The Divorce Chapter
This podcast is for you if you have found yourself unexpectedly single and absolutely shitting it.
The Divorce Chapter is all about writing the next bit of your story and remembering, this is just one chapter… it’s not the end or miserable ever after.
I am Sarah Elizabeth, and I am a divorce coach and mentor and founder of The BLOSSOM Method®, passionate about supporting and empowering women to create a much happier life post divorce. Each episode is your inspiration to explore your emotional, psychological and practical needs outside of the legal process.
I’ll be sharing stories, tips, learning and ALL the things every Friday, to help you make this chapter the best goddamn one yet and turn the divorce plot twist into a happy ending.
The Divorce Chapter
30. Can there be any humour in heartbreak? The role of laughter in divorce and healing
Have you heard the one about the cat who got divorced? He was a cheetah… get it?
Maybe it's too soon to laugh, but could there be a role for humour in divorce?
I know that divorce is no joke, especially when it involves betrayal and abuse. But amidst the bitterness and anger, is there a point where we need to learn to laugh again?
Humour, especially dark humour, has a psychological benefit. Gallows humour, born from dire situations, allows us to find the funny even in the darkest times.
Professions dealing with trauma often use humour as a coping mechanism. Theories like superiority and relief suggest that humour empowers us and helps vent stored trauma.
While humour shouldn't mask our true feelings, it can be a valuable coping mechanism. Laughing at the absurdities of divorce can reduce stress and promote healing.
As time passes, finding humour in the situation can be part of the healing process. Laughing at our ex's quirks can help remove them from the pedestal we put them on.
So this week, I ‘try’ to give you some divorce jokes and funny quotes from famous personalities that highlight the absurdities of divorce and can bring a smile to our faces.
Ultimately, humour can really help us navigate the complexities of divorce and move forward with resilience and strength.
So, let's embrace the laughter and turn pain into punchlines.
Because in the end, we deserve to smile and be happy, no matter what.
Sending you so much love (and laughter)
Sarah x
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Have you heard the one about the cat who got divorced? He was a cheetah. Get it? Okay, maybe you feel it's a bit too soon to laugh. Okay. But maybe the question we should ask is could, could there be a role for humour in divorce?
No, divorce is not a joke. I get it. It's really not fucking funny at any level when your man that you love and who you committed your fucking life to fucks you over and dumps you like you're the leftovers from Saturday night's takeaway. It's no laughing matter when they've abused you and now are taking it to new lengths fighting over money or kids or some other fallout because they've lost the freaking control. No, that is not funny at all. I know. But, and just hear me out, is there still a place at some point where we just need to learn to laugh again? It might be too soon to find humour in our divorce situation and I totally get that. But I just wanted today to shed some light on humour and it's possible, role in relieving some pressure in what are otherwise harrowing situations.
Because when we're feeling bitter and angry, you know, yep, when we're in that stage of divorce grief, sometimes, just sometimes, using humour or sarcasm can be another way to vent it rather than taking it out in other ways, especially if that means not taking that anger out on another person. Even if it is the ex who totally deserves it, there might just be another option.
And there's no need to feel bad about it either because humour, especially dark humour,
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actually has a psychological benefit for us. This dark or black humour can also be known as gallows humour, so -called because when people were going to the gallows to be hanged, they'd make jokes about the situation. You know, or like soldiers in a war stuck in the trenches, never knowing if today might be the day they die. They choose gallows humour too. It's like a...dark ironic type of humour and finding the funny in a dire dire situation, you know it's not your knock knock type of joke not that type of humour it's the borderline inappropriate humour when things have turned to complete and utter shit because it's often in these types of situations where every single goddamn thing has been ripped away from you when there's nothing left to laugh at
when there's next to nothing left. It's kind of all you can do is laugh. Almost like you've reached rock bottom. The things that used to be serious, suddenly they don't seem quite so serious anymore because you're at the bottom. So them old things can now take on an amusing, if dark, humorous slant sometimes.
Now I'd first heard of Gallows humour in social work. I suppose because of the very nature of the work, there is a pretty high risk of vicarious trauma or secondary trauma where the risk is that professionals experience indirect trauma as a consequence of working with constant trauma and other similar professions too, like nursing and policing. It's dealing with so much shit every day, day in, day out.
So humour can be a way of coping with the overwhelm of such horrendous situations.
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looking up theories of humour for research in this episode and apparently there are a couple of theories which kind of for me serve to try and explain Gallows humour a bit. So one is superiority theory where if we laugh at something awful it's actually a way of taking our power back over it like taking a control of a situation like divorce where we feel totally out of control.
It gives us a bit of the power back over it. Another is called relief theory, which is kind of where the subject is so traumatic to us that we use humour to vent it out, which, you know, we know that stored trauma in the body leads to all sorts of health issues. So is it another way to vent?
Ultimately I guess it's about the very fact that it's a coping mechanism, because whether consciously or not divorce has such a huge impact on us that at a psychological level, humour can almost be a protective factor to help us through the dark times. I remember in the early days of my divorce, one of my besties, well, she's, well, let's just say we'd always use dark humour for all sorts of things.
She was the first to make me laugh again. I mean, I'm not going to lie. It was a while before my first proper belly laugh, but it probably was a bit superficial at first. It did make me smile when nothing else was making me smile. I suppose where it can have a more negative effect is that it can become a mask for what we're really feeling and can consequently mean we don't always process it as we should. And you know, we can't.
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become too dependent on the thing that was initially supposed to just help us cope. But by and large, humour is a bloody good coping mechanism. And these studies show us that an ability to laugh at the shitty times can really reduce the negative emotions surrounding a stressful event like divorce and also create the positive feelings that we associate with humour.
You know, there's like physiological benefits like slower heart rate and lower blood pressure because it replaces the, you know, the stress hormone cortisol. It replaces that with like the happy endorphins, the smiley hormones. And research has also shown that people who use dark humour are often seen as more intelligent and more trustworthy, which I like.
You know, of course there is a time and a place for dark humour as it can be a bit inappropriate, but overall laughing at your divorce can help you cope. It can make the situation feel less threatening or less like the end of the world. And also, you know, when you can start to laugh at some of the sh**
stupid shit that your ex used to do or might even still be doing it's actually really good for the healing process because it's taking him off the goddamn pedestal you've probably had him on since the split you know you suddenly forgot his snoring and his inability to piss in the toilet without spraying and then leaving the bloody loo seat up you've forgotten his nasty comments at the end too
The split has somehow elevated him to some sort of god -like status because we're so devastated in those early days and often want him back. So at the start, we don't want to take the piss out of him or the situation. You know, it's like when someone dies, right? Nobody wants to say anything bad about them or remember their faults or anything because it's not the done thing. Especially at a funeral apparently.
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May or may not have done that one. But once the bereaved starts to heal, then some of the funny old shit comes back out again. You know, there's some distance, I suppose, from the initial grief that opens up the way for a bit of a giggle. And it's the same after divorce. Once we can start to laugh at some of the exes' bullshit,
It's part healing, right? With time and perspective, I mean, it can be comic timing, as they say, and it builds some strength and resilience for moving forward. And ultimately resilience in the face of poxy heartbreak is what we're kind of aiming for in our quest to start a new happily ever after. So.
Let's try and find a happy part of it with some smiles and giggles, maybe even a full on belly laugh, you know? There's a comedian called Hal Cruttenden who has actually written a whole stand up show on his divorce. And I saw him, pure coincidence, I actually saw him at a comedy club in London last summer. And a lot of his gags were now about midlife dating. But he said he had this quote.
And I quite liked it because it said, the best and most powerful jokes come from the saddest things in life. We have an instinct that when things go bad in our lives, we need to find the ridiculous. It's why we laugh at wakes and funerals. So maybe it's not just me then. That's good to know. So I thought for the rest of the episode, now we've cleared up that some humour after divorce is a good thing and can help us heal. And there's research to back it up.
Thought I'd find some divorce jokes for you and I had to look them up because I never Remember jokes. I'm shit. I don't know why I find it so hard. I went to see Jimmy Carr at a pre tour show type thing literally a couple of weeks ago And I can't remember any of them. I can't remember any of them. I do remember though that they were seriously over the line of dark humour But I can't remember them
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So these divorce ones today are probably some lesser dark humour, you know, more knock knock style variety, because you know, the audience and I don't want to get canceled or anything. Maybe grey humour for us so -called grey divorcees, eh? So I've got all these written down, bear with, not great telling jokes actually. I don't know why I've started this episode, but you know, bear with, bear with. So, fridge magnets.
are always a good starting point for divorce humour. There’s some great fridge magnets. So I saw a couple on Etsy. Like, there were two sides to every divorce, yours and shitheads. Or, I would wish you the best, but you already had me. Or the classic, I divorced my husband over religious reasons. He thought he was God. So yeah.
my little laughing thing here that I can play.
you know, to help us along. So I looked up some funny divorce quotes too from famous people. So ZsaZsa Gabor said, he taught me housekeeping. When I divorce, I keep the house. Good on you Zsazsa. Woody Allen said, the only time my wife and I had a simultaneous orgasm was when the judge signed the divorce papers. Although he said some other shitty things as well. I didn't really like Woody Allen, but anyway, there we go.
Mary Kay Blakely, Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple bypass, triple coronary bypass. After such a monumental assault on the heart, it takes years to amend all the habits and attitudes that led up to it. JB Handelsman said, just another one of our many disagreements. He wants a no -fault divorce, whereas I would prefer to have the bastard crucified.
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Jimmy Fallon said, a 99 year old man is filing for divorce from his 96 year old wife, making them the world's oldest divorced couple. It's gotta be weird when a divorce lawyer is fighting for your kids to get custody of you. Wendy Liebman said, my mother always said, don't marry for money. Divorce for money, yes Wendy. Helen Mowland, love is the quest. Marriage is the conquest. Divorce is the inquest. And Bette Davis said, I'd marry again if I found a man who had $15 million and would sign over half of it to me before the marriage and guarantee he'd be dead in a year. I like that, Bette, me too.
So then some other jokes I found. Why is divorce like an algebraic equation?
because it involves X taking everything you own and Y living without any explanation. Have you heard of the new divorced Barbie doll? She comes with all her Ken stuff.
and steals your man. There is no better revenge than to let her keep him.
Why is divorce so expensive? Because it's worth it.
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What's the difference between getting a divorce and getting circumcised? When you get divorced you get rid of the whole prick. What happens if you miss your ex -husband? Take a better aim. Have you heard about the divorce diet? After signing on the dotted line you lose 200 pounds of dead weight.
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What should you do if you see your ex -husband rolling around in pain on the ground? Shoot him again!
Yeah, my husband and I just split up. I finally faced the fact that we're incompatible. I'm a Leo and he's an arsehole. For Sale, wedding dress, size 12, worn once by mistake.
I've got no problem admitting when I'm wrong. Like that one time I got married.
My ex had one very annoying habit. Breathing.
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Don’t cry because it's over. Smile because that asshole is now someone else's problem.
Better to have loved and lost than live with a wanker for the rest of your life.
Have you ever looked at your ex and questioned if you were drunk for the entire relationship.
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Oh, you're dating my ex? Cool, I'm eating a sandwich. Do you want those leftovers, no?
divorce is like an amputation you survive it but there's less of you
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You can't fix stupid, but you can divorce it. Divorce is just like a penis. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down, but it won't be hard forever.
My aunt got a divorce and I asked her how she felt. She said, I thought I had anxiety disorder, but it turns out it was your uncle.
I thought I'd found my knight in shining armor. Turns out he was an arsehole wrapped in tin foil.
Marriage is like a deck of cards. In the beginning, all you need is two hearts and a diamond. By the end, you wish you had a club and a spade.
Marriage is like pancakes there's no shame in chucking out the first one
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And the last one for me today. I've got a sense of humour. Just look at my ex.
sums up a bit of divorce humour and hopefully made you giggle a bit. I'm sorry I'm not very good at telling jokes but you know a little bit of a giggle. The best advice I can give to the newly divorced ones amongst us is to get giggling. Go to comedy clubs, watch some funny movies, find some stand -up shit on Netflix. That's always good. A bit of Michael McIntyre on Netflix. Just generally find the funny in your life.
I saw somewhere written when I was Googling divorce humour and it said, there is life after divorce and you control whether you're upbeat and joyful or if you're still hiding behind a pint of ice cream with a roll of toilet paper because you ran out of Kleenex. I love that. It's so true. We get to decide how we create our next chapter. We get to choose what we think, be and do. So why not make it filled with positive energy and really elevate.
our healing to the next level with a life.
this is about us and our healing right? so I'd love for you to share some divorce jokes and divorce humour with me I won't remember them and I'm shit at telling them but share them anyway tag me on the socials if you've got any good ones at the divorce chapter as always and if you do enjoy a bit of dark humour Chloe underscore Kent on Instagram is worth a follow for her quite ironic take on some shit it's quite amusing so here's to turning heartbreak into humour, right? I hope this week I've managed to make you smile at least a little bit, because you deserve to smile and be happy no matter what. You really do. So one more little laugh to take us out.
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Sometimes laughing at laughing is quite funny, isn't it? Anyway, thank you as always for listening. I know it was a bit of a weird one this week, but I just wanted to bring some light to the situation, because I'm really conscious that sometimes some of these podcast episodes can get a bit deep, they can get a bit heavy, and sometimes we just need a bit of light relief. So this week, I just wanted to give you a bit of light relief and remind you to find the funny again, because you deserve it.
Thank you as always for listening. I truly, truly appreciate it more than you will ever know. I will be back in your beautiful earbuds again next week. So until then, I'm sending you so much love and laughter from me.
