Tag: divorce

there goes the neighborhood

One day last winter, I logged in to a social networking site to find that a married male friend’s status update indicated that his wife — I’ll call her Sally — was leaving him for another man.

Given that Sally was also a friend of mine, I was a bit shocked by this news.

So I did what women do:  I called a mutual friend and screeched, “Oh my God, girl, have you been on facebook!? Did you know anything about this?!”

This mutual friend admitted that she had heard, just days earlier, about Sally’s blossoming affair. Such drama! And amongst our quiet, family-friendly circle!

“I don’t know what to say!” I exclaimed.

This girlfriend then told me straight, “I think you need to call Sally and tell her that.”

“Good point,” I said. Gulp! Avoiding the impulse to analyze and delay, I hung up and immediately dialed Sally.

“Hello,” she answered, a knowing tone in her voice.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said.

“I seem to have that effect today,” she replied. “Never before have I rendered so many speechless.”

“You beat us to the punchline,” I retorted, referencing the fact that my husband had agreed to move out…but hadn’t yet. And we hadn’t even told the children at this point.

“I’m taking the low road all the way,” she deadpanned. And then she briefly recounted the unraveling of her marriage, the failed counseling, the meeting of her new beau, what they had told the children…promising to fill me in on details at another time.

We all knew Sally and her husband struggled, just as everyone knew that my husband and I were struggling. But I certainly didn’t anticipate such an abrupt and dramatic finale. They had appeared, at least to me, to communicate and relate in a such as way as to have the potential to salvage their relationship…until now, in any case. Sally’s husband’s broadcasting the news via social media was clearly a cry for the sympathy vote, and a rather low one, at that.

The ultimate effect of this drama for me, at least, was that my divorce would be neither the first nor ugliest amongst our group, relieving some of the pressure and fear I’d had about the steps we’d yet to take. I no longer felt so uniquely conspicuous, and my children would now have friends who had experienced similar family upheaval.

Somehow, all this cause me to feel just a little relieved.

me or Max, misunderstood

About 14 months ago…

It was actually before we broke the news to our children that their father was moving out that I had a “lovers’ quarrel” of sorts with Max. Of course we weren’t lovers, and it was more of a misunderstanding that went something like this:

I misinterpreted a joke (I took it too literally) and thought, with disgust, “Who does he think I am? Does he really think I’m that stupid?!” I probably should have responded with this thought, but I’m sure my reply (I no longer recall exactly) was something more passive-aggressive in nature.

He replied with a text, “One of the things I always liked about you was your sense of humor.”

In a haze of loneliness and hormones (read PMS), I escalated, lashed out and started a drama cycle that lasted from one evening through the next morning from text to email and back again. I confess I spent a few hours in tears for, during this “spat,” three things happened:

  1. I recently mentioned a conversation about being alone with a divorced colleague who asked me if I’d ever feared being alone for the rest of my life. Well, this emotional crisis, this exchange with Max took me there. Somewhere in the midst of it, I experienced that horrific fear that maybe, just maybe, I would be alone for the rest of my life. I had connected with another man, but connecting with unavailable men was only going to get me to where? Alone.
  2. I realized how emotionally dependent I’d become on a man who was not available to me. And then I realized this was my pattern. Many of my relationships had been long distance, I had crushed on too many fellas that were gay or already in relationships or, for whatever reason, were not going to be able to commit to me. And, as part of this realization, it dawned on me once again that…
  3. I don’t want to be anyone’s fantasy. I want to be a wonderful man’s wonderful reality. And if he’s not in a position to commit to me and be in a relationship and create a real life together, then I want nothing to do with it! I mean, I can flirt and play, but I’ll be in control and I’m not going to let myself get attached to or involved with another man who sees me as a distraction, a daydream or fantasy. The men can fantasize all they want, but I’m going to keep myself from being emotionally drawn into it.

And with these realizations, I knew that my relationship with Max could not go on as it was, that I needed to be less dependent on him. As much as he and his attention had been gifts and had helped me to reclaim my intuition and confidence, our flirtatious friendship — or, rather, my reliance on it — was now doing me as much harm as good. To him, I may have been an intelligent, beautiful, attractive woman with whom he shared chemistry and mutual crush. But no matter how much he respected me, our relationship could never be one of equals, because he was going home to his wife and step-children each day, while I was sleeping alone.

alone…forever?

About 10 months ago…

I was chatting with a colleague at an after-hours event, when he asked me how things were going. He was divorced, and I knew he was asking about my personal life.

“Ah, it’s all right,” I moaned. “There is light at the end of the tunnel.”

He looked at me and asked, “Have you ever been afraid you’d always be alone?”

“No,” I replied. “But thank you for introducing that suggestion into my impressionable mind.”

“I remember one night when I was home alone, shortly after I’d moved out . . . it suddenly dawned on me that I might be alone forever. It was a terrifying realization.”

Truthfully, this thought had never occurred to me. As I explained to my colleague, I have my children and my friends, and I always just assumed that life was going to be better once he was gone. I mean emotionally better, lighter. How could I possibly fear being alone when I was lonelier in my marriage than I can ever remember feeling before?

Sure, I had plenty of fears — I had been terrified of telling our children, our close-knit neighborhood and family members. Being alone wasn’t one of them…yet.

telling the children

about a year ago…

We sat down in the living room on a snowy Saturday morning to tell the children that we didn’t want to be together anymore, and that Daddy would be moving out. It should have been obvious to me that he would throw me under the bus:  he clarified, “this is what Mommy wants.”

My younger was emotional; my older merely shrugged. The discussion was over almost before it began, and I later wondered why I had held so much fear about this moment. It was certainly something I had never wanted to do. I never wanted to have to tell my children that what they knew as a family could no longer remain intact. And yet somehow, at least my oldest, had known it was coming.

The children and I put on our wraps and went out to play in the snow. My older child, my daughter, was met at the playground by her best friend who, upon hearing the news, lamented, “That is so sad. My parents promised never to get a divorce.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is very sad.” I explained that I never would have wanted this for my children nor for myself. “You see the way your parents treat one another:  they talk with each other, touch and laugh together. Your parents are best friends. I would have loved that kind of partnership. But, as you’ve seen, we didn’t have that.”

Children have such a beautiful and authentic way of expressing themselves. I did my best to match that authenticity in sharing with my daughter’s friend, and on a level that all three children might hear and understand. In so doing, I was immediately reassured that the three of us, my children and I, would be all right after all.

I knew there would be difficult conversations, hurt and pointed questions from my children. What I did not anticipate was my own confidence and clarity in speaking to them. My own honesty and directness in this and other teaching moments has been a pleasant door open to trust and dialogue.

I’ve become a cliche

I haven’t posted for a few days, partly because I’ve been making some major transitions (in real time), which I’ve alluded to in recent posts. So here it is:  I left my job. Wednesday was my last day. And I haven’t written since earlier in the week because I’ve struggled with what to say about that.

To briefly recap the past year of my life:  I got divorced, turned forty and quit my job. On the surface, this may appear to be a mid-life crisis. I am officially a cliche. Ewwww!

And another funny thing about this is that I’ve been jumping back in forth in time and, in telling the story of my failed marriage, I haven’t even gotten to the part about my fortieth birthday. Man, good luck following all this!

I’ve seen so many people do this:  they get divorced, and then they realize that everything else in their life rubs them wrong, as well. It’s like they need to shed their skin or other things in life become like a proverbial rash. They redecorate, job hop, screw around or whatever seemingly immature or crazy things they need to do to lash out.

And now I’m realizing that maybe, just maybe, all those fools I’ve seen behave in this cliched way simply decided that life is too short to be unhappy. Yes, this is also a cliche. I seem to be full of them today. So once they’ve made the step of deciding they don’t need to be unhappy in their primary relationship, they begin to look at the other aspects of their life that are causing them grief and make changes in those areas, too.

For me, my ex finally got a job. It’s a small step and a small job. But I’m hoping it leads to him regaining his confidence and becoming the force of talent, skill and creativity he once was. This man has a lot of gifts — unfortunately, he undercuts himself all the time. But the point is, he got a job and can, ostensibly, provide a small amount of child support to me and cover the children’s health insurance and that lifted just enough weight from my shoulders so that I no longer felt confined.

I’ve actually been working, on the creative level, at finding a new job for several weeks. I was noticing how many people seem to have more balance and more income, and I’ve decided that I can be one of those people. They are not inherently smarter or more educated than I am — it’s simply a matter of re-packaging my transferrable skills. And I wanted to give myself the time to really focus hard on the type of opportunity I’m seeking, rather than rashly jump into something thinking of it as a foot in the door.

So I jumped ship. I am blessed to be able to manage for a couple of months before I need to do something desperate. And I’m likely to be more open and available to spot broader opportunities by giving myself this space.

Send positive vibes! And send contacts if you know of mentors I should talk to or connections I should make. I’m both terrified and thrilled for this next chapter in my life.

the right way to do it

A male work colleague and I have a standing bi-monthly lunch date. He is probably as familiar with my failed marriage saga as anyone, having lent a sympathetic ear along the way.

The last time we met, he asked me about the back-end logistics, the shared parenting, the legal details. And then he confessed that he and his wife had been deep in crisis, had discussed divorce and had gone so far as to sit down and develop their plan:

She would get the house, they would share parenting time, etc. It was then that she told him that he would have to find a place nearby, that they should still cooperate and share children’s birthdays, spend holidays together and more. He balked at being told where he had to live, and he was even more flabbergasted that she would think they could transition smoothly from marriage to best friends. Ultimately, they both realized that, even as a divorced couple, their expectations were going to be vastly different.

…which may be how they realized that they could just as easily work through those differing expectations within their marriage, because life wasn’t going to be easier or better outside of it. In planning every last detail of their landscape, they realized the grass really wasn’t going to get any greener. They acted maturely and decided to recommit to their marriage.

Although it may not work for everyone, I applaud their approach and maturity. And I congratulate them on developing their plans early enough for the possibility of staying together to occur as a viable choice for them both.

waiting is torture

About a year ago…

My husband had agreed to move out. We had discussed this in September.

He first said he would try to be out by October 31. And then he was going to try to move out by Thanksgiving. And when that failed to become a material reality, he stopped providing me updates.

As autumn became winter, the atmosphere inside our home chilled just as the weather outdoors. I was tired of waiting for my life to begin again. I was tired of being on edge. And I was tired of a surly man sleeping on the sofa, impeding my ability to do a morning yoga routine.

If I had felt as though I were walking on pins and needles during much of my marriage, I was now tip-toeing. Where we’d had a communication break-down in the past, we now avoided each other almost completely. It was miserable, torturous.

Finally, I drafted a few bullet points of what I thought might be a good “agreement” on my computer, offered him some cash to move out by March 1, and handed it to him.

We now had a timeline, and a basis for the discussions I would have with my lawyer. Forward ho!

the moment of opportunity

About 16 months ago…

My ex did a really dumb thing. I mean aside from all the dumb things that he did throughout our relationship, including eventually losing me. The really dumb thing he did was to get pulled over after having a few drinks. When the phone rang that night at 10:30pm, I didn’t answer. When it rang again, I knew there was bad news.

The sad thing about it was that I’d been waiting for it. I was pretty sure that the time would come when he would make the choice to drive after drinking too much. And, frankly, I think many (if not most) of us have probably also made that choice once or more and realized after the fact that we were past the point at which we should have been operating heavy machinery (i.e. a vehicle).

When he arrived home at 3:30am and crawled into bed, he reached to me. And he said, “I really want to turn things around. But I need a loving relationship to do it.”

This from a man who had, more than a year ago, pronounced me manipulative and controlling, then threatened to leave. Never once did he apologize, explain himself or make any attempt to make amends. And now it seemed that he was pushing responsibility off on me, again. He was to be charged with Driving Under the Influence (Driving While Intoxicated?), and it was because I wasn’t loving enough?! Bullshit!

I said, “I really hope you turn things around, for yourself and for your children.” And I rolled back over and went back to sleep.

But I was glad it happened, for two reasons:

  • He had finally acknowledged that there was no longer love in our relationship and opened the door for communication about it.
  • I no longer feared that he could ask for primary physical custody of our children. With all my travel, it’s possible he might have been able to argue that he was the primary caregiver and a stable force in our children’s lives. In the case he wanted to argue, I now had a counter point.

A few days later, I approached him while he was sitting on the sofa. I reminded him that he had asked for a loving relationship and told him that I didn’t want to try any longer. I told him that I had lost hope for us. And I explained that I had imagined every possible scenario, and could see no other way for the children to continue to live in our home but for him to move out.

It was one of the saddest, scariest and most empowering moments in my life. But it absolutely, positively had to happen.

And he agreed.

on the phone with Max

About 17 months ago…

I was struggling, and it was obvious to everyone. My family life was a lie; I had yet to ask my husband to move out. School would be starting soon and, with two children in the same school and on the same schedule, I had no more excuses.

Max and I exchanged a few texts and, evidently, he was concerned or touched enough to call on Sunday night while waiting for a flight. I grabbed my phone and headed out to the back yard, where I hoped no one inside the house would hear my part of the conversation.

It was a lovely chat between friends, with only a hint of flirtation and no romance whatever. Max asked me then if there was any way I could save my marriage.

“No,” I said, “Don’t you think I would if I could?! How much easier would it be to go back to someone who knows me, whose touch is familiar, with whom I share domestic habits?What will I have left? It’s the unknown, and that’s very frightening.”

“Don’t be afraid,” Max calmed me. “You’ve made the decision that you know is best for your family. And rather than seeing the failure, see all the progress you’ve made in the past decade:  you have a house, you have two beautiful children, you’ve come far in your career.”

I was grateful for the reminder to view my glass as more than half full, to have a clear view of my blessings.

Too soon, Max had to board his flight and hang up. I went to bed that night with a smile on my face and a knowing in my heart:  I had found a true friend and confidante.