Monday
Dec162019
The Gloaming of My Divorce
My mom used to watch this TV show called Thirtysomething. She was thirty-something at the time which would put me at 11 or 12. The people on the show, who seemed positively ancient to me, always appeared to be angry or crying as melodramatic pop music swelled in the background and it all just made me not want to grow up. Like, yuck. What a complicated drag it all is.
And it is. A complicated drag. But, as I've left my thirty-somethings behind, I'm increasingly finding it all to be incredibly beautiful. Even the complicated drag parts. Maybe even especially the complicated drag parts. Because it's in the transcending of the complicated drag parts where you usually find the beautiful.
2019 was a rough year. A complicated drag. But as it all comes to a close here in December, which may just be my least favorite month because I find the part-time job that is Christmas and all the commercialism and consumerism surrounding it a complicated drag as well, I think I might finally be stumbling into the beautiful. The real beautiful, not the version I convinced myself of years ago. The real beautiful is accepting the complicated drag for what it is and moving on as best you can. There are things you can't change and things you'll never fully understand. I used to think rolling up your sleeves and figuring it all out was the only way through. Analyzing the past and learning from your mistakes. Sometimes that works, but more often I find it's in the true letting go of the past and pain when you find yourself in the real beautiful. Acceptance of what is, not angst over what was or what could be.
Divorce is as difficult as marriage, just in different ways. A lot of people probably won't understand that. Divorce is generally viewed as a giving up of the hard work, especially by couples still united in service of the traditional institution that haphazardly evolved from what began as an alliance of families and property ownership, before love ever became tangled up in the union. But divorce, particularly with children, is the beginning of painful, difficult work. That's not to take away from the hard work of marriage, just an acknowledgment that divorce is a lot of work too. Sometimes, being divorced feels harder than my marriage was but it was still the right decision.
For a lot of years after my divorce I held myself to a certain standard. Maybe even a higher standard than when married. I felt responsible for the pain my family was experiencing because it was I who initiated separation. Perhaps to alleviate my guilt, I had a specific vision of how I thought the divorce should be. Ultimately, my notion of divorce proved as naive and ridiculous as the visions of marriage I entertained as a young girl. Essentially, after I failed spectacularly at marriage, it felt like I failed spectacularly at divorce.
But I didn't fail at marriage and I didn't fail at divorce. I gave them both my best based on who I was at the time and nothing turned out how I thought it should. But how should a marriage be? How should a divorce be? Society smugly insists on measurements about what equals success within either scenario: Sex at least three times a week for marriage and unwavering amicability during divorce, but that doesn't mean shit. Anybody whose been married or divorced for ten minutes knows that.
I've been divorced for five years and I'm only just now wrapping my brain around what went wrong in the marriage and the divorce, if it can be said that something did go wrong. It's tempting to neatly wrap it all up like the thrilling conclusion of a game of Clue. It was him! It was her! A finger leveled triumphantly at the responsible party. A definitive analyzation of the personality at fault or the dramatic incident that sums it all up. At this point, in the gloaming of my divorce, I'm mostly inclined to think there was no wrong, no responsible party - and surprisingly - that the answer isn't even important anymore.
It's everything and nothing. It's a building up of words, looks and exchanges between two ever-changing people: Kindling that eventually leads to fire and the backdraft that is divorce. I guess all I know at this point, after nearly a decade of marriage and a half-decade of divorce is this: All ex-wives are psycho, just ask their ex. All ex-husbands are assholes, just ask their ex. Everybody's an asshole and nobody's an asshole. Perspective is everything. And nothing at all.
Dec 16, 2019 | 3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
Love this. Still spend some days locked in angst over a divorce that happened ten years ago. Co-parenting a teen with special needs who is nearing adulthood is spectacularly scary. Sometimes I think it wouldn’t be quite as scary if we were a team.
Recently started just walking away from the negativity it helps.
Thanks for sharing 💜
Beautifully written, Monica.
I think a lot of people who split up don't give themselves time to mourn the end of the marriage, and honestly, sometimes they don't get the luxury of time.
Marriage is its own thing, own personality, dreams, fears, fun times, un-fun.. it's a living, breathing entity of the interloping emotional middle of two people. When people divorce, that living, breathing entity dies.. and it's sad. It's fine if it's amicable, it's fine if it's contentious, but most of all it's really sad. Grief is a weird monster and you never know when it's going to strike, or when it will leave. It makes you do weird things and try too hard at some things, and not hard enough at others... Not to mention the pressure we feel to be "FINE" and "just move on". It's especially hard to grieve while co-parenting and trying to figure out the new entity/relationship you will have with this person who holds the other half of the emotional corpse you're carrying around.
Anyways, the only advice I've heard that is worth anything is just trying to stay mindful and present.... and that applies to all parts of life. Enjoy the light this Christmas, Monica. It's always there peaking through the dark.
I'm so glad you're writing again Monica. I've followed your story for a long time! Are you still with Cory? I hope whatever you're doing, you are happy.