Oct 22 2008
Dealing with Divorce
A friend of mine broke the news to me yesterday: Her husband walked in two days ago, told her he was done (after around 15? years of marriage), packed his bags, and left for good. She never saw it coming, and she is devastated, still in love, and lost.
The scenario is too common, and always painful. I have trouble seeing how the pain of divorce is at all outweighed by the bliss of marriage, even the bliss of early marriage (the honeymoon period). I’m not suggesting divorce shouldn’t happen, but what makes one spouse–or both–decide he or she doesn’t want to try anymore? I don’t think people make the choice lightly. I told my husband about my friend’s separation, and he was floored. He asked me, “Did you see it coming?” And I did, but only to the extent that I saw they weren’t communicating with each other, that she was living her way, he was living his, and they seemed, well, too separate. Honestly, I could look at any marriage I’ve seen and see the signs of divorce in it. No one’s marriage is perfect, and it takes two people trying hard to make marriage work well.
But my friend’s husband didn’t want to try anymore. More than likely he’s been unhappy for a while, and he couldn’t communicate that to her. So he gave up, and left her alone. And she’s never seen herself as anything but a housewife. But she may never even be married again. And she can’t figure out why–at least not yet.
Hard stuff. Painful. I think the only reason I can even write about it is that I haven’t actually gone through it. My parents never divorced, Richard’s parents were divorced and remarried long before I knew them, and I’ve only experienced it through a few siblings otherwise. But it was utterly painful for them, even though both siblings were the ones who chose to leave.
I am musing here, but I’m not sure I’m adding anything to the discussion. I’m so pained by it. I imagine the same level of rejection in my own life, and the truth is I don’t have it –unless you count my separation with my parents. I’ve finally started looking at it in terms of divorce, so that I can understand it better. Yet, like my siblings who divorced, I was the one who chose to leave.
How is it different for the person who is left behind, who, like my friend, didn’t see the divorce coming? I try to put myself in her place, but the pain is blinding. No wonder my mother is still so bitter. More than likely she will always be bitter about me. I hope I am never rejected like that.
Perhaps I should write about this more–in my fiction. A much safer way to explore it than in real life. Let my fiction be exciting, not so much my life–however much I might wish in other blogs that it be more eventful.
Tough. I have a friend who’s been divorced for years, married for more than half of them who is JUST now getting over her first husband, and he was a *expletive deleted*.
Divorce is never fun, even when it’s the right thing to do (and I believe mine was). Sometimes staying together is more destructive. But the really nasty divorces aren’t nearly as sad to me as the ones where people genuinely cared about each other and, somehow, lost their way together until they no longer were.
Ouch. That would suck…royally!