Just how do you mark the occasion?

So my Decree Absolute come through the other day – the end  of 5 years of my life. There should have been fireworks, or trumpets, or at least an exclamation mark. Instead there was a very confusing legal document.

It seems wrong that my marriage started with a bang, and ended with a white envelope. Something had to be done. There had to be some way to mark the occasion. And so I sat down and thought it through. 

And here are the 7 ways I’ve come up with to celebrate your decree absolute. 

1.  Make use of your wedding certificate

Your wedding certificate is now just a very expensive piece of paper that probably has bad memories attached to it. Get rid of it.

• Wrap the certificate around some firelighters and use it too start your next bonfire. Bonus points if the bonfire Guy looks suspiciously like your ex.
• Cover it in silver foil and use it to wrap up christmas presents.
• Use a black marker and redact most of the wedding certificate to create blackout poetry.
• Attack it with a hole punch and turn it into confetti for the next wedding you go to.

2.  Delete your ex’s phone number

This is more fun than you might think. Chances are that you not only have your ex in your phone, but their parents, their friends, and even your ex’s     ex that you both used to hang around with. Get some friends around and some drinks in and go through the phone deleting all the numbers you will never need again. For extra fun make it a drinking game.

• Drink 2 fingers whenever you delete your ex’s friends.
• 3 fingers every time you delete your ex’s relatives.
• 4 fingers every time you delete an ex of your ex
• 5 fingers when you delete your solicitor
• Down your drink glass when you delete your ex themselves

Do try to avoid making any jokes about two fingers however. This meant to be a serious occasion after all.

3.  Buy something your ex would hate.

This might take a bit of thinking. Chances are you’ve forgotten the things you did before you shacked up with. However there will be at least one thing that drove your ex crazy. My ex used to hate it whenever I fried anything. So the first thing I did when I moved out was buy a massive frying pan and treat myself to a full english.

4.  Throw a party

Ok, you may not feel like a party, but now the divorce is over you probably have a some free cash again. Get in a cake, invite a few friends round and spend the evening listening to your music collection. Pay special attention to the songs your ex hated. This is a great time to play the ‘delating my ex’ drinking game in tip 2 and you might even find the wedding certificate confetti useful.

5.  Sell your wedding ring

You don’t need it anymore. Really you don’t. Sure you might have happy memories of your wedding still but you’re never gonna wear that thing again. 3 words: Cash 4 Gold! it will help pay for that party.

6.  Write a song about the break-up and get rich

When Eamon broke up with his girlfriend he wrote a song about it and got rich. When Adele split with her boyfriend she wrote a whole album and became one of the biggest stars of all time. Take your anger and pain and turn it into something creative. If you’re not musical then write poetry, perform a puppetry show or do an interpretive dance. You might just become a millionaire…

7.  Shake it off and move on

In all seriousness you probably don’t feel like celebrating your divorce. It’s not so much a happy time, as a time of relief, disappointment, confusion and a whole other range of emotions. It’s important to recognise these emotions even if you just spend a few moments to sit and think about all the good times you and your partner had together.

Then, stand up, take a deep breath and move on. There is life out there for you still, whether that means a new hobby, a new career or even a new marriage. Get out there, leave your mistakes in the past, and experience the rest of your life.

Got any more good suggestions?  Let us know!

No attribution needed.