Staying functional through it
Sleep, food, training, work. What to drop, what to keep, and the minimum you need to not implode in the first 90 days.
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§ Journey
Sleep, food, training, work. What to drop, what to keep, and the minimum you need to not implode in the first 90 days.
Six weeks in, I caught sight of myself in a shop window in the city. I'd lost five kilos without trying, my shirt was hanging off me, I hadn't shaved properly in nine days, and I was carrying a sandwich I couldn't remember buying. I looked exactly like a man whose marriage had just ended. Which I was. But I also looked like a man who was about to lose his job and his health to the same event. Which I wasn't going to.
That window was the moment I realised: the separation will not kill me. The way I respond to it might.
This module is the bare minimum you need to do, every week, to come out the other side functional. Not optimised. Not winning. Functional.
In a normal life, you maintain about thirty things at once. Work, relationships, fitness, hobbies, friends, family, hygiene, housework, side projects, finances, the dog, the car. In the first 90 days after a separation, you cannot maintain thirty things. Trying to is how men implode.
Pick the smallest possible set of things to keep alive, and let the rest go for now.
The non-negotiable list, in order:
Six things. Everything else is optional in the first 90 days.
Sleep is the first thing to break and the most important thing to protect. In the first month, you will probably either be sleeping four hours or twelve hours. Both are bad. The goal is to drag it back to seven, ish, by week six.
What works:
If sleep doesn't come back in 4-6 weeks, see your GP. Short-term sleep medication exists for exactly this kind of period.
You will either stop eating or eat constantly. Neither is the answer. The minimum:
If you are living somewhere new, the kitchen is unfamiliar. Make it familiar fast. One pan, one pot, one knife. The fewer decisions, the more meals get eaten.
Avoid for the first 60 days: skipping breakfast, drinking your dinner, ordering Uber Eats more than twice a week.
Note the word. Movement, not training. This is not the time to start a new programme or sign up for a triathlon. This is the time to make sure your body moves every day so the chemistry stays roughly normal.
The minimum:
If you already had a training routine, scale it back to 60% and protect that. The structure of going to the same gym at the same time holds the day together more than you would think.
Work is where the structure of your life lives now. Don't blow it up.
The fastest path to imploding is going three weeks without a real conversation with another adult.
The rule: one human contact, every day, that is not transactional.
What counts: a 20-minute call with a mate, a coffee with a colleague where you actually talk, a walk with a neighbour, a long text exchange that goes both ways, a therapy session.
What doesn't count: the barista, your kids (love them, doesn't count for this), work meetings, reply-and-react in a group chat.
The data on isolation in separated men is grim. Being alone is not strength.
The days you have them are the most important days of your week.
The kids do not need you to be cheerful. They need you to be steady. There is a difference.
For the first 90 days, drop:
Keep the boring, unglamorous, daily things: brush your teeth twice a day, make the bed, wear a clean shirt, cook one real meal, walk for 30 minutes, talk to one human, be where you said you would be.
This is the unsexy floor of being a functioning man. It is not glamorous. It is structural.
If you are not already seeing a therapist or psychologist, get one. Not because you are broken. Because you are about to navigate the hardest year of your life and you need an external operator paid to be on your side.
In Australia, your GP can write a Mental Health Care Plan that gives you 10 subsidised sessions per calendar year under Medicare. Out of pocket varies, usually $30-$120 per session after the rebate. Wait times can be long. Book early.
If therapy is not for you: a men's group (Tomorrow Man, Men's Table, Mr Perfect), a close mate who has been through it, or a coach if you can afford one. Externalise, out loud, to someone whose job or instinct is to listen.
The men who come out of separation in one piece are not the ones who go hardest. They are the ones who do the smallest possible set of right things, every day, for long enough.
You do not need a 5am routine. You need to brush your teeth, eat something, walk, sleep, talk to one human. For 90 days. Then you reassess.
Smaller floor. Steady reps. Repeat tomorrow.
A blunt field guide to the first month after the conversation. Sleep, paperwork, the kids, and the part nobody warns you about.
5 minHow to start the talk you've been rehearsing in the shower for six months. A practical guide to the words, the room, the aftermath.
4 minWhen she ends it and you didn't see it coming. The first 72 hours, the stories you'll tell yourself, and what to actually do.
4 minA self-interrogation guide for the man considering ending his marriage. Not advice. Questions. The hard ones, in order.
5 min