5 books that helped me deal with separation and divorce

I've been separated since Christmas 2007 and divorced since Christmas 2009.  I have 3 teenage children, one of whom was still in primary school when we separated.

My marriage had been nearly 20 years and had never been blissful, disintegrating into downright miserable by about Easter 2007, which is when we made the decision to separate.

Although my marriage was miserable and I knew even then that separating was going to be the best thing I had done in a very long time, still I found myself doubting, questioning and wondering.  Mostly about myself.  My self esteem took a bit of a battering and I was left feeling that everything that had gone wrong in the marriage over so many years was somehow my fault.

Of course this is not true and I can see that very clearly now from the distance of 3 or so years.  However, it has not been easy getting to this point and I certainly needed help along the way.

Fortunately I am a great reader and found many 'self help' books along the way that gave me support and encouragement and forced me to re-think many of the ideas and unhelpful thoughts that had plagued me for so many years.  Of course, I also found many self help books that were utter rubbish.  The point of this post is not to name and shame the rubbish books, but to point out 5 books that were REALLY useful and helpful.

1. The universal heart by Stephanie Dowrick : This book has been read by me so many times. It has pencil marks, turned down corners, annotations and plenty of instances of 'YES!' written in the margins. It's a truly beautiful book, subtitled 'bring out the best in yourself and all your relationships' - this includes forgiving those who have hurt you (not in a religious sense although she is happy for you to take that path if you wish) and importantly, forgive yourself. You can't move on, love others and be a useful member of your family and wider community if you don't love yourself. This is the fundamental message of this 400+ page book. Don't be put off by the number of pages, it is eminently readable.

2. Too good to leave, too bad to stay by Mira Kirshenbaum : I originally bought this book in the 'oh what are we going to do' phase of the separation decision but quickly started using it as a resource to in fact support and back up the decision as the right one for me. I've read it all the way through but couldn't get past Point 1 "If it was never very good in the first place then staying to fix it up is possibly not worth your while" (I'm paraphrasing). Lots of good examples of other couples going through the same decision making process.

3. How to survive the loss of a love by Melba Colgrove, Harold Bloomfield & Peter McWilliams : Beautiful, poetry based book that distills complex messages into a few short words and ideas. Food for the soul indeed.

4. Happily ever parted: surviving separation and divorce by Bronwyn Marquardt : Really, the title says it all. This is an Australian publication from 2006 and I couldn't find it on Amazon US, so you may have to scratch around on some Australian bookselling sites such as Fishpond to find it. Sensible, practical advice in the 'what do I do next?' vein.

5. Intimacy & solitude: balancing closeness and independence by Stephanie Dowrick : if your 'failed' relationship was even remotely co-dependent as was mine, then this book is great for the next step - 'how do I avoid doing that again?'. Steph Dowrick is a favourite Australian self help author, I have several other of her books.