Life after divorce - watch out there's a brand new syndrome about

Failed Potential Syndrome
It's called Failed Potential Syndrome or FPS.  Soon there will be a counseller near you offering therapies tailor made to combat the ravages of dread condition.  It is already the talk of the dinner party and the coffee shop across the land from Newquay to Newcastle.

The condition is best described as a persistent feeling of envy of your peers, it's more than jealousy; in fact it's jealousy with a large dollop of fear and resentment.  As a divorced person you are vulnerable to attack from this scourge.  If there is one thing that divorce most often leaves in its wake it is a sense of failure.  Something went wrong; something must have failed to cause the relationship to collapse.

Beware the sense of failure
This sense of failure is natural and understandable.  If it spreads to the other areas of your life and contaminates those with a sense of missed achievement then you will experience the full horror of FPS.  Just because your marriage went wrong it does not mean you are crap at everything else.

FTP becomes really corrosive when feel you that your friends and work colleagues are doing better than you.  Their job promotions and accomplishments rile you especially if they don't match up with your judgements about that person.  "She never did much at university and now she's running the department"..It makes you question your judgement of her and of yourself.

Social media is good but often spreads FPS
Social media has created the toxic soup in which FPS can flourish, now friends and colleagues can splatter their wedding anniversaries, job promotions and happy snaps from the snowy slopes of Aspen all over Facebook for everyone to see

"Why are these good things happening to them and not to me?"  Why is it that some people, given the same start in life, are more successful than others?  Is it that they have more talent?  Or do they want it more?  Or is it just luck?  Who knows?

Reject FPS and grab the oppotunities of life after divorce
These thoughts are counterproductive.  If you are feeling very, or even, just slightly devastated by your divorce then a mild attack of FPS can turn into a serious one.  Life after divorce can be a time of great vulnerability; it can also be a time of great promise and opportunity.  Grab those possibilities because having a failed marriage does not mean you have to have a failed life.