The following (and link below) is an adapted extract from Dawn Dais' new books, The S*** No One Tells You About Divorce, which is out now.

In 2020, after 12 years together—as well as two children, 10 pets, and five properties—my partner and I decided to call it quits. One of the first therapists I spoke to post-divorce said that the end of a marriage was a death of sorts, and I was going to go through the five stages of grief as a result: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Now that I have made my way through my divorce, it seems to me that grief might be too classy of a metaphor for the process. Grief elicits imagery of a gentle soul writing emotive poetry in the morning mist. Divorce, on the other hand, left me feeling like a contestant on Wipeout: completely battered, generally off balance, and surrounded by utter chaos.

With a little bit of distance from my chaos, I can see that my therapist had been right about there being stages of divorce, but she was a bit off with her warnings about what was coming my way. I can see seven stages in my rear-view mirror, not five, and I think it's worth warning other people about what their divorce obstacle course may look like.

CLICK HERE to read more.