6 Key Tips for Men to Maintain Mental Health During and After Divorce

Divorce is an emotional earthquake that shakes the very foundations of a man's life. Behind the courtroom doors and legal battles lies a deeply personal journey.

Here are 6 Key Tips to help you through the turbulence:

1. Focus on the Basics

When there is change all around you and you find yourself dealing with intense emotions, the first thing to do is to re-focus on doing a few basic things that you can control that are known to have a positive impact on your mental health and overall wellness:

1. Diet

2. Sleep

3. Movement

In my experience, these pillars of our health can be easily lost and forgotten when life is difficult. When we lose these pillars, it becomes a compounding problem. Have you ever fallen into this pattern?:

1. You’re feeling bad so you stop taking care of yourself

2. You stop taking care of yourself so you feel worse

3. You feel worse so you stop taking care of yourself

4. Repeat

Focusing on diet, sleep, and movement can help you break this downward cycle:

Make sure you’re eating well for you (and “well” is very relative). Eating well may mean eating pizza 7x a week, if the alternative is not eating anything at all. Eating well may mean just recognizing the relationship between your emotions and the food you’re eating, and just noticing that non-judgmentally. What does it mean for you to eat well now, given your emotional capacity?

It’s totally normal for it to be difficult for you to sleep right now - but try to do what you can to increase the odds that you will have success. Attempting to sleep, and doing basic things that are known to improve sleep is absolutely essential.

Here’s an article I wrote on the path to quality sleep that gives you best sleep practices.

Finally - move your body. Make time to do something that you enjoy doing with your body. Even if exercise has never been your thing - you can find other enjoyable ways of moving your body. 

Here’s a list of 9 ways of moving your body that people usually don’t think about:

1. Dancing

2. Jumping Rope

3. Stair Climbing

4. Playing with Children

5. Cleaning your House Vigorously 

6. Washing your Car

7. Mowing the Lawn

8. Working in the Garden

9. Brisk Walks

For more information about bodily movement and exercise, here’s an article I’ve written.

2. Create a routine

This is a natural next step after getting back to the basics. Lot of change is happening. If you are living by yourself or without your partner, your life routine and schedule are likely going through all kinds of adjustments right now.

Many men feel more grounded and sane by having a routine or schedule that they can stick to. When life feels out of control - create some sense of order and predictability through your routine.

Get the groceries every Monday after work, wash your car every Sunday afternoon whether it needs it or not…create some structure. Here’s a list of some activities you could think of doing predictably to help create a routine:

• Time for exercise/body movement

• Regular social activities 

• Shopping / groceries

• Eating certain meals or at certain restaurants on particular days of the week

• Housework

• Mowing the lawn / yardwork

• Laundry

• Watching specific sporting events / shows

• Washing the car

Again - having something you know you need to do can really beneficial to your mental health. If you begin to feel overwhelmed, you just look at the calendar and it will help you put one foot in front of the other and get to the next place you need to be.

Even if you’re feeling lost, it can be so helpful to just have the structure of saying “okay, I don’t know what I’m doing next in my life, but it’s Tuesday…and I go to Slappy’s Chicken every Tuesday. I know what I’m doing for dinner, and that’s enough right now”.

3. Talk to People

Sometimes men rely very heavily on their partners to fill their social calendar. Without that relationship in your life, many men find themselves isolated and alone at the exact wrong time in their life to be isolated and alone.

You need to find ways to talk to people.

Sometimes men will say, “I don’t have any friends that I can call on the phone”. Often I will reply, “okay, tell me about the person you’re thinking of now that you don’t think you can call”.  Men will often tell me about a friend from high school or college or a work buddy from years ago they used to be close to. It’s never too late to reconnect with someone, and they likely have been thinking about connecting with you but just haven’t known how to do it either.

If you do have family or friends that you have a relationship with - it may be helpful to put them on the routine too. Tell your friend or family member, “can I call you Thursday evenings every week after work at 6 just to check in for a few minutes?”.  

The conversation can be as serious as you want it to be, or as lighthearted and distracting as you want it to be - but it’s so important to find people to talk to. Here are some other ways to put yourself in a place to interact and talk to people regularly:

• Restart an old hobby that involves other people

• Find a political group you align with and attend meetings 

• Volunteer regularly for a cause you are passionate about

• Join a weekly group at a house of worship

• Start a weekly or monthly event with coworkers after work

4. Create Space to Feel and Grieve

Feelings are for feeling.

Sometimes early in the divorce process it can feel too intense to even begin to contact the intense feelings that men have within them. Oftentimes at this point an angry part will start to dominate. I actually think this a protective and adaptive mechanism. While you don’t want to act out from that place of anger in ways that are unhelpful to yourself or others, that anger is helping to keep deeper, painful emotions like grief, sadness, and shame at bay.

If the anger wasn’t there, contacting that pain may simply be overwhelming. Othertimes men have a part that is completely shut down or numb that does the same thing - keeps those deeper, painful emotions from being felt before it’s time.

That being said, it’s important to make time to begin to sit with and feel your emotions. All the routines that I talked about earlier are absolutely necessary to give structure and sometimes positive distraction…but that should be balanced with times where you can sit and simply be with yourself in ways that feel safe.

Here are a few ways to create space to allow yourself to feel:

• Grab a notebook and a pen and spend time journaling. 

• Go to a park and just sit - with no distractions in silence and allow what comes up to come up.

• Grab a cup of coffee at a coffee shop and sit outside. Just sit there, by yourself, and enjoy your coffee. Keep your phone off, and again, just allow what happens in you to happen when you slow down and create space to just be.

If nothing revelatory happens, that’s okay too…just show up for yourself and create that stillness and space to allow what needs to emerge to begin to.

5. Practicing Self-Compassion

Divorce can be an incredibly shame-inducing experience.

A lot of men feel like admitting you’re getting a divorce means you have to go to your entire friend and family network and tell them you’re a screw up and a failure.

It can really do a number on your self-image. Find practices where you can be gentle and kind to yourself. 

Do you have growing to do? Yes - we all do…that’s what being a human is all about, and there’s no shame in not already being perfect, whatever that even means. It’s okay to be human, because that’s what we are.

Here’s a simple meditation you can do once or twice a day for 15-20 minutes to hold space to be compassionate towards yourself:

1. Lie down on your back, or sit upright in a chair with your feet planted on the ground.

2. Close your eyes or soften your gaze.

3. Slowly inhale and count to 5 through your nose, then slowly exhale with a 5 count through your mouth.

4. After a few minutes, drop the counting, and begin to shift your attention towards an image of yourself when you were particularly struggling recently.

5. As you continue to breathe, allow yourself to connect with whatever kindness, gentleness, or compassion you can feel for this image of yourself. Some people image themselves hugging or holding this version of themselves that needs their compassion.

6. Seek Professional Support

I know there is still a lot of stigma around mental health professionals and counselors among some groups of men. And that’s okay, I can understand that hesitancy. I’ll just add that I regularly work with men who tell me in the first session they’re not sure they really need counseling and they don’t really know what to do or say or “how” to do it…and then within a few sessions they’re ready to tell everyone they know to see a counselor.

There definitely is a kind of mindset amongst a lot of men that it’s not okay to ask for help, and they “should” be able to handle things on their own. I get that too…I’m often slow to go to the doctor. My wife will tell me I need to go have something looked at, and I put it off thinking it will just take care of itself if I ignore it. But, it doesn’t work that way. That rash down there doesn’t just go away on its own, and, mental health issues don’t magically disappear. 
Too many men continue to suffer in silence alone for years instead of getting the help they need. That doesn’t have to be you.

Next Steps…

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Divorce is a deeply challenging and transformative experience that impacts men on a profound emotional level. The journey of navigating through divorce can be filled with intense and overwhelming emotions, pushing men to their limits. However, it's important to remember that healing is possible, and support is available.

I invite you to download my free video resource, "The 5 Coping Skills Every Man Needs to Know." In this video, I share valuable coping strategies specifically designed to help men navigate the overwhelming emotions that often accompany divorce. These coping skills can provide you with the tools necessary to regain control during moments of intense emotional turmoil.

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You don't have to face this journey alone. By seeking support, practicing self-care, and implementing these coping strategies, you can navigate the emotional rollercoaster of divorce with resilience.

Wishing you the best on your mental health journey.

Hi, I’m Travis.

My clients describe me as calm, compassionate, and curious…

You have these qualities inside you at your core too. You just need a little help uncovering them.

If you’re dominated by anger, anxiety, shame, or self-criticism, we can help you re-connect with who you really are: confident, calm, courageous, compassionate, and connected to yourself and others.

Travis Jeffords - LCMHCA | MDiv. | Male Counselor

In-person counselor: Greensboro & Winston-Salem

Virtual counselor: North Carolina

Licensed Counselor