On Being Divorced

I've been divorced for six months.  I was married for 27 years; together 29. 

What do I say about divorce?  My divorce.  I'm glad I did it.  Six months later, I am still glad I did it.  Not that all that much has changed in my life really.  I'm still alone, financially challenged and libido inconvenienced - the same EXACT state of affairs as when I was IN my marriage.  But I am at peace about my decision to end my marriage.

I will not take this space to detail all that went wrong with my marriage nor the events or attitudes that ended it.  It wouldn't be fair to my former spouse nor my children.  Some things are better left unsaid.  But I do think that the grounds for divorce per my state rather speak volumes:  the marriage was 'insupportable'.  That is neither of us could come to the table with the skills, mindset nor effort that maintaining our marriage required.

The thing that amazes me most about my divorce is other people's reactions to it.  I was neither slow nor self-conscious to pass the word that I was DONE.  My marriage was effectively over half a dozen years ago.  We had permanently lost, I felt, the basic tenets of maintaining a viable union. For the most part, people I told were NOT surprised.

Here is a cross-section of some of those reactions:

My hairdresser:

So your hair stylist is kinda like your bartender, right?  Mine knew of my ups and downs with F.S.  And she also cuts his hair.  So when, on my first visit to her after the divorce, she asked "How's ______?"  I held up my left hand and said "I'm divorced now".

Her response?

Nothing.  She didn't say another word to me for the rest of the visit.

Oh, but her suite mate more than made up for her reticience.  Helga (not her real name), a sixtyish Austrian war bride, is well known for her domination of the chat in the suite she shares with my stylist.  Very opinionated.  Usually her rants are aimed at what was wrong with the U.S. and how wonderful everything is in Europe.  We nearly lost Helga four years ago when she and her husband were out motorcycling in Oklahoma and a bear cub was crossing the road.  She and her husband slowed up only to be steamrolled by mama bear.  Helga and her husband were bitten and severely injured.  But I hear the bear died from food poisoning...

Just kidding.

Helga's reaction?  She came around to the front of the styling chair where  I was sitting and bent down to say "You're stupid!!  You're stupid!!"  each time punctuating with the end of her teasing comb in my face.

"You think the grass is greener,"  she said, quite emphatically, directly in my face, certain that she was absolutely correct in that assumption.  And then she backed off, repeating and repeating as she retreated back to her chair.

I wasn't even the least bit angered by her accusations.  Amused, certainly; but not angered.

"You don't know me,"  was my only response.  And that was accurate.  Neither of them knew me insofar as my marriage was concerned.  And no one really knows what goes on between a husband and wife really except, well, the husband and wife.

My former neighborhood who lived behind us for five years was, in her words 'surprised but not shocked.'  She went on to tell me that she often heard my former spouse in our backyard on any given weekend day cursing and yelling angrily and basically ranting out a tantrum and she wondered 'boy, who is he yelling at?'  Yep.  Pleasant goings on at our happy home.

A breakup sometimes signals an 'all clear' for folks to really let you know what they thought about the former partner.  My cousin?  'He never was one of my favorites'.  Oh really?  She also proceeded to inform me that her dad had given F.S. a very promising job lead during the time in which F.S. was unemployed.  A lead that went unpursued.  Yeah...

Then there's Terri.  Terri is one of those friends for whom the saying is coined "with friends like her, you don't need enemies".  Countless times Terri invited me out "to talk".  Friend or no friend, people like drama and when I was disengaging from my marriage, I had plenty.  During these meetings, I'd share and then Terri would usually counter with a scene from our shared past social life.  Not that we socialized all together that much with Terri and her husband.  But the few times we did get together, well that was enough to fuel Terri in her 'support' of me.  Though I have blocked out her exact words, and I don't do that very often, basically she was saying my husband was a loser and that I should be done with him.  Good riddance.  Well, even if he is an asshole, the bottom line is he was my asshole and I could talk smack about him but not anyone else.  In a tiny corner of my heart there resides a tiny bit of protection where he is concerned; after all he is the father of my children.  So Terri kind of left a bad taste in my mouth and as the months dragged out I sought 'comfort' from her less and less.  The topper actually came about two months ago when she invited me to a small dinner party she was having.  It was a couple I had met once or twice and then another friend of hers, who is married but on this particular occasion her husband was out of town.  So on this evening, when we're all together making small talk, the news was dropped that I was recently divorced and Terri added "(my name) was the most miserable married person I had ever met."  Wow...

How about the godmother of our children:  "I'm surprised you lasted this long."

And our hygenist, the absolute NICEST woman on the planet.  At my first appointment post D, she asked how F.S. was.  I plainly told her "I divorced F.S."  She didn't act shocked but was the epitomy of tact and grace and said "Well he wasn't exactly a ball of fire when it came to looking for replacement employment."  Case closed.

So I found that no one was surprised when the news finally dropped.  Except for F.S.  He was shocked.  Each of the four times I told him.

Yes, it took me four separate occasions to broach the subject of splitting up with my beloved.  The  last year, each quarter I'd bring it up again.  Each time it was the same old story.  'Why?'  'No!'  'What am I going to do?'

Never 'I love you' or 'I don't want to break up our family'.  Nope.  All responses were very self centric on his part.

And the accusations...'Who is he?!'  or 'Who is she?!'  Yes, it's true.  If I didn't want to be with him, then certainly I must be a lesbian.  Not that there was anything left of our marital state.  F.S. took very poor care of himself.  One of the first by-products of his high blood pressure and consequent consumption of high blood pressure medication was the death of our sex life.  Yep.  Deader than a doornail.  AND NOT to be resurrected by any means of ED medication.  You know the very small percentage that CANNOT be helped by ED meds?  You got it.  He's in such a minority - what are the odds?  He should play the friggin' lottery.

So, three of the four times in that last year that I brought up the subject, I backed down.  Doubts, I guess.  Each time, as I had done for YEARS prior, I just sucked it up.  I'll just stay in it.  It can't be any worse.  A part of me just wanted it to all be done and over; that the doing would be my undoing.   I got tired -- and I got lazy -- and just said the hell with it, I'll just make the most of it.  But, you know, I couldn't do that to myself.  I was miserable.  Dead.  Flat-lined.  I daily felt my very life force being drained from me.  This can't be what my life is supposed to be??  So the final time I went up to bat was after we had sold the family home.  The sale of the house was going to go forth no matter how our marriage ended up because F.S. was once again unemployed and it didn't look like he was going to be gainfully employed again.  We could not live in that large house on my small salary.  Of course, to this day he still tells the kids that he doesn't know why we had to sell the house.  DO THE DAMN MATH?!  Of course for 22 of the 27 years we were married I paid all the bills; he had NO idea of our financial state and neither did he want to know.  Never asked.  And every night while I laid in bed awake wondering how in the hell we were going to make ends meet, he blissfully snored beside me, purposely ignorant to the problems at hand.

So I went through with it and he was pissed - not outwardly sad, mind you, but just really angry.  But.I.went.through.with.it - FINALLY.

And where are we today?  Cordial though small doses help.  He still asks why.  Really?  Then on occasion he has said that I divorced him because he was down on his luck...um, no.  I do hope that we can at the very least remain friends.  For the sake of our children and of our shared history, this is my hope.