Self-confidence
Getting divorced can massively affect your self-confidence, especially if it wasn’t your choice to end your marriage. If your marriage breakdown was down to an affair and your ex left you for someone you perceive as more attractive, that can also hugely affect your self-confidence.
Even if leaving your marriage was your choice, you may still have some issues with self-confidence. There are very few people without some issues!
I am quite a confident person. I doubt I would have done as well as I have in my career if I didn’t have good self-confidence. However, when my husband told me he wanted to end our marriage, my self-confidence took a huge dive! I suddenly started questioning myself about everything.
What was wrong with me?
Am I not good enough?
Will anyone else ever find me attractive?
How will I cope on my own?
What have I done that would cause him to not love me anymore?
Its not like I previously thought I was amazing and really attractive, it was just that I hadn’t had a need to really question this as much. I certainly had body image issues but suddenly it seemed like my whole future was dependent on my worth as a woman.
Sense of failure
Divorce can leave us with a sense of failure. Why couldn’t I make our marriage work? Why did I let that happen to me? Why did he leave me for another woman? Why is being on his own and not seeing his children worse than being with me? This sense of failure is because you are putting all the onus on yourself. It is not just about you. It takes two to make a marriage work and two to cause it’s downfall.
We can sometimes look around us and all we seem to see are happy couples and you wonder why your marriage couldn’t be like that. I have learned over the years that there are many marriages that seem perfect on the outside but often aren’t on the inside. I also know some marriages that have had massively rocky patches along the way. They got through those because they just didn’t want to risk being alone or because they worked on it together. If your ex is not willing to work on things, despite your best efforts, there is very little you can do about it. There are also those who stay together for the sake of the children which is often not the right thing in the long term and can even be more damaging to children.
Looking back and learning lessons is a good thing. Perhaps there were things you could have done better? Learn from these lessons but don’t beat yourself up about them.
What is self-confidence?
Self-confidence is about trusting yourself to make good decisions. It is about valuing yourself as a person and knowing that your needs are important. It is also about knowing that you are strong and resilient and able to cope with life’s challenges and that you have a right to be happy. Having self-confidence means that you are willing to take a risk rather than fearing failure.
How do confident people behave?
Confident people stand tall, they give good eye-contact, their shoulders are relaxed and they smile. They accept compliments, rather than dismiss them as nothing and they don’t beat themselves up about every mistake they make.
If you don’t feel confident, try faking it and see how that makes you feel. Strike a ‘Superhero’ pose and notice what happens in your mind and how it makes you feel. When having a conversation with someone, act confident by standing tall and smiling. The next time someone tells you that they like what you are wearing, simply say ‘thank you’ rather than ‘oh this old thing….’ or ‘oh it was only cheap from Primark’.
Even when we aren’t feeling very confident, it is important to model self-confidence to our children. Teaching them that they are strong and capable is teaching them to cope with life’s difficulties. Supporting and allowing them to go slightly out of their comfort zone so that they can be successful with a small challenge teaches them not to fear failure.
Self Talk
The things we tell ourselves when our marriage ends can also be very destructive e.g I’m not good enough. These distorted thought patterns evoke strong emotions which then impacts our behaviour causing us to feel even worse and sabotaging our present and our future. Reframing your negative self talk is something that coaching can help with so please do get in touch if you are struggling with this.
Things you can do to improve your self-confidence
Focus on your positive traits
List things you have been successful with in the past
Put in boundaries such as saying no when you would usually say yes
Make time for self-care. Treat yourself to massage or getting your nails done
Help others- volunteering for a local charity or helping a friend with a project
Focus on what you CAN change rather than the things out of your control
Exercise: get fit, tone up, release those mood enhancing endorphins
Embrace your independence- what can you do now that you couldn’t before?
Learn something new- gives a sense of success, challenges you and gets you out of your comfort zone
Tackle stress- meditation, mindfulness, exercise
Building self-reliance
When we are in a long term relationship, we begin to rely on each other. So when we are no longer in that relationship, we wonder if we can cope on our own. That too can knock our self-confidence. Getting used to being single and doing things for yourself can feel quite scary for some. To build up your ability to rely on yourself, try these things:
Make some decisions on your own, without asking others first.
If that is too big a step, decide what you think you should do and then see how often you get the same answer from friends and family. This helps to learn to trust your own judgement.
Be kind to yourself. It is okay to get things wrong now and again.
Why is it important to build your self-confidence?
Apart from the fact that not having self-confidence makes us feel crap, it also makes us more vulnerable for being taken advantage of by others. Building our self-confidence helps us to have less anxiety and feel happier because we know that we are able to cope with life’s challenges. Self-confidence is also very attractive to others and helps us to have more positive relationships. When we are less worried about what others are thinking about us, we are able to engage with others more effectively.
If you are struggling with your self-confidence please do get some professional support as it will keep you stuck in the grief cycle and affect your future chances of a fulfilling life. Some of the things in this post may be enough to improve your confidence or you may need a little more help.
If you have been involved in a toxic relationship with coercive control or other domestic violence I would strongly recommend getting some therapy to help you recover.
