Your husband asked for a divorce, and you still have a business to run

Hypnotherapy after a divorce is for the first weeks, when you cannot sleep, cannot focus and still have a business to run. It is clinical hypnosis with motivational interviewing and parts work, online, weekly or as a three-day intensive. It is not psychotherapy and it does not replace it.

What the first weeks look like

You had a life together for many years. You had your rhythm and your routines, and maybe you were talking about buying a place together or investing together. And then you get the news that he wants a divorce, and you are the one receiving it.

In my experience the receiver has it harder. You didn't see it coming, or you saw it and hoped you were wrong. Now you are not sleeping. You read his texts again and again. You sit in a meeting and you don't remember what anybody said. You have payroll on Friday and you cannot make yourself open the laptop, and then a song comes on in the car and you have to pull over.

What happened is that your normal rhythm collapsed. For many years your emotional safety, your financial stability, your plans and your sense of belonging were tied to one person, and a lot of that was taken away from you in one conversation.

This is a normal reaction

What you are feeling right now is not a disorder, and clinically it is not a pathological reaction. It is a normal reaction to a big adjustment, and I would say it is a healthy one, because your life just changed in a big way. If you have ADHD or you are on the spectrum, rejection sensitivity can make all of this more intense, and that is also normal.

Grief does not go in stages the way people describe it. It comes in waves. You will feel okay for a few hours and then it hits you from a different place, and that does not mean you are going backwards.

One more thing, and I say this carefully. He left, and you could not control that. But how you react to all of this is still up to you. You can make it worse and you can make it better, and you do have agency here, even if it doesn't feel like it this week.

“Who wants me at 38?”

I said that exact sentence. I got my divorce in my late thirties, and I was sitting there crying with my husband and saying, I'm 38 now, who wants me at 38? And he was legitimately laughing. He said, you've been a hoe your entire life and you never had a problem with attention.

So I am going to tell you the same thing. The voice that says nobody wants you after 35 or 40 or 50 is not necessarily true. It is your feelings right now, it is social media, it is what our culture says about being single, and it is three nights without sleep. Your reality might be very different. But that is a question for later. Right now the question is how you sleep and how you get through the work week.

What I can do this week

Most therapists have a waitlist of a few weeks. I run the three-day intensive one person at a time, so if the dates are open, I can see you this week. It is three days in a row, about three hours a day, online.

I want to be honest about what three days can and cannot do, because I don't want you to pay me $1,500 expecting a miracle.

Day one, we talk about what happened, and we define what you actually need in the next few weeks. Not just “I want to feel better,” but something specific, like getting through the work day, or not texting him at 2am. I use motivational interviewing for this. Then we start hypnosis, and the first goal is your nervous system, because your body has been in alarm since he told you, and hypnosis is good at bringing that down.

Day two, we go deeper. The argument you are still having with him in your head, the part of you that keeps checking his Instagram, the identity you built around being a husband or being the provider. I use parts work for this (Internal Family Systems). Those parts are trying to protect you, so we work with them and not against them.

Day three, we put it together. I record a hypnosis session for you, in your own words, for the nights, and we make a plan for the next few weeks: work, his family, your friends, and the drinking.

What I cannot promise is that you will sleep normally after day one, or that three days will take care of a trauma response that took years to build. I would be lying. Some people sleep the first night, and some people need the recording every night for two weeks. What I can tell you is that hypnotherapy works really well when you are going through a tough time in life and having trouble adjusting, and that is exactly where you are.

The intensive is $1,500. After that, if you want to keep going, weekly sessions are $250. Some people do the three days and that is enough for them, and some come back weekly for a couple of months.

I was that man

In 2022 my husband asked for a divorce, and he moved out right away. I had a career, I had savings, I had all the resources. And my money could not buy me healing, because I could not find a specialist, in therapy or hypnotherapy or coaching, who could see me as me. A gay man in a demanding career, going through this. My therapist helped me, 100%, but there was simply not enough out there for someone like me.

That is why I do this work. You are not going to have to explain to me what it is like.

A year and a half later my husband and I got back together. I am telling you so you know I am not speaking from theory. It is not a promise, and this page is not a plan to get him back.

Keep an eye on the drinking

I want to speak about this carefully, because I don't want to give you a blanket statement. You are in a successful career, you don't have financial restraints, and going out and getting a cocktail twice a week feels like a reasonable distraction right now. It might be. I am not diagnosing you.

But alcohol is a depressant, and if you are using it to regulate your nervous system during the hardest month of your year, it is not an effective tool, and it can turn a hard month into a much longer problem. So keep an eye on it. If you notice you need a drink to get through the evening, that is a good reason to try a different tool, and hypnosis is one of them. We can talk about it without any lecture.

His family, your friends, your work

His family. Their feelings are not your problem right now. If his family blames you for the breakup, or tells you things they shouldn't, that is a consequence of them not minding their own business. You are the one going through the divorce, and you are entitled to your healing.

Your friends. If your husband was the one who built your social life, some of those friends will go with him. That is painful, and it is also normal. You will rebuild your circle according to you, and it can be small, one or two people, and that is still a circle.

Your work. Tell the people who need to know, as much as is safe. If you are out at work, you can let your team know you are going through something and ease off for a few days. If you are not out, or it is not safe to be, we figure out how you get through the next few weeks without that.

How the sessions work after the first weeks