by Laura Scott
Aaron, twenty-six, dropped out of medical school after a failed early marriage. His parents were highly critical of his behavior. They wanted him to come home, finish medical school, and go back to his internship. Aaron told his parents that his ex-wife, Melanie, had killed something inside of him because she would never have his children. He told them that it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other to get by, and that he needed more time.
Jane, a forty-three-year-old mom who had resigned from a junior college position to raise a young family, was functioning—barely—for six months after her divorce. She considered it a victory if she got up in the morning, made coffee, got the kids off to school, and paid the bills every month. Going through the motions and not messing anything up when it came to her children’s routines was Jane’s primary focus, as was her Monday night yoga class. When anyone was critical of her, Jane responded by saying she was just doing the best she could for where she was, and that was all she could expect of herself.
Sometimes you are just doing the best can for where you are—and that’s totally okay.
SOCIETY’S DENIAL OF LOSS
Warning: We live in a society that doesn’t deal well with loss and sadness. Our culture wants you to get over things and move past them because we live in a fix-it society. Fix your air conditioning, repair your tire, throw away old things—even clothes that still fit are tossed just because they aren’t stylish anymore. The average life of a cell phone is about two or three years and then they come up with a newer, better model.
A divorce is like a death, in that the relationship is gone. A response to a widow is usually, “Oh, I am so sorry for your loss.” But our cultural mores do not put divorce in the same category. It’s more like, “You look great! Lose ten pounds and get back in the game! You’ll be fine!” The message is: You have a short window of recovery; get back into the game of life.
The path of healing is different for each person. Being sad and lonely and everything that comes with that is normal, and you need to go at your own pace. It’s nobody’s business but your own.
EVERYONE WANTS YOU TO MOVE ON/ THE BACKWARD COMPLIMENT
Grieving and getting angry during separation and divorce is a natural response to the situation. You will have to go through it to get over it. Your friends and family will support you but eventually they will expect you to move on. When you first go through a divorce, you are not so sure you will be okay. But the people who love you and have seen you work through things and succeed in life assume you will be just fine. This is what I like to call “the backward compliment.” They are so confident in you that they tend to emphasize to you that it will all work out, sometimes at the expense of your mourning time frame. It’s unintentional, but it can be annoying to the recently divorced.
It’s hard to go through a major loss and live up to society’s expectations. Our culture has a hard time sitting with the pain and allowing you to just be. Go at your own pace and grieve for as long as you want to or need to. There is no timetable for healing a broken heart. It’s your world, your heart, and your life. Don’t let friends and family influence the path you take to recover from your loss, even if their opinions are offered with the best intentions.
Paul was a successful investor and money manager and an all-around great guy. People thought so well of him that he fell victim to the backward compliment syndrome. During Paul’s divorce, the first thing people said to him was, “She is an idiot.” He also heard, “You’ll be fine, you wait and see.” Paul is accomplished and well-liked; everyone expected him to bounce back quickly. This consistently instant response confused and puzzled Paul. He felt he needed more time to move on with his life, no matter how successful he had been before at other challenges, and he knew inside it was going to be a long road.
Mother Teresa said, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” Don’t accept judgment from others, just keep moving forward every day; your recovery is yours alone. No one knows your heart but you.
ESTABLISH YOUR OWN TURF
Johnny, a twenty-eight-year-old successful supply chain professional, grew up in a very traditional family. He had dated his wife for four years, making sure she was the right one before he married her. Ten years into the marriage, she left him with small children and a broken heart. His family’s response was to preach at him, telling him what to do and to move back to his hometown. Johnny asked anyone who gave him unsolicited advice, “Have you been through a divorce?” And if they had not, he told them bluntly, “Then back off and stop telling me what to do! You have no idea what I am going through.”
Rejection and disappointments are inevitable during the divorce process. The silver lining is that you do begin to stand up for yourself. It’s okay to defend your decisions. Some people might not accept you, but others will always love you and support you.
CHAPTER 9
How Being Single Is Different from Being Married
Going from being married and thinking like a married person to acting as a single person is a process called “individuation.” A major component of Jungian psychology, individuation is the process whereby a person develops their own unique personality and psychological self, separate and distinct from others and from the collective psychology. When you go from being married to being divorced, finding this individual self takes time.
Supposedly, the first year of marriage is the hardest because you have to learn how to compromise. You begin to consider your spouse in many decisions you make: where you live, how you handle finances, how you spend your time, how you decorate your house, what you eat, what movies you see, and so on. This happens over a number of years, and it’s compounded by starting a family. If you want to go on a trip, take a new job, or move it has to be considered by your spouse because you are married. Working as a team changes who you are and how you think. Compromise becomes key for your success, and you learn it’s nice to have someone to rely on as part of your life. It’s a big part of marriage.
When you divorce, you become a single person again. It’s not unlike when you first moved out of your parents’ house and learned to live on your own. You had to become self-reliant and take responsibility for yourself.
THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
Like divorce itself, individuation is a process. It’s learning a new way of thinking about your life and circumstances; it’s becoming used to making decisions alone. It’s a lot like a teenager learning to drive. It’s nerve-racking at first, but eventually it comes naturally. Another part of individuation is similar to being a teen: acting out and living on the edge helps you become an individual again. It’s also a dance, one step forward and two steps back.
One important note about individuation: just realize it will happen to you over time and that you don’t have to actively do anything. As you live your life you will begin to think like a solo act again. One thing that will surely come with your new single status is the yin and yang of experiencing new things in combination with longing for your old life. It’s a hard time. Eventually you will realize that life is happening now and that you need to get moving again. It’s challenging, like climbing a big mountain, but by learning to make decisions and grow on your own, you will develop stamina and find muscles and abilities that you didn’t know you had.
Day to day, as you become more individuated, you will be able to let go of the past and realize that the future is full of possibilities. But it might take some time.
TAKING OFF THE RING
The symbol of a wedding ring dates back to early Egyptian and Roman times. The ring finger was thought to run straight to the heart, which is why a wedding ring is worn on the left hand. Some people who marry never take off their wedding ring.
If someone who didn’t know you was studying you from afar, they could tell if you were married or not by the fact that you wear a wedding ring; it’s a visible sign of your commitment.
Although some people continue to wear a ring for a while, for others, taking
off the wedding ring is a big step in claiming their new single status. Most people remember the day that they removed their wedding ring. It’s a sign that you are no longer connected to your spouse, culturally. Though a small thing, it has significance during a divorce. Just as you looked at the ring on your hand when you were first married, you may look at your left hand in amazement after you stop wearing your ring. Taking it off sends a message in our culture.
Walk into a restaurant and sit at the bar while wearing a ring, and then do the same thing without a ring. Notice the difference in the responses you get. Along with your new single status, taking off your ring gives everyone notice that you are unattached. You might be approached by a new person, or contacted by someone from long ago. It’s unsettling, but removing the symbol opens up different possibilities. Taking off the ring is a loss, but it’s also a sign of being open to new relationships.
You may mourn your ring. You might feel liberated by removing it. It might be a mix of both.
Leslie, a thirty-year-old accounting clerk, took off her ring about three months after she split from Travis. Everywhere she went without it, she felt more noticed. She was waiting for a friend at a restaurant, when out of the blue someone offered to buy her a drink. Leslie had been married since she was twenty. Having someone approach her made her realize how freeing it could be to not wear a ring.
Lawrence, a thirty-six-year-old database administrator with two children, was recently divorced. He began to get questions and looks from different women when he took off his wedding ring six months after his divorce was final. He received invitations to social events and jokes about dating from his friends. He had been very private about his divorce, and at first the attention was unsettling, but he realized that his friends, acquaintances at church, and work peers were encouraging him to date. It was touching that people cared about his situation, as retiring as his personality was. He began to go out when invited and found that it felt good to meet new people. Taking off his ring told people more about him than he could have told them himself.
NEWFOUND FREEDOM
“I am the cat who walks by himself, and all things are alike to me.” —Rudyard Kipling
When I was married I felt I never had time to do anything for myself. Most of my time was spoken for by my husband, children, and work. When you are divorced, you may suddenly have some time on your hands. You may share visitation with your ex-spouse, and as a result have every other weekend with no children. You might be living alone and coming home to an empty house or apartment.
Right after Janie, a twenty-eight-year-old who works for a nonprofit, got separated, she moved in with her best friend, Shannon. Shannon was a single ICU nurse and lived about two hours away from their hometown.
The afternoon Janie moved in, Shannon said, “I am going to see my parents this weekend. Will you be okay? I just decided to go. Can you feed my cat?”
Janie said, “Sure, I can do that.”
Twenty minutes later, Shannon got in her car and drove away. Janie realized that Shannon didn’t have to answer to anybody, she didn’t have to ask permission or make major plans to leave town. Shannon wasn’t responsible for anyone but herself.
Janie liked that; it occurred to her that on the weekends that she didn’t have her children, she could do whatever she liked. It was a freeing realization for her.
Would you rather not clean up your home for three days? Stay in bed and eat snacks and watch movies all day? Go ahead. Nobody is watching you. Want to go out for the evening? Want to stay out all day and all night? Feel free to.
There can be an intense feeling of freedom after divorce. Feeling aggrieved, alone, and scared of the future might be combined with feeling excited about your newfound independence, and the pendulum can swing widely between these emotions. As Janie puts it: “I was feeling really bad one day and laughing hysterically the next; it was a wild ride emotionally for a while.”
RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS
Be prepared for good days and bad days during separation and divorce.
Both day and night may be awful for a period of time. But one day, for no reason at all, you may have a day where you feel like your old self.
Anna, a thirty-two-year-old veterinarian’s assistant, shares: “Finding out I had been left by my ex turned most days into a bad day. A bad day was waiting for him to come back, unsure of what would happen. And I hurt, all over. I had a pain in my chest, my throat was tight, I had lost my speaking voice, there was pain in my hips. I had no appetite. I sighed a lot. I was preoccupied a lot of the time. I didn’t really hear what people were saying to me. The Pink Floyd song ‘Comfortably Numb’ took on new meaning for me. My days were filled with fog.
“Then, for no reason at all, I had a good day.
“A good day felt like my old life. I had some fun, I wasn’t so burdened by fears and grief, and all of a sudden, I had a good time with a friend, or found that something was funny. The day passed quickly, and there was a bit of joy in my life. And I realized it was possible to be happy again.”
You might have a string of bad days, but then you will have a good day. Eventually most days will be good days, and bad days will be occasional. But that will take some time to happen. The old adage “one day at a time” will serve you well right now.
EPIPHANY
An epiphany is a moment when you experience a sudden and striking realization. It hits you and suddenly you understand a situation from a new and deeper perspective. During divorce, epiphanies are gems of healing that can propel you forward.
Patricia, a stay-at-home mom and mother of two boys, married a guy who liked his coffee really strong. She would make the coffee with three scoops and then cut her cup of coffee with water and heat it up in the microwave. After eighteen years of marriage, they split up. She continued to make the coffee the way she always had, until one day, she dumped out the pot and made a new one with one scoop of coffee. She cried the whole time. Patricia’s epiphany was that she could have things the way she liked them now.
James liked simple things and to make things himself. He loved his shop class in high school. When his kids were little he had helped them make a birdhouse and painted the family name on it. It ended up in the garage. James’s wife never felt he made a good enough living for them. She wanted a new car every four years and new outfits for every season.
Her outlook ran counter to how James was raised, and his wife left the marriage when their boys were in high school. About six months into his separation, James was cleaning out the garage when he saw the birdhouse and broke into tears. He realized that this was the important stuff in life and that his soon-to-be ex-wife would never see that. James understood that his wife wanted someone who could give her lots of things and make a good deal of money. The little birdhouse helped him move on. Her leaving wasn’t personal—she wanted something that James could never give her.
NEW RELATIONSHIPS
After divorce, some people think they will never trust others like they once did, but time does heal. Some people who are sure that they won’t love anyone ever again eventually do. On the other end of the spectrum are those people who have trust issues in future relationships.
Getting through a divorce is a process. Some say it takes three years before you feel normal again. It was about two years before Cami, a thirty-five-year-old high school teacher who had been left with a six-month-old son and a two-year-old daughter, didn’t think every single day about what had happened to her. Cami shares: “It finally ran out of steam, but it took a long time to get there.”
Consider the old adage “Once burned, twice shy.” It’s normal and even healthy to feel this way initially after divorce. Your mind and heart are grieving the end of your marriage and have experienced a great shock. If you don’t want to date after your divorce, don’t—that is normal. It takes a while to bounce back, and the timetable is different for everyone. Do what feels right for you.
Once some healing has taken place, when you begin t
o emerge on the other side, you may find that you are more open to new experiences than before. This is positive and lays the groundwork for someone new to come into your life. Since this person was not a part of your past, it’s easy for them to be a part of your healing. It’s really fun to hang out with someone new who doesn’t know everything about you. It’s easier to laugh and let loose. It can be a dating relationship, or it can be a friendship. Take Melinda, a thirty-eight-year-old registered dietician, for example. After she was separated, she went to a high school reunion and ended up having drinks before the reunion with a classmate who was also divorcing. The two became fast friends and began spending time together on weekends. They had a particularly poignant shopping trip together on Christmas Eve, when both of their kids were with their ex-spouses. If not for each other, they would have been alone on an otherwise happy and festive day. Getting through that first Christmas Eve together meant a lot to both of them.
Sometimes having new people in your life can take the pressure off.
Jeff enjoyed the community he grew up in and had made a home there as an adult. After his divorce, he joined Facebook and contacted almost everyone he had grown up with. Jeff had been very popular and funny in high school, and he used his social skills to reconnect with others. He called and checked on people and asked them to lunch or dinner. He found out what had happened to everyone, and in the process reconnected with an old friend. This gave him a familiar, safe support group as he worked to rebuild his life. It was a great strategy for him. Jeff was leaving a twenty-two-year marriage and this was his way of coping.
