Choosing Well After Divorce

Bitter or better?

“Hard decisions are hard.” Captain Obvious

Filing for divorce was the hardest, most-gut wrenching decision I’ve ever made in my life. I’m no stranger to difficult decisions. This includes telling the doctor to discontinue life support for my brother; he would never recover from the liver failure. Choosing for a double mastectomy was literally a life-changing decision.

A few months ago, I agonized over discontinuing with a 5–10-year course of hormone blocking in order to prevent cancer recurrence. The side effects made my life a living hell.

The life-or-death decisions were easier in some ways. Perhaps it was because the resulting outcomes were literally life or death. The decision to divorce was harder because the outcomes weren’t as cut and dried. I went round and round second-guessing myself.

I studied books. I studied studies. I talked to people. I got in therapy and spiritual direction.

Could my marriage recover from infidelity? Is divorce the best next-step for my life?

The questions were agonizing and depending on the day of the week, or perhaps, the moment, my answers would go back and forth. I still loved the guy and had many happy years with him. Besides, 32 years is a hella long time.

Through therapy and living apart for nearly a year, I realized divorce was the kindest path forward, for us both.

First major decision made. I made an appointment with a divorce paralegal and then told my former husband about it. There was a very small part of me that wondered if he would resist at all in an effort to save our marriage. And if he did, how I would respond? But, he didn’t, so much for any Hallmark movie turnarounds. This only confirmed to me that I made the right decision.

Having settled that question, I realized I now had another question.

Bitter or better?

How did I want to handle the divorce? I can choose to be bitter. Or I can choose to be better. The only difference is the “I”.

Of course, there were several other questions as well.

How do I discuss it with my adult children? What will my life look life afterwards? How will I survive financially? What are the effects of divorce on adult children? Is a friendship possible? Do I even WANT to be friends?

Sooooooo many questions.

The answer to the first question-bitter or better- would be foundational in determining how I would respond to the many other questions.

Want fries with that?

A bitter frame offers a nothing-good-can-come-from-this outlook. And it comes with many possible side orders of worrisome and rageful thoughts. The kids will be damaged. I will end up in the streets. Everything bad thing that comes my way is a direct result of him and his behavior. I was a fool. A schmuck.

So, just point the finger at him and amp up the rage with each mental retelling or gab fest with other bitter exes. In a way, it feels cathartic to point the finger at him for every bad thing in your life. (Especially since it alleviates yourself from any personal responsibility or the need to change.) But eventually, the taste of some delicious schadenfreude eventually sours.

Bitterness can turn people into first class assholes, even if they were previously a decent well-behaved human. Some of my divorced friends have exes who’ve made it their goal in life to destroy their former wives. They can do this by withholding child or spousal support, shit talking to the kids about how evil/sick their dad is, or in the case of one of my friends, sabotage their business.

Thankfully, my divorce proceedings were civil.

It is a sad process to watch the devolution. We can get addicted to our pain, much like an alcoholic trapped in their compulsion to drink. And the longer someone clings to their unforgiveness and victim script, the harder it will be for them to get free of the toxic poison. They know it’s killing them, but they just can’t stop.

A friend told me the other day about their anguish with watching their spouse self-destruct with their drinking; they are committing slow suicide. I was so struck with how it is analogous to how bitterness and unforgiveness poisons one from within, versus ingesting from a bottle.

A better frame is um, er… better

A better frame isn’t one with rose-colored lens because it doesn’t deny the difficult realities. Because divorce DOES impact adult children. And too many older women DO end up in poverty after a divorce from a decade’s long marriage. And that’s just a few of the many issues.

No positive outlook, prayer or steadfast “manifesting” efforts are going to change those factors. Those are all a form of toxic positivity-the fingers-in-the-ears, “la,la,la I can’t HEAR you!” approach. It’s avoiding reality when we do that. Sooner than later, that reality is going to bite you in the ass, likely with more complications.

A better frame acknowledges, with eyes wide open, the damages and challenges after ending a marriage. Especially a lengthy one. It feels the pain. I know for me, my “fuck meter” was pretty much red zoned for over a year by the amount of f bombs I lobbed on a daily basis.

A better frame understands you gotta feel it to heal it. But there are boundaries around the rage fest as well. And you understand rumination is not your friend.

Well, those are nice cheerleading words but then what, smarty-pants?

Then we roll up our sleeves, knowing there is work to be done and energy must be focused on healing. And yeah. About that healing bit.

I resist “everyone should” statements but I’m taking my liberty here when I say, get your ass into therapy.

Therapy is crucial because this is now totally about YOU, your unhealed childhood wounds, and examining your beliefs and behaviors that not only got you into the relationship initially, but staying in the relationship, long after it sours.

During this process, you may feel some relief that you no longer have to try to fix the couple’s issues. But it also means, you have nowhere to hide, no one to blame… you must face your own demons.

Sure, air the grievances with the therapist. Get that anger out. But a good therapist will help you process it and move on, because this is ultimately about the quality of your life and happiness. And please note, this is a process that takes time. So don’t feel like you’ll have that sorted after a session or two.

Healing from must begin within yourself

The book, Spiritual Divorce: Divorce as a Catalyst for an Extraordinary Life by Debbie Ford was a road map for me.

I bought another book on divorce that had an entirely different approach: Kick the bum out, shake the dust off your feet, and move on. I thought it might provide a little catharsis to hear other’s taking this sort of action. But it did nothing of the sort. It only helped strengthen my resolve to not turn into a rage-oholic bitch.

But still, my offended and hurt ego wanted to just rehash the pain, over and over.

Instead, I try to remember this is now all about ME. And I must ask a different set of questions.

What can I control? What do I want now? If I were to die today, would I be happy with how I’ve lived my life? Or that big existential question: Who am I? (Especially important after a lifetime of having a set role as a wife and mother.)

Don’t those questions feel more empowering?

My spirituality changes another question from “why did this happen to me” to “why not have this happen to me”. (This came in handy for dealing with breast cancer as well.)

Spiritually speaking, my understanding of how great love and great suffering are intertwined, has deepened my faith. Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr, has taught me so much about this. While Falling Upward isn’t a book on divorce, the wisdom in it is very applicable. It is one of my favorite books by him.

In Falling Upward, he writes, “All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain.” And yes, this includes the pain from infidelity and/or divorce.

This is what drives me to look for a better frame.

By using a better frame, I am learning to surrender easier. (Does surrender ever truly get easy?) I am learning to practice self-compassion as a default setting instead of beating myself up.

I am also forced to look at my shadow as well and own up to my many shortcomings. This is not to try to shame myself into trying to look better on the outside. (Shame is a really shitty tool that only condemns a person but makes the finger-pointer feel superior.) But rather by loving myself, with God’s help, to heal the broken places, many from childhood wounds.

A strange thing begins to happen when we move toward these practices.

Transformation

This is not self-improvement. This is not a divorce recovery success story. And it sure is hell isn’t something that can be packaged into Life Changing! seminar (Early bird special of $5000!) to fix your life in a weekend.

Transformation is from the inside out and is the evidence of the grace that resides in each and every human. But cultural training has sent us clamoring after looking good and sounding good so we reject the inner gold.

Transformation is about realigning with our true selves, where there is an abundance of love flowing both inward and outward. It brings the realization that we are all broken creatures AND are also beautiful and worthy of love and belonging. Notice I didn’t say “but also…” Because this is not an either/or. It’s a both/and. And it all belongs. We are all light and shadow.

Few will ever take this path though because the cost of admission is willingness to sit with your pain.

This is quiet, internal work too. You will not receive any accolades. But the beauty is… that shit just doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is learning to love one another and ourselves better.

The more I realize there is more sand in the bottom of my hourglass, the more I realize how precious short our time on earth is. I don’t want to waste it.

I don’t want to cheapen the value of this one and precious life by spending it by ruminating on angry or vindictive thoughts.

Am I doing this divorce recovery perfectly? Hell no. But am I encouraged by the freedom and peace I find as I continue to move forward and fall back down again? Yes. Because somehow, I find the grace to get back up again.

This allows me to find forgiveness not just for him, but for myself. We all fuck up at times. And yeah, sometimes those fuckups ripple out and fuck up a lot more people. We humans seem to have a knack for it.

All the more need for grace. This quote from Ted Lasso really hit me in the feels.

“I hope that either all of us, or none of us, are judged by the actions of our weakest moments, but rather by the strength we show when, and if, we’re ever given a second chance.”

Divorce may just well be the second chance for the new life you wanted.

This is where I hope you connect with your inner strength to choose better

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