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Single parents turn to community to navigate post-divorce life
Divorce involves lengthy processes and imposes heavy financial and emotional losses on women and children.
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An illustration of separation. (Shutterstock/-)
W
hen 26-year-old Fadyah Syifa Hasbiah’s husband left her for another woman in 2015, she became depressed and insecure, blaming herself for what happened, especially as it made her a single mother of a baby girl.
During the initial years of her divorce in Yogyakarta, where she studied at Gadjah Mada University from 2010 to 2015 and married her now-ex-husband, she turned to her aunt for emotional support and spiritual guidance. She also followed the Instagram account of a support group called Single Parents Indonesia in Motion (Spinmotion).
Syifa moved back to Jakarta to live with her parents and 5-year-old daughter after her divorce was finalized in 2016 and has since worked for a private company.
She eventually read an Instagram post that said Spinmotion would hold a meet-up in Jakarta. She messaged the account and introduced herself to the group’s Jakarta chapter in 2017.
Spinmotion has become Syifa’s life line for dealing the post-divorce life.
“The healing sessions in every meeting made me realize that I’m not alone. This is not a physical pain, but I see that my friends in Spinmotion felt the pain that I went through as well and buried it in the last few years,” Syifa told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Bintang Etnawati, 54, a junior high school teacher in Bogor, West Java, also felt like her life had come crashing down after she started her divorce in 2012, especially since at the time her three children were still in school, so she was worried about their psychological well-being.
