'I thought divorcing my husband was the hard part. I wasn't prepared for what happened after.'

I remember the day clearly.

It was September 21 and my youngest had finished school.

After more than two decades of lunches, bells, terms and timetables, there were no school mornings left.

No uniforms to wash. No bags to pack. No calendar organised around drop-offs and pick-ups. It was a day that I was honestly guilty of wishing for. But when it landed I wasn't ready.

That morning, I made the last school lunch of my life. I'd survived all the firsts but the lasts — they landed differently.

The bread in my hands. The familiar rhythm of it. Muscle memory doing what it had done for years. And then the strange, hollow thought that followed: I won't do this again. They're all adults.

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If you're anything like me, you've made thousands of school lunches. Thousands of mornings opening the cupboard. Reaching for bread. Negotiating crusts. Cutting fruit. Packing snacks you know won't come home.

When you're in it, these moments don't feel significant. They're repetitive. Mundane. Sometimes exhausting. But they quietly anchor your days. They give shape to your mornings. They remind you that someone needs you, in a way that is practical, physical, undeniable.

And if you're a separated parent, those lunches were never just about food. They were part of a much bigger system. A life organised around co-parenting, coordination, communication, compromise. A constant, low-level connection to someone you no longer shared a life with, but were forever linked to through your children.

Co-parenting is its own kind of labour that is often relentless. It requires regulation when you'd rather react. Swallowing things you'd rather say. Showing up again and again because the kids need you to.

And then one day, it stops.

Sometimes it's a slow burn. Messages taper off and the decisions become less frequent. The calendar loosens its grip gradually. Other times it's cold turkey, a hard stop; school finishes, kids turn 18 and overnight, it's done.

Either way, the effect can be jarring.

That September morning, I felt it: something had ended. Just like that, I was no longer actively co-parenting. I thought divorcing my husband was the hard part, but I really wasn't prepared for what came after.

The hard part after divorce.

The first time I really noticed it wasn't a big moment. It was mid-week. I stood in the kitchen at 7am, coffee in hand, and realised there was nowhere I needed to be. No late bell. No drop-off. No one waiting for me to move faster.

For years, my mornings had arrived with urgency before I was fully awake. Now there was just time, wide, quiet, unstructured.

I remember thinking, 'Is this freedom?'

And then, almost immediately, 'Why doesn't it feel like it?'

For years, my nervous system had been organised around parenting and co-parenting, around anticipating, responding, adjusting.

Even after separation, co-parenting often shaped my days. There was always something to manage.

When your children are young, separation is loud. There's grief, conflict, fear, logistics. People check in. You're allowed to struggle. There's a clear story everyone understands: this is hard, and of course it is.

But when your children grow up when they're okay, functioning, building lives of their own, the support fades just as the reckoning begins.

When co-parenting ends.

This is the part we don't talk about. No one prepares separated parents for the moment co-parenting ends. There's no ceremony. No final conversation. No official handover. Communication with your former partner slows or stops.

The shared responsibility that once required constant contact simply dissolves. Even if the relationship was difficult, that ending can still carry weight. For years, so much of your identity has been shaped around us as parents, even if "us" didn't exist in any other way.

And then suddenly, it's gone. At first, I couldn't tell whether this ending meant success or loss. All I knew was that something essential had disappeared, not with drama, but with completion. And there was no script for what came next.

Only later did I understand that this was the outcome I'd worked toward. That this quiet was the point.

That understanding didn't make it easier. It just made it clearer.

Your kids grew up.

The loneliness that surfaces.

There's a particular kind of loneliness that can surface at this stage, one that's hard to explain and easy to dismiss. It isn't the loneliness people expect.

It doesn't announce itself, it shows up quietly, sneaks up on you and taps you on the shoulder. An unwanted guest that doesn't text first to ask if it's okay to "just arrive".

How dare you loneliness.

It shows up in unexpected ways. It leaves you questioning: 'Should I check in? Should I step back?' because the rules have changed and no one tells you what the rules are now.

There were moments I surprised myself.

Moments where I missed being needed more than I missed my marriage. Where the silence felt heavier than the conflict ever did. Where I wondered how something I worked so hard to end could still echo this loudly.

I didn't say that out loud. I wasn't sure I was allowed to think it. This feeling can feel sharper when life after separation unfolds unevenly.

One parent re-partners. The other doesn't. One household fills with new rituals, new people, new noise. The other becomes quieter. You are proud of your children. Deeply. You worked hard for their independence. You wanted this outcome. And yet, you can still grieve the version of yourself that was central.

Needed. Relied upon. Both things can exist at the same time.

The emotional hangover.

This isn't an empty nest story. An empty nest suggests something temporary. Something you can fill with hobbies, dinners and distractions.

This is the emotional hangover of years spent in high-functioning parenting mode. It's the recalibration required when your life is no longer organised around children or co-parenting decisions.

It's the question many parents don't say out loud: Who am I now?

For separated parents, this stage can stir things long buried under responsibility. Space opens up and space can be confronting. Old grief sometimes resurfaces.

The realisation that you've been living in response mode for a very long time. That your needs were postponed, not resolved.

Listen: This episode is all about divorce and separation—when it might be the right choice, what typically leads to it, and how to navigate it in the healthiest way possible.

People might assume you're "through it". That once the kids are grown, everything must be easier now.

But this stage has its own work.

What I wish someone had told me is this: You're allowed to grieve a role you loved even when it ended exactly as it should have. You're allowed to feel disoriented when the thing that structured your days and anchored your sense of purpose disappears. You're allowed to miss being needed in a world that celebrates independence.

This doesn't mean you're stuck. It doesn't mean you've failed to move on. It means you showed up. Fully. For a long time.

There is no urgency here. You don't need to immediately reinvent yourself, date again, or decide who you are now. Sometimes the work is quieter than that. It's noticing what rises when the noise fades.

What you enjoy when your time is your own.

What you've avoided feeling.

What parts of yourself were put on hold.

This chapter isn't about going backwards. It's about re-orientation. About learning how to parent adult children, present, available, but no longer central. And learning how to be a person again, outside of crisis management and constant care.

Now, three years on, I feel it in my body before I name it. Just the awareness that a season of my life, one that required everything I had, is finished.

I prepared my children for adulthood, yet I'm still working out how to prepare myself for what comes after.

And maybe that's the part we need to talk about more: not the leaving, not the surviving, but the moment when the work is done, and you're left standing in the quiet, asking who you are now that no one needs you in the same way.

Feature Image: Canva.