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'The New Single': After divorce, find yourself

In an upcoming book, a New York news anchor writes about how she rebounded from divorce.

April 22, 2015 at 5:18PM

Tamsen Fadal’s book, “The New Single,” tackles topics such as unplugging from technology, decluttering, taking stock of friendships, cooking healthfully, managing finances and careers, and falling head over heels for yourself. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

When Tamsen Fadal was divorced in 2012, she felt that she'd hit rock bottom.

From the outside looking in, the Emmy Award-winning news anchor in New York City appeared to be on top of the world. Behind the scenes, though, she was a mess.

"I had really lost myself in the divorce," Fadal said. "I felt like I had lost my confidence. I felt broken; I felt like a failure, financially broken. I wasn't sure who I was."

Then Fadal, 44, responded to an event invitation and received an abrasive text from the person who extended the invite: "Just one?" She recalls thinking at the time, "Yeah, 'Just one!' And that's OK."

That's the back story of her upcoming new book, "The New Single: Finding, Fixing and Falling Back in Love With Yourself After a Break-up or Divorce" (St. Martin's Griffin, due out June 2).

It tackles topics such as unplugging from technology, decluttering, taking stock of friendships, cooking healthfully, managing finances and careers, and falling head over heels for yourself.

About the only thing she doesn't offer is dating advice. The recently divorced need "to figure out how to get back to center first, because if you don't get back to center, you're going to make the same mistakes," she said.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 50.2 percent of Americans are single. Fadal proclaims to the new single, "It's going to be OK! Every once in a while I go, 'Oh, yeah, I already was married.' I hear myself say it in a lower voice, and I get mad at myself. We didn't do anything wrong; it didn't work out. It's not shameful anymore to be divorced."

Marti Noxon, creator and executive producer of Bravo's "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce," said there's awareness around people relating to her show. "Almost everybody is touched by divorce. If it's not their own life, it's their mother or their father or their sister."

Pointing out how volatile and emotional divorces can become, Noxon wanted to make the scripted show optimistic, too. In one episode, Abby, the main character played by Lisa Edelstein, runs into somebody whose marriage is falling apart. "Abby says to him, 'Everybody deserves to be loved.' Everybody deserves some kind of love and affection in their life. … If it's not about love with another person, it might just be about loving yourself," Noxon said.

For Fadal, that self-love journey included leaning on close friends, practicing self-care with yoga and nutrition and relying on herself for basic daily tasks. "There were mornings where I would write my to-do list: Get out of bed, walk the dog, get dressed, go to work."

Alone time

Then she started reserving Friday nights to decompress with her Chihuahua, Matsen, and having a pizza. "I would look forward to it," Fadal said. "That was my time to just be OK with myself."

Fadal recommends alone time before dating again. Toxic patterns typically repeat, she warns, and "that's why you find the divorce rate for the second time you get married up to 60 percent; you haven't figured out who you are first."

Clinical psychologist and relationship coach Kristin M. Davin agrees. When you don't take the necessary timeout, she said, you may feel you're "on the relationship merry-go-round."

Davin suggests carving time and space to gain clarity. "We must reconnect and reboot before we jump back into a relationship," she said. "If we don't, we'll find ourselves in the same situation."

After her divorce five years ago, Noxon entered a relationship. "The whole time I was like, 'I'm cheating. I'm not [going through] the part where I mourn what I lost and face the fear of being alone,' " she said.

After that relationship ended, she took a year hiatus from dating and said she felt like an adolescent again. "All of a sudden I was taking midnight walks!" For the first time in her life, at 50, she was "just dating."

"I'm realizing it takes a little more time to get to know somebody. I've never done that before," Noxon said. "I was so afraid I would wind up alone. Now that's not my primary fear. I know I've survived that."

Change environment

Davin said many women might find introspection challenging and painful, but it's necessary for forward movement. Fadal learned as much by rekindling her passion for travel, an interest that remained dormant during her marriage. By taking trips on her own, she said, she discovered that "I can do it alone, and that's OK."

For those on a limited budget, Fadal suggests a quick fix: Change your environment. After tossing a big, brown wooden bed "that wasn't me, and something I had shared with somebody else," she redecorated her bedroom from mahogany brown to white and now sleeps in a queen-size bed "that I feel like I fit in. It's mine! I needed to do small things, take small steps. And that was the way I healed myself."

Healing, Davin said, is critical to rediscovering oneself. Grieving is required "in our own way and in our own time, so that we come out on the other side stronger, empowered, smarter and centered."

While Fadal says she is still "a work in progress" and "absolutely believes in love," she aims to rally women to power through the other side, too.

"The ending was a new beginning of the person who I was supposed to be," Fadal said. "Happily single comes before ever after."

Tamsen Fadal’s book, “The New Single.” (The Minnesota Star Tribune)