What My Grandmother Taught Me About Love and Loss
My parents divorced when I was one, so I never knew them as a couple. What I did know was my grandmother’s story.
Back in the early 1960s, my grandfather left her for another woman. She was left raising two kids alone, carrying the stigma of divorce along with the betrayal.
When he came back three years later, she took him back. When they hit their “50th” anniversary, she joked it was “fifty years, with time off for bad behavior.”
Her humor, and her belief that love could be repaired, stuck with me my whole life.
Almost twenty-five years later, I faced my own divorce.
When I Couldn’t Save My Marriage
I’d always told people I was sure all romantic love fades. It’s only after the love drugs wear off that you learn what it actually means to love someone.
I believed that, and I still tried everything to save my marriage. It didn’t work.
But I walked away knowing I’d exhausted every effort. That made all the difference in how I was able to move forward without regret.
My Phoenix Process
What came after is what I now call my Phoenix Process, a term I borrowed from Elizabeth Lesser’s Broken Open. The idea is simple and not at all comfortable: nothing changes without loss, and loss is a form of death.
But when you turn toward what’s changing instead of away from it, you let yourself feel it all the way through. Then, you move into something new.
In the five years after my separation, I did more than 1,300 yoga classes, studied Kabbalah, and rock climbed even though I hate heights. I read over a hundred books, started a business, and figured out who I was outside of being a wife, a mother, a daughter.
I hardly recognize the person I used to be. I’m proud of that.
A House Falls Apart the Same Way a Marriage Does
Here’s something nobody tells you: the marital home mirrors the marriage. When a marriage is unraveling, so is the house.
Depression and loneliness make it hard to care for your space the way you once did. Clutter piles up right alongside the grief.
And then, in the middle of all that heartbreak, you’re also expected to sort through years of shared belongings. You have to figure out who keeps what and maybe even get the house market-ready.
All of this happens while your whole life is in freefall.
This is exactly why I started building divorce support into Silver Linings Transitions. Not because anyone needs their boxes packed faster.
Nobody going through a divorce has the bandwidth to also become an expert in staging, packing logistics, and fair division of thirty years of stuff. That’s on top of everything else divorce asks of you.
What This Actually Looks Like
We treat dividing belongings as a four-step process built around one goal: getting through it with as little added pain as possible. Because you’re not really fighting about the stuff.
We help couples sticker only what they truly want and flip a coin when two people claim the same item. When things stall, we bring in a neutral third party, which is almost always faster and less expensive than mediation.
We help families decide on a “historian” for sentimental items like artwork and photo albums, especially when kids are involved. And I always tell parents: let your children help choose what stays in each home.
Giving them some choices when their whole lives are changing matters more than you’d think.
Preparing the House for Sale
If the house needs to sell, staging matters too. And staging a house mid-divorce takes a different kind of care.
You don’t want buyers sensing a stigmatized sale. If one spouse has already moved out, we help stage “his and hers” so the home still shows like a life someone would want.
Support Beyond the Move
I also became a certified divorce coach after going through my own divorce. I frequently hire people who are re-entering the job market during theirs.
We make free introductions to vetted mediators, attorneys, CDFAs, therapists, and Realtors who specialize in divorce. Most of our move services are free when we make that connection.
If you’re still deciding whether to stay or go, I’d point you to Second Saturday. You can hear from a therapist, mediator, attorney, and financial advisor all in one room.
Having real information makes an enormous decision a little less terrifying.
If You’re in It Right Now
If you’re standing in the middle of your own version of this, I want you to hear the thing I needed to hear 10 years ago. This is not the end of your story.
It’s the start of a whole new life where you get to decide who you become on the other side of it.
I’m engaged to a wonderful man who I will marry in March 2027. A person “old” me wouldn’t have dated. (That’s a whole other blog topic.)
That’s the whole Phoenix Process: shedding who you were and rising as someone you’re proud to know.
Just Take the Next Small Step
Perfect is the enemy of done, and that’s never truer than during a divorce. You don’t have to have the house, the boxes, or your heart figured out today.
You just have to take the next small step. And you don’t have to take it alone.
If you’re facing a divorce and need help with the house, the belongings, or a referral to someone who can help with the rest, call us at (760) 522-1624 or email info@silverliningstransitions.com.
— Jami Shapiro, CSA, Silver Linings Transitions