Near 2 million folks divorce every year within the U.S., and one in three folks who’ve been married have skilled a divorce. Divorce could be heartbreaking, financially tough and exhausting, however it may well additionally include the motivation to reinvent your self, each personally and professionally.
Oona Metz, a Boston-based psychotherapist with 30 years of expertise serving to ladies navigate divorce, is the writer of the ebook Unhitched: The Important Divorce Information for Girls publishing in 2026. She shares that girls are utilizing the pivotal private resolution to break up as a launching level to upskill, change careers or begin purpose-driven companies, as an evolution of their identities.
Some folks search deeper which means, whereas others understand they only need to have some enjoyable. For instance, Kristina Rajzer, based mostly in Slovenia, posted lately on LinkedIn about how her personal divorce stripped down her life as a strategist and as a substitute, she discovered a brand new ardour—“I did the one factor that felt alive. I purchased a DJ set.”
Whether or not your new private reinvention interprets to a full profession trajectory pivot or whether or not you merely develop a brand new work-adjacent passion, divorce could be the inciting incident that pushes you towards the profession you’ve been dreaming of.
Utilizing emotional reinvigoration to go to your goals
For some, divorce pushes them to move out on their very own, whether or not it’s to turn out to be a marketing consultant, contractor or freelancer or to construct their very own enterprise. “I used to be head of name advertising and marketing at The Knot after I was going by way of my divorce,” says Amanda Goetz, writer of Poisonous Grit: Find out how to Have It All and (Truly) Love What You Have. “Publish-divorce I constructed and bought a VC-backed client packaged items enterprise, wrote a ebook and constructed a portfolio profession earlier than taking a brand new CMO place,” displaying that not all profession pivots after divorce transfer you into a completely completely different discipline, however slightly some push you to perform your particular person goals.
“There’s a ‘phoenix rising out of the ashes’ emotional bump that you simply get if you come out of the emotional fog of divorce,” Goetz provides. “I additionally was capable of absolutely give attention to my profession when my ex had the children as a result of he now needed to take up the cognitive load of elevating them.”
Like Goetz, Metz shares that most of the shoppers she’s labored with discover themselves these profession adjustments towards the top of the divorce course of. It is a combine of economic uncertainty and the emotional expenditure it takes to truly get divorced. “So loads of occasions folks have to attend until the mud settles,” she says.
Clearing out toxicity throughout profession reinvention for girls after divorce
Metz sees not solely ladies reinventing themselves, but additionally “renegotiating boundaries” of their lives and relationships. “Not solely the connection with their partner, but additionally their relationship with different folks—I’ve seen folks determine to go away an abusive or crucial partner, after which they form of understand ‘Oh, my boss is like that too. I’m additionally going to go away my boss.’ They understand there’s a lot aid in leaving an abusive marriage that they [ask] what different relationships they’re going to filter of now too.”
Metz has particularly seen an increase of people that need to transfer into serving to roles, akin to changing into therapists themselves and even teaching others by way of divorce. For instance, after her personal divorce, Olivia Howell, CEO of Recent Begins Divorce Registry, established a community of vetted, useful sources, which incorporates Metz, for these going by way of divorce. Doing so enabled her to construct a brand new profession for herself.
Altering work obligations to accommodate emotional turmoil
It may be virtually unattainable to keep up work obligations in the course of the hardest days of divorce. It’s a wrestle Chedva Ludmir, CEO and founder at Think about Labs in Tel Aviv, is aware of properly. She says as somebody who’s part of an “extremely orthodox” spiritual neighborhood, she was primarily excommunicated when she bought divorced.
“I didn’t anticipate this taking place to this extent, and as somebody who considers herself fairly resilient, I additionally didn’t count on how a lot this might have an effect on my work. Not solely did I discover it arduous to steer the company within the path I already plotted and strategized, I additionally discovered it subsequent to unattainable to give attention to strategic work,” she says. “Even after I ultimately did, my confidence was so shattered that I couldn’t pitch myself or the company to new shoppers and even turned down alternatives that arrived at my door, referring them to colleagues as a result of it was arduous for me to see myself as an skilled, regardless of a few years of expertise and confirmed success.”
She needed to postpone the following season of her podcast, for instance, as a result of she couldn’t image speaking to an viewers whereas going by way of that. As a substitute, her profession modified in that she “centered on very execution-oriented, tactical initiatives” for a time.
She calls her work life earlier than her reinvention a “very scary” time. She ultimately took time without work to work on a ebook and in addition birthed a brand new enterprise known as Think about Labs.
“For the primary time in my life, as somebody whose work has all the time been inherent to my sense of self, I misplaced curiosity in work—and on the time after I most wanted to make a residing.… Throughout that point, I did loads of work reminding myself that my identification is greater than my profession and in addition greater than that point in my life.”
She’s not alone—analysis discovered that just about 44% of individuals getting divorced reported a unfavorable influence of the expertise on their work. However the influence isn’t everlasting. The analysis additionally confirmed that work engagement and efficiency enhance a yr after the divorce.
Monetary independence after divorce
Whereas generally folks reinvent themselves out of a drive to pursue a ardour, others are merely making an attempt to make more cash at a time when monetary stability is high of thoughts. Metz says she’s seen a number of ladies who’ve been making an attempt to determine find out how to make cash after being stay-at-home mothers previous to their divorces as a result of “ladies do lose financially throughout divorce.”
Whereas a few of them head again to high school, Metz hopes ladies will think about the price of making a profession change, as generally extra education means a number of years with little to no revenue. “It’s important to actually be life like about how a lot it’s going to price you,” she says. “Do you want to return to high school so as to obtain this or do you want to begin on the backside of the pile and work your means up in a brand new profession? That may price cash.” She notes that self-employment can include its personal prices that individuals ought to think about too.
A profitable life after divorce
Whereas it may appear a frightening highway forward, constructing a brand new profession path throughout or after divorce will not be as arduous as you assume.
Ludmir says, “I’ve gone by way of a number of profession pivots and reinventions previous to this one, however this one was the best and essentially the most embodied of all of them as a result of I didn’t have the added stress from a partner who doesn’t get what I do professionally. Additionally the arduous profession choices appeared a lot simpler as compared, and I’ve risen from the divorce somebody who trusts herself extra implicitly—making it simpler to discover this reinvention.”
Photograph by Moon Safari/Shutterstock
