I am a few weeks into the divorce process, and the revelations of my wife's cheating and the destruction of a lot of hopes and dreams. As you all know, it's pretty rough.

I also, like some of you, have lost a lot of social ties during the marriage. I was consumed with work, child care, and the day-to-day drudgery. I have my brother, who has been great. My parents and sister try to help but I don't connect as well with them. I have one or two other local friends who are quite busy so I might see them once a month or so.

I know that I need to "get out there" and start doing things (meetups, classes, etc) to be with other people, meet people, maybe make a new friend or two. But all that is going on is so draining. At times I feel like I'm up to the task of putting myself out there and trying new things. But other times I just feel like it's all too much right now. But if I don't go out and do things, there is the very real risk of sitting around wallowing in my pain/anger, obsessing too much about things.

How do others feel about it? Is it OK to give yourself some of that stay-in-your-shell painful alone time early on or is that just making things worse? Should I force myself to get out a bit more?

I did force myself out a couple times recently and it turned out OK. I suppose a halfway-effort might be to go out somewhere where there are people, but to go alone. That can be uncomfortable, but it depends on the setting I guess. You're still alone, really, but there are other people around doing their own thing.

I will have some free time coming up as stbx will have custody of my daughter. I'm trying to decide what to do with that time.