with that person and the reasons for ending and what it would really have been like now if they ended it because they felt a particular way toward you or didn't any longer or vice versa that if you'd really stayed, would you be the person that you are today? What would you have been missing out on if you'd stay? What have you been able to do in your life since then that you would never have been able to do had you been with that person? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Give me a DM on Instagram @ChantelleTheCoach and give this episode a review as well if you've got that option on your podcast. Until next time, keep thriving.