Gay Divorce After 30
Going through divorce after 30 as a gay man in a demanding career is tough. It is different. And more importantly, almost nobody talks about specifically your situation, and how to deal with that.
Because it is a big topic, I'm starting a YouTube series about divorce specifically for gay men in demanding careers.
If you are receiving the separation, it is normally a lot harder, and all of those psychological aspects, those adjustment difficulties, are normally intensified. I was the receiver, and I went through a divorce myself. So I will bring some parts of that story into this video, and later on in the series on divorce I'm also going to bring my husband into this conversation, because this is something that we went through together. But without giving any spoilers, we're going to talk about what happens on the psychological level, on the social level, and on the systemic level when you are going through a divorce.
So, three components: psychological, social, and systemic.
And two parties in the divorce: the party who is initiating the divorce, and the party who received the divorce. Those are two different experiences. The same outcome, different psychological challenges that both parties will go through.
One thing that is mutual for pretty much both parties is the psychological effect. In divorce, especially after a long-term relationship, especially later in life, it can be difficult. This is something that I'm helping men to go through, and I would like to be a resource for that as well.
In this part one, I'm going to give you more of a general map of the divorce for both parties. And then in the next part I'm going to talk about the receiver, because the receiver — spoiler alert — kind of gets it a little bit harder than the person who initiates. Not all the time. Again, divorce is such an intricate and complicated topic, and I cannot stress this enough: your situation is different, and I would advise you to seek support from an affirming provider, an affirming professional who can understand your situation.
The psychological component
On both sides, grief will be there.
It will look a little different if you're initiating the divorce. It will look a little different if you're receiving the divorce or separation, right?
This, by the way, will work even for a long-term relationship. If you were not married, but you're breaking up and you live together — the legal situation with a divorce will intensify this experience, because there's a legal component involved as well. It will intensify the psychological, the social, and the systemic part, all of them. But even if you're not married, it is still a challenging and difficult adjustment.
In the DSM-5 we have adjustment disorder. Adjustment disorder is psychological disturbance that can look like anxiety, can look like depression, feeling depressed, sadness, confusion after significant life events. And divorce is a significant life event.
Adjustment difficulty will look different on both sides, but there will also be quite a few similarities. And identity disruption, or identity changes — that is on both sides. That is absolutely on both sides.
The social component
Both parties will experience this fairly similarly, but again: who is the initiator, who is the receiver, who is more social, who is not.
Are you public? Are you a public persona? Are you a person who is dating in public?
A divorce from a social standpoint will look different for a couple who are, let's say, internet influencers, or you are building a business together and you do a lot of content together, and now that you're divorcing — this is your source of income. This is your business. And now you have a decision to make. Are you business partners, or are you playing the role of a couple on your social media?
Again, nothing wrong with that. It's just that on top of the life decision and the psychological decision to make, this also becomes a business decision.
The systemic component
On the systemic level, that will also hit both parties.
It will hit both parties from a financial standpoint. It depends on your career, right? Where are you at in terms of being financially independent? There are working families where two parties work and bring in an equal amount of income. But even then, financial difficulties will be there.
Safety — systemic safety. And it's not to say that marriage brings more safety, but in a way it does. For example, in situations with medical emergencies. You have a partner, hopefully a loving partner, a supporting partner who will advocate for you. And when that partner goes away, it makes both of you actually more vulnerable in a situation like this. This is a systemic issue.
Career issues too. If you are in an environment where you're out, people know that you're married, and more than that you can kind of let your team know: hey, I'm going through something. Maybe ease out on work, maybe take a leave of absence just to process it, maybe for a few days or even a week — depending on the company that you work at. That will look different. It will also be a lot harder if your company is not a safe space, or if you're not out at your company, or if it is not safe to be out.
So on the systemic level, you have to keep supporting your survival mechanisms that were working fairly fine when your personal safety and your personal life were more in a predictable order.
The initiator
Now I'm going to talk briefly about the initiator and the receiver. I'm going to break it down specifically for each, and I'm going to give you practical advice on what to do if you're going through a divorce. The receiver and the initiator will each have their own separate videos. I will link them when they're ready. They're not ready yet.
For the initiator: grief, like for both parties, will be there. And it actually starts before the divorce, because of the reminiscence, right? What you thought it was, and what it actually is.
Guilt, also. And again, this is not a blanket statement — some of you might experience guilt, others may not. It all depends. But it can happen. The feeling that you are abandoning someone. And the story can be a little bit deeper than just "you're leaving someone." The guilt can be there, and the guilt is not necessarily for abandoning someone, but the guilt from social pressure, right? Like, I was that successful gay man, I have a career, I'm making six figures, I have my shit together — and now I'm not, and now I'm guilty of it. This is the social component sneaking into the psychological one. Again, adjustment difficulties, rather than adjustment disorder — I can't diagnose you over YouTube. And by the way, a hypnotherapist cannot diagnose you. So I'm not diagnosing anybody.
But this is a mixture of relief and anxiety. A relief that yes, I'm making the right decision — again, this is such a deep topic — but also anxiety about what is next.
And the person who initiates the separation can experience symptoms of depression, or rather sadness. When I say depression, depression is a clinical diagnosis; this is just for educational purposes. Sadness, or this feeling that I don't feel like doing things, I'm not enjoying the usual things that I used to enjoy. That can also be a part of adjustment difficulties.
The positive part for the initiator — and again, this is not a blanket statement — normally people who initiate a separation might bounce back psychologically a little bit faster than a person who receives it.
And the community part of it, again, it depends. It depends how much you were involved in the community, because you might be the person who left, or who couldn't keep it together. And that can be difficult.
An example: let's say you are a religious couple. Let's say you go to an open and affirming church — hopefully you go to an open and affirming church, if you are spiritual or religious and you have a place of worship, whether it is a church, whether it is a synagogue, whether it is a faith community that is open and affirming where you can safely be yourself, or a temple, whatever it is. Let's say you go together. But now, you're part of the same congregation — are you staying together in the congregation, or are you moving? Again, this is a social component, and this is actually both of your social support. Is somebody looking for a new congregation? And if somebody is looking for a new congregation, who is that person?
The receiver
Shock, definitely. And I'm going to jump straight into it: if you are receiving the separation, it is normally a lot harder, and all of those psychological aspects, those adjustment difficulties, are normally intensified.
One thing is that our nervous system, our brain, our mind is designed for safety and stability. And a divorce is instability. It's one thing if you saw it coming — and even if you saw it coming, you might have hoped that it wouldn't happen. And that can bring a lot of disruption in your day-to-day life.
Identity collapse, or identity changes, also — depending on how involved you were in the situation. And again, when I say identity changes, I don't mean just a negative one.
An example. My personal example. I was the receiver, and when that happened, my identity changed. After a grief period, after processing, I started my business. Back then I started my coaching business, my career coaching, my business coaching, and later on I started my private practice, because it was sort of remembering who I really was.
I was in tech. I was building a career in tech very intentionally, making a lot of money. But also, I remembered that I was a clinical psychologist. I was working as a psychologist in Moscow. I enjoy mental health. And the awakening was: what was I really telling myself? For me, my priority was just to provide for my family, from my standpoint. Nobody asked me to. Nobody put that pressure on me. That was me being like, well, I've got to be the provider. I've got to build my family. I've got to figure out how to make money fast, and at the time that was tech. Again, something that was visible in my field.
I mean, could I have started my business and done life coaching? Absolutely. Could I have also gotten my license as a therapist, going through the hoops again? It's not that easy to change your license from one country to another, and there are many steps. But I could have started moving in that direction and started a business in mental health, because I am so passionate about it.
That was a wakeup call for me personally, kind of like a spiritual awakening in a way. I've always been a spiritual person — spiritual and religious are not the same thing. I was a part of a conservative church way back in the day when I was in Russia. When I moved to the United States, I became a member of open and affirming communities that I absolutely loved, where gay people, gay men, were absolutely 100% welcomed. But that spiritual awakening was like, okay, I'm meant for more. And now it's almost like I have the freedom. I don't have to think about how to provide for me and another person — and again, this is my psychological frame — and more than that, what do I want to do?
And it's not to say that venturing out and changing careers, switching to tech, was something that I was forced to do. It was fun. It is fun. It's a hugely profitable skill. I can do consulting in tech just like that, alongside my private practice. And that created optionality.
But also, negative identity parts. Like, I'm over 30 — I was 38 at the time, I think, yeah, I was 38 — I'm almost 40, what am I going to do, nobody is going to want me. There's a lot of negative self-talk. Also being a part of my faith community, right? Like, okay, if I start a relationship, do I announce it? Do I invite him to church? That was quite a lot.
But this is to bring that point home: identity changes can be negative, and can be positive.
Some identity changes, for both parties, may look like a positive thing but are actually negative. For example, you had a stable career and no plan, no vision, no calling. "I'm going to start a business on my own because whatever," or "I don't like my career anymore," or "I just don't like what I am doing, I'm reinventing myself" — but there's no plan, no vision, no moving forward. You burn the bridges, but there's no path forward. That can also be one of the identity shifts.
Another negative identity shift: I'm not datable. And not in a way that nobody will ever love me, but that nobody will ever love me the way I was loved by that person, or the way I had it with that person. And that is big and heavy, and I'm going to break it down in another video, because there's so much to it.
Also, the survival mechanisms and survival triggers will be activated. Because now, okay, it's just me. I need to provide for myself. I need to make sure that I can provide for myself, because there's no backup plan. There's no other person who can get a job and pay the bills if you are sick, not able, or if your unemployment gap lasts a little bit longer than it should. So there's no safety. This is the systemic part, right?
Work, right? And it's almost like double pressure. You have to perform at work, because it's extremely not safe for you to lose that source of income. Or you have to keep going in your business, if you're not prepared financially. If you don't have that cushion, that mechanism that will bring income on repeat, you've got to run the business. And running a business while going through grief, going through those changes, is extremely hard. Especially if you're in business and you do your own marketing. Even if you're a CEO, marketing is your responsibility. And especially as a solo business owner, that is a lot.
So now, what do you do with that?
I'm going to give you a few resources.
Number one. I encourage you — I know it's hard, I know it feels like a disaster, but I encourage you not to assign that meaning to it. Look at your divorce as a part of the journey. Catastrophizing is one of the most disruptive psychological mechanisms, and it will affect you very negatively. I know it's easier said than done, but even if it feels hard right now, it will pass. It is not the end of the world.
Number two. Reconsider the pedestal of the relationship. Your identity, your self-worth, doesn't inherently depend on whether you are single or not. It doesn't matter. You are valuable. You are important. You are loved. You are enough just as you are. Whether or not you are divorced, whether or not you just broke up, whether or not another person said something to you that makes you feel this way. It might be the feelings. Feelings are real, and they're yours, but this is not the actual reality.
Number three. Seek professional help. This is what I did. I went to a therapist, to a licensed therapist.
Another addition is hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy can be extremely effective with things like PTSD, or things that look like PTSD, like adjusting after stress — and especially because there are a lot of identity parts that you are going to work through. With hypnotherapy you can access your unconscious beliefs, your unconscious wounds, your unconscious parts, the parts that are not on the surface, and help your unconscious or subconscious mind reconstruct your identity in a positive way. Hypnosis can be an absolutely powerful thing.
And when I say hypnosis, I mean clinical hypnosis, hypnotherapy, done by a professional who knows human psychology. I went to school for it. I have a master's degree in psychology. I worked as a psychologist in Russia. I worked in mental health in organizations as a case manager, youth counselor, and social work professional in the US.
So if you need support with that, I would be more than happy. Look at the description for this video, or go to goodhypnotherapy.org — that's my website, my private practice. Schedule a 15-minute free consultation and see if it is a good fit. I will send you all the forms to fill out; it's super easy. I use SimplePractice for my appointments, so all of your records are confidential, safe, and HIPAA compliant.
Also, hypnotherapy depends on the severity. If it is something really, really extremely debilitating, I would recommend a combination of both hypnotherapy and talk therapy. But also hypnotherapy with a provider who understands your reality, who has experience working with people on that level. In my practice specifically, if I see that my clients will benefit from talk therapy or from a medical professional, that there's a bigger issue, I refer. I'm always about treating the whole person from different approaches, and I am constantly networking with a referral network of amazing professionals. I make sure that when I make a referral, that professional is providing affirming care for gay men specifically, and for the community.
Because therapy in general — EMDR, talk therapy, hypnotherapy — can be absolutely beneficial. But also your community.
Number four. Lean into your community. Healing doesn't happen just in therapy. Healing doesn't happen just in hypnotherapy. Healing doesn't happen only in our virtual sessions, or when you talk to your therapist or to your pastor. Healing happens in community. That component — therapy, community, support system — is important. Lean into your support system. Reach out to your friends. And if you don't have friends, I would encourage you to lean into your community. It's an effort. And this change might be just an invitation for you to explore and extend your community, and find friends, find support, find help.
Should you date after getting a divorce, and how soon should you date? This is something that we're going to talk about in my next episode. Stay tuned, bookmark it, subscribe, stay in touch — because we're just getting started.
Until next time.
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More on this: Hypnotherapy for Gay Men After Divorce or a Long-Term Breakup
