The emotion most prevalent during my separation and divorce was anxiety. I remember spending the better part of a year feeling I was shaking in my boots.

My ex and I separated in January and the divorce was final in September. By the time that first holiday season rolled around, post divorce, the anxiety had lessened but I wasn’t looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Especially as a divorced parent dealing with a less-than-civil ex-husband.

I could feel the knot of anxiety tightening and knew I had to come up with ways to reduce it during that first holiday season as a divorced woman and mother. Just as I had begun to learn how to deal with my post-divorce emotions, I found myself feeling overwhelmed again.

Below are four tips for reducing divorce anxiety during the holidays:

Identify Fears and Deal With Them

Anyone living north of the 36th latitude (Virginia) is going to have to deal with cold nights and big heating bills. I have to heat my house in the winter even in Miami, and folks in the desert Southwest have to pour on the heat for those nippy nights.

It would be handy to have a guy around to do all those handyman things, but if you’re going through divorce, and still living in the drafty family home, you’re going to have to do them yourself. And you can really save money this way.

An average American spends $1,300 on heating and cooling bills in a year. Those can be cut by 10 percent, 30 percent, 50 percent by tackling a few basics, like these recommended by the Department of Environmental Protection/Montgomery County, Maryland. Let’s start with drafts.

• We like this part: light some incense. Now walk around your house (ideally on a windy day), and see where the smoke blows away from the windows and doors. Don’t forget to check light switch plates, around the sink, and around light fixtures. Each of those places can have an air leak as well. And fixing these drafts is pretty easy. Grab a caulking gun from Home Depot, and go around the house, inside and out. Fill in all those loose places around windows and doors. And don’t forget to cut off drafts under doors, either with a rubber sweeper along the bottom or with a snakelike draft dodgers.

• Turn down the temperature on your hot water heater to 115 degrees. That should be hot enough for everything, and will be safer for your children. Anything hotter might scald them.

• Wear a sweater indoors, and buy the kids cool nice hoodies. Don’t forget to put on a pair of socks too, or slippers. Now, turn the thermostat down to 68 degrees. Get a programmable thermostat that will drop the temperature to 65 at night. And when you’re away from the house, 55 degrees is fine.

Jennifer and Dan, a couple in their mid-30s with two kids, had a fairly amicable divorce. But Jen still has a reservoir of residual hurt because the end of their marriage was directly caused by Dan's affair.

Dan, however, is eager to move on in a friendly manner.

Scene: It is Sunday morning and Dan is scheduled to take the kids. He drives up to the family house, opens the garage door and comes into the kitchen. Jennifer is cleaning up after breakfast and the children are nearby.

Dan: Hi guys.
Jennifer (icily): Hi.
Dan: What's the problem? I'm here to pick up the kids. You don't have to be so cold.
Jennifer: Did I invite you in?!

A Lesson about Boundaries:

Do not make your home available to your ex-husband, as if he still lived there.

He can knock on the door and you can deliver the kids to him at the door.

Particularly at the beginning of the divorce process, your house must become your sacred — and safe — territory.

Your home needs to be a place of refuge and should not turn into a boundary-less arena. Letting your ex-husband come and go as he pleases can make you feel uncomfortable and anxious.

From his point of view, nothing is wrong. This was his home. He may even own half of it.

Just remember that you need your space, and that boundaries need to be set.

In years of practice I have come to discover that when boundaries are set properly - and early - it is better for all involved, including the wife, the ex-husband and the kids.

Couples do better when they have set strong limits, given how powerful the pull of emotions can be during a divorce.

"It is easier to liberalize from a conservative position than to become more conservative from a liberal position."

This maxim applies to divorce. Try being conservative initially. Both in setting boundaries with your husband and, indeed, with your kids.

This time last summer Sharon, who asked that her last name not be used, was the typical wife of an Army pilot deployed to Iraq. She was expending a lot of energy on just surviving. But like most military spouses, she supported her husband in what he had chosen to do, and for what he believed in.

Her husband’s deployment meant she was wearing two hats, both mother and father to two children, 6 and 10. She mowed the lawn, kept the house, paid the bills, and laid awake at night worrying about her husband’s safety.

But she didn’t mind the extra work.

“It was all doable because there was relief in the friendships with other women who were experiencing the same in their day-to-day lives,” she said. “We vented to each other and took care of each other. We weren’t isolated because we were there for each other.”

Sharon, 36, is once again struggling to survive, but this summer for very different reasons. She is separated from a husband she says “came back from Iraq a changed man.”

As she sits in my living room, looking anxious and worn, Sharon tries to explain what went wrong in her marriage.

“I struggle to understand what happened and make sense of it,” she says. “All I know is that once he came home he was there physically, but emotionally he was absent.”

Shortly after returning from Iraq, her husband took up with another woman. It was a relationship, he told Sharon, that didn’t demand that he deal with parenting and a wife who wanted him to share wartime experiences.

The reunion of couples after long deployments and the post-deployment processes are complex and poorly understood. So complex that many military marriages are not surviving the transition.

In a military mental health survey done in Iraq in 2006, 20 percent of soldiers interviewed (both men and women) said they or their spouses were planning a divorce; that is up 5 percent from a year earlier.

We Grandmas have a unique perspective — and a unique set of issues:

Finances: As the finances of the divorced family changes, we grandparents are often asked to step up to the plate and assist financially.

Custody: Grandparents are often an important part of a grandchild’s life, how does access shift after divorce? Do we have rights?

Care giving: Grandparents are often rearranging their lives as they take a more active part in their grandchildren’s lives, particularly after divorce.

Setting Aside Your Life: Grandparents are often postponing their retirement plans and moves so they can help raise their grandchildren.

Many grandparents share their stories with me and their anguish as their families face the trauma. Many divorcing people share their experiences with me. And my own experience as a divorced woman before the time of books, gurus, and blogs has given me some Grandma insights about:

—What our children need to hear from us.

—What our children should and should NOT say to their children

—How we answer our grandchildren’s questions.

—What in-laws can do?

—How we advise newly dating parents.

—How we offer financial help to our kids in a healthy way.

—How we help our children get through the hurt and start their new life

While we deal with these challenging issues and significant emotions all around, we must also be the flag-bearing leader of the family — salvaging love and respect in a family searching for answers, safety, and an end to all the hurt, while heralding the new “emerging” family which may very well bear little resemblance to the family that once was. Together — Grandparents included — we can make it through.

Going through a divorce is hard, even if it’s something you wanted. Buying a new house or trying to maintain the one you have, solo, is scary. So many things can go wrong — but you already know that! And the last thing you want to do is call your ex for help.

Make finding a reliable, trusted, creative handyman a priority. Don’t wait for the first thing to go wrong. Having him “in your pocket” will give you great peace of mind. My handyman’s motto is “When things go wrong, call Don.” And I do. He’s on speed dial.

Word of mouth is the best way to find your new guy. Ask your realtor, neighbors, co-workers, senior citizens, single women and inept men who they use. Name drop when you call your prospects — tell them who referred you and you’ll probably get a faster response.

Interview a few handymen. Look for experience, creativity and integrity. Do you feel comfortable leaving this man your key? Start small, and trust your instincts. Ask him to hang some towel bars, replace a cracked tile and fix that leaky faucet. If that goes well, you may be on to something!

Keep an ongoing “honey do” list on the fridge, and add to it when you see things that need fixing. Just writing it down takes a load off your mind. After you’re settled, have your handyman go through the house with you and create a maintenance manual so that you learn to do routine things yourself.

In the meantime, relax with the knowledge that when a squirrel comes crashing through your window and is running around your house, you know who to call. And he’s on speed dial!

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