I think I’m at that age where my “couple friends” are starting to be picked off like weakened gazelles by the roving predators of Sexy Outsiders, Fights About Money and Dear God, This Isn’t Where I Thought I’d Be Five Years Ago.
It’s making me beyond sad. It’s making me emotionally exhausted. And yes, I know that I’m not going through a divorce right now. I can’t fully comprehend the unique pain that my friends are suffering through. So I feel teh stupid writing a post about having pity on the friends of the divorced couples. It’s so lame I can’t even begin to believe I’m typing this out.
But you know what? I DO matter. My feelings and emotions DO count for something. I’ll grieve with you as your marriage dies, because I know how hard it is. Look, gang. I’ve been with the man who is my husband for nearly 18 years now. You’re seriously deluding yourselves if you think he and I haven’t had problems from time to time. There was a point in time where we both thought it was over, where he moved out because he couldn’t stand my behaviour. And I was happy to let him go. Well, we got over that through a lot of work and patience and caring and forgiveness. And it’s been hard.
Marriage is not like they tell you at the Retreats. Marriage is not all hearts and flowers and big houses and fancy cars and nineteen vacations a year. Marriage is good and BAD. Personally, I’d rather see everyone stay married. But I’m old enough to realise that I have no idea what goes on behind the closed doors of other people’s houses. I’m sure that there are many people who are not well and truly married. It is not my place to fault anyone who decides to get off the train for whatever reason.
But here’s the thing.
Let’s set a few ground rules, shall we?
- Just because you have a problem with the person you’re no longer married to, that doesn’t mean that I need to have the same problems with that person.
- You may have had bad luck with A man or A woman. That doesn’t mean that ALL men or ALL women are deserving of your contempt. So don’t force me to listen to “all men are a waste of time” or “all women are heartless bitches” speeches. I’m married to a good man and I’m a woman. I don’t care to be tarred with your bitterness brush.
- Don’t try to turn me against your Former Significant Other by telling me all the bad things your FSO has said about me or my husband behind my back.
- Don’t assume I don’t know that there are always at least three sides to every story.
- Don’t ever assume that I don’t love you. Because I do. I want to see everyone in the healthiest possible place. But I don’t want to be wounded as you go through your healing process.
A-friggin’-men!!!
Yes, divorce is a terrible, stressful, heartbreaking tragedy. Yes, there are some truly wretched spouses out there who leave no option but to call it quits. Yes, it’s important to be supportive and to cut people some slack when they’re dealing with their world being thrown into chaos. But please, divorced/divorcing people, don’t automatically assume just because marriage and/or the opposite sex are on your s–t list at the moment that everybody who offers you sympathy wants to throw their own spouse under the bus as a show of solidarity. As much as you don’t want to be stigmatized because you’re divorced, we don’t want to be stigmatized by you because we’re not.
And just because you don’t have any use for your former spouse anymore doesn’t mean that we now loathe them and want to cut them off. We know that it’s not all their fault and we probably still consider them a friend and a decent human being. And as cathartic and justifying as trashing them might feel to you, more often than not it just makes you seem bitter, spiteful and like something less than the 100% victim that you consider yourself to be.
Whew… I’ve been needing to say that for a long time.
The first paragraph of this post really made me think–because it scared me. In the back of our minds, my significant other (I know, but I hate using the term “boyfriend” since we’re not 16 and we own property together) and I can’t help but worry that marriage carries some sort of curse that breaks up relationships. (Well, I think he worries about it more than I do, but I know where he’s coming from.) Your first sentence makes me afraid that our worry is not unfounded–and not so much about *why* marriages break up, but the fact that they just do. I guess we’re sort of in a “if we never get married we can never get divorced” state of mind, as stupid as that sounds.
I think another item that is important is:
- If you’re not at this point yet, but you think you’re on your way there, don’t assume that you’re alone, unloved or on an irreversable path, because in some situations, if you address it early enough, you might avert what seems inevitable now, and I want to do what I can to help… which may not be much, but it might be something.
Of course, I don’t want to speak for you, but that’s how I feel.
Not to monopolize the posts here, but one of the factors in maintaining long term relationships is entering the relationship with similar expectations. For each of Kat’s examples, the split is one of a missed, and probably unrealistic expectation: “my wife will always be 125 lbs and we’ll have sex three times a day,” “both of us will work so that we’ll always live off of two large incomes so we can pay our financed futures with credit cards,” “my husband will make partner so I won’t have to work.” The reason why our grandparents’ marriages last so long is because their expectations were modest – their needs were more focused, and even when their expectations were not met, whether that was from outside or inner forces, there was more expectation that forgiveness and reconnection were the preferred reaction (as were the negative ideas of repression and societal hiding.)
I’m not an advocate of cohabiting, but being objective about your situation, I would think that you have enough experience with your “other” that you could both enter into marriage with realistic expectations.
I’m not an advocate of cohabiting, but being objective about your situation, I would think that you have enough experience with your “other” that you could both enter into marriage with realistic expectations.
I don’t know about that, I know several couples who were together years (as much as a decade or more) and when the finally got married were divorced within a single year.
I think that many (certainly not all) divorces come about because people are impatient. Relationships can be hard work and when the bump in the road turns out being a mountain sometimes it can seem a lot easier to turn around and go the other way instead of making the hike. I think for many couples a little perseverance may be all that’s necessary to get through the hard times. The state doesn’t find my relationship fit for marriage, but around The Boyfriend™ and I’s fourth year together we hit quite the rough patch that lasted probably a good 6 months (and even resulted in about a week long separation). Of course, now things are great, but it would have been very easy at any point in that period to have decided that things weren’t going to get any better and call it quits.
I think the reason so many marriage end in divorce now is because it’s a fast food/internet society. We expect results now. If things are bad today, we think they should be better by tomorrow, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.
The reason why our grandparents’ marriages last so long is because their expectations were modest
….
I think the reason so many marriage end in divorce now is because it’s a fast food/internet society. We expect results now. If things are bad today, we think they should be better by tomorrow, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.
This seems to be the trend I’m seeing over here on Still Married Island. The husband and I were fortunate to have a motto for our marriage.
“Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition.”
So much of what happens to ruin marriages, Cohabitant, seems to be that when a spouse becomes sick or loses a job or doesn’t become a doctor-lawyer-indian chief like they promised to when we first started dating back in the day it becomes fine to jettison them.
People of my generation don’t seem to understand the vagaries of life very well. Jobs WILL be lost. Homes WILL burn down. Women get fatter and men lose their hair. It shouldn’t matter, but it too often does.
I feel much the same way that you do right now. It’s mostly friends who’ve been together for between 10 and 15 years and it’s really shaking my faith in marriage in general. It’s just starting to feel like it’s all crumbling around me and even though I don’t feel like I have the right, I’m taking it very personally and very hard.
I’m not married, have never been engaged and have never cohabitated save for one roommate I had for a year and a half (if that counts). I’ve always doubted my ability to be married and the dissolution of marriages of many, many friends right now is not making me feel any better about my own prospects. It’s pretty self-absorbed to feel that way, but I do.
Fortunately, despite a lot of cheating that’s gone on and some other ill feelings, there’s been no mud-slinging or any expectations to dislike or shun the offending spouse. I suppose I’m very lucky there. So all of the angst I’ve been feeling is really just inside me (where I keep it because none of them need to deal with my problems when theirs are far greater).
Well said. I don’t always understand that when friends divorce, why I am forced to choose sides.
It is frustrating trying to remain friends with people going through divorce.
The divorce thing seems to roll around in cycles. I don’t know why.
Having been through the not-fun that is divorce, let me add my amen to your post.
I wouldn’t wish a divorce upon anyone….
I hope that when I was in the midst of it, I wasn’t as terribly awful as all of what you described you wish people wouldn’t be…but I probably was at times. That said, I haven’t had much contact with the ex since we got divorced…we had no kids and we don’t have any reason to be in contact….and my therapist said it might be best to have distance.
So, I do know that she’s married again…and when she sent me the note to tell me personally rather than have me find out second-hand, I appreicated it and was happy for her. I hope that her second marriage is a success and that she allows her new hubby to be the type of husband she needs him to be….which is something she wouldn’t let me do. I hope she’s learned from what we went through….
Now, if only I could find someone….I’m not talking marriage. I’d just like a second date…LOL
[...] Aug 14th, 2007 by Katherine Coble There is now one more person who is not speaking to me because of what I wrote on my blog. [...]