One of the key aspects of being divorced is that when it happens to someone you know, you have to expect them to come to you for advice, it comes with the territory as it is natural for an individual to seek solace from someone who has been through it and arrived out of the other side.

I don’t actually mind to be honest, it is all a distant memory for me now, but offering advice to someone through the early stages of this bereavement process is a pretty futile exercise as the said person is invariably in a haze of confusion and roller coaster emotion; it is being polite to call it a cuntish process.

So as another acquaintance of mine becomes the latest consequence of this miserable period in life, I have been racking my brains thinking of ways to make him feel better through the grieving process as he  travels down the long road to a return to happiness.

The tried and untrusted method of saying that “there are plenty more fish in the sea” or that“time is the great healer” are about as useful as a one legged man in an arse kicking tournament and saying (wrongly) that you “thought she was a bitch anyway” is riddled with danger and carries the potential of a hefty dentist bill. Be warned, in the early stages, a jilted man is still fiercely protective of his wife, she could have fucked Simon Cowell and he would still consider reconciliation.

So after days of thought, I have come up with some great things for the jilted male to aid him through the process and see what he has to look forward in the adventures that lie ahead. Don’t get me wrong I know lots of people who are blissfully married and I totally admire that, but if someone, male or female, has been brave enough to call time on a relationship, it must have been fundamentally wrong, so you might as well enjoy the aspects of singledom that come your way…It really needn’t be the life of self-pity many people think it is.

1/ Go shopping alone–As a single shopper, rather than the convenience of doing it all on line, I like nothing more than meandering around the aisles of Sainsbury’s whilst gleefully admiring the misery etched on the faces of ageing couples who have grown to despise each other but have left it too late to do anything about it.

2/ Go on a camping holiday with young children armed with just ham, baguettes, and some spare clothes. During a holiday in France some years back I realised just how bloody easy camping is without a woman’s natural instinct to play the role of a health and safety officer; it is a liberating experience to just do things without consideration of consequences that are about as rare as a lightning strike.

3/Feel the thrill of turning your stereo up without someone turning it down five seconds later, in fact do it with just your boxer shorts on whilst eating a bacon sandwich with Sky sports news on in the background and not panicking when you have gone to work and forgotten to press the “Delete History” button on the computer.

4/ Got to a pub/restaurant on Valentine’s Day and watch the turgid conversations of repressed husbands and wives as they sit painfully through an evening of abject misery (just because of a huge marketing scam) before they are handed a bill that is so extortionate it will lead to an argument on the way home. Order another pint, look to the Heavens and thank the Lord it is them and not you.

5/ Sit in your own home and watch what you want, play what music you want, read what you want, go to bed when you want and sit back and relish in the fact that there is not a wife/husband,  in-law or solicitor to tell you that you can’t. I know women who also love that sense of liberation, so please don’t accuse me of sexism.

If you are someone in the process of divorce, I hope this helps on the road that will eventually lead to you being happily single or meeting someone more who is ultimately more compatible. Life may not seem that great right now, but it will do one day soon.

If you are reading this mate, it will all be okay in the end.