Divorced Men and Their Self Esteem

Divorce men suffer from a variety of problems after their marital breakdown. We often hear about the issues of finance and fatherhood which are very important but less talked about is the serious problem men have with self esteem, self worth and their image of themselves as men and members of society.

Men after divorce end up with a huge hit in self esteem as their wife, their lover, the one they thought they would be with forever rejects them. While everyone suffers this in a break up, men in our society tend to identify very heavily with being a husband. The old role as protector and breadwinner might be fading but in most of our minds it is still a strong part of our identity.

When a person's identity is rocked to its core we do not know who we are anymore. What we used to bolster our sense of self worth has no foundations anymore and crashes. This leads to a multitude of problems such as anger, depression, and also destructive activities designed to boost the self esteem short term to make a man feel good again for at least a moment.

The biggest problem for divorced men is that the old ways of feeling good about themselves and feeling full of worth will not work because they were largely tied to their identity as a married man. It takes a huge effort to now reinvent oneself and to find a core of self worth that cannot be shaken by any outside forces.