In my years as a divorce recovery coach for women over 50, and as a survivor of divorce myself, I have seen that every single confident divorced woman over 50 possesses four common traits.
It doesn’t matter her professional background, or where she lives, or the circumstances leading to her divorce. What determines if she gets unstuck and breaks out of the hidden narratives she’s operating from are possessing four crucial traits.
She Doesn’t Play the Victim
It’s understandable to feel like you’ve been wronged after divorce at 50. And you’re allowed to grieve and work through the mistreatment and disrespect that you endured.
Taking charge of your healing is powerful. Knowing you deserve better and working to heal is what is going to build your confidence. But here’s the difference between a confident divorced woman who’s able to move on and one who stays stuck for years, not being able to move on past the divorce at 50 and beyond.
The confident divorced woman acknowledges that pain, gets help with it, but knows that the mistreatment doesn’t define her. She owns her destiny and actively makes the moves to pursue her interests, passions, and the things that productively serve her so she can rock the next chapter of her life.
She knows that she is capable and worthy of moving on from that past pain, and gets the help she needs if she gets stuck.
Confident divorced women over 50 don’t waste their emotional energy thinking about the people who wronged them. They’re too busy focusing on their own amazing lives.
She Is Self-Aware
A confident divorced woman over 50 knows her triggers, her quirks, her turn-ons, her non-negotiables, her standards, her boundaries, and her interests.
She also knows her strengths and her weaknesses and can also acknowledge when she fell short.
She knows her worth, knows when to use her voice, but also has the intellectual humility to know she doesn’t know it all, but is always open to try new things.
Confident divorced women know what they want out of life but are also okay with coming up with a Plan B when things don’t go as expected.
Is knowing all of these things easy?
Heck no. But confident divorced women over 50 have the faith in themselves to do the work to overcome the BS narratives that are keeping them stuck.
That self-awareness, and being open to questioning those ideas that no longer serve them, and rewiring their DNA for something more empowering, is what sets them apart from the divorced women who feel stuck, unable to move on even years after their divorce.
She Lets Go of People-Pleasing
Many women were raised with trash narratives that went along the lines of “being ladylike” and “being a good girl” and not stepping on toes.
From a young age, many of us were conditioned to believe that the only way we would be accepted in life was if we made our parents happy, if we took care of our younger siblings, and if we got perfect grades to please the teachers.
As if those burdens weren’t enough, when we got older, the people pleasing came in the form of always dressing sharp but not too sexy, wearing makeup to look “nice,” but not too flashy, finding a man but not marrying “too old to have kids,” staying home to raise the kids but also having your own career, and the list goes on and on.
A confident divorced woman went through all of those contradictions. She didn’t have any special advantages over women who are still struggling.
But the one factor that let her move on was the fact that she said, “to hell with this.”
A confident divorced woman no longer cares what people think about her.
She has become so grounded in herself and her own worth that she is no longer trying to win the acceptance and validation of others.
When a divorced woman over 50 turns her attention to herself, what makes her happy, what makes her feel fulfilled, she feels better. She starts living life on her own terms.
She Invests in Herself (Without Feeling Guilty)
A confident divorced woman over 50 knows she’s worth it. She invests in herself to feed her passion and interests.
Whether it’s signing for a French class because she loved learning it in high school but then life got in the way. Or hiring a private piano tutor because she loved playing when she was little. She knows that people in her life may be catty and say, “gee, must be nice to afford that,” but she ignores them. She doesn’t owe them any explanation.
But she also invests in the things that will make her stronger, more resilient, and help her heal faster.
She’ll hire the coach. And the therapist.
She may feel overwhelmed and a little intimidated at taking the plunge to invest in herself.
But she has faith that her investment will pay off. And she’s not afraid to work her tail off to make sure she gets the return on her investment.
She knows that her past does not define her. That the commitment she makes to herself in the present will get her unstuck. And that her future is going to be one of fulfillment, fearlessness, and fun because she put the work in to get it.
Are you a confident divorced woman over 50? What are your secrets to feeling your best? Or are you feeling stuck in your post-divorce state? What stumbling blocks prevent you from believing in yourself?
