Divorce Does Not Happen 'Out of the Blue'

Myfriends Josh and Megan are getting a divorce. Call it a “casualty of Covid,” or merely issues that have come to a head, but none of the women in the friend circle are surprised.

Megan is not a harpy nor a nag; she doesn’t constantly complain about Josh. She rarely airs her “dirty laundry.” At least not in public. No one really knows what things are really like behind the scenes except the couple themselves, but from what we’ve seen of their dynamic in action, most of us figured it was only a matter of time. Josh is one of those guys who thinks his job as a corporate lawyer, earning the bulk of the money, absolves him from pitching in around the house when he’s home. Despite Megan working 50+ hours a week as a nurse, Josh defers to her when it comes to all things childcare-related for their two youngish children. He even refers to spending time (without Megan) with their 8- and 10-year-olds as “babysitting,” rather than as parenting. He grumbles or feigns incompetence when she asks him to pitch in around their house—the house he also lives in, eats in, sleeps in, makes a mess in. He feels that since he outearns her almost 3:1, he shouldn’t have to do housework. When he leaves work for the day, his contribution is set. Finished. Dunzo.

Megan first confided her frustration to us three or four years ago at a girls’ happy hour. She looked especially exhausted and frazzled, hair in a messy bun, makeup long since melted off her face, wrinkled sloppy clothing, dark circles like prunes under her eyes. We weren’t judging her; just thrilled she still showed up, but we could tell by her energy that things were not okay, so we prodded a bit. It was the first time she’d ever been less than social-media-presentation-positive in what she shared. After thanking her for her authenticity and honesty, we offered suggestions: Would they consider getting a housekeeper once or twice a week to take the load off Megan? Could they get a nanny a day or two a week? Could she try explaining to Josh how she felt and tell him what she needed from him?

She looked dejected when she replied that Josh wasn’t keen on the idea of strangers in his house when he wasn’t there, and that telling him how burnt out she felt and asking for more help had happened many times, but resulted in no changes.

We didn’t hear another complaint from her about her home life until the divorce announcement was public shortly after her 35th birthday.

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Josh feels completely blindsided. He thought things were good: the kids are healthy, they can afford specialty activities and lessons for the kids, he and Megan made good money, they have a nice house, drive late model cars, take a fancy family vacation every year…he doesn’t understand why Megan suddenly wants a change.

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The thing is, this change that Megan yearns for isn’t “all of a sudden” or “out of the blue.” It rarely is. She opened up a little more after the papers were served: from her perspective, she’s been telling Josh fairly consistently for four years that she’s not happy and that what had been the status quo wasn’t sustainable. She’s been asking him for help, and every time he brushed her off, she felt less and less connected and cared for by him. She started to feel that she didn’t matter (beyond her unpaid domestic service of cooking, cleaning, and tending the kids).

Her birthday came and went and Josh didn’t get her a present. He didn’t get her a card. He didn’t make dinner reservations to take her out. These are all things she specifically asked for. He did, however, pick up some premade flowers on the way home from work, which he handed her, still wrapped in cellophane, so that she could go hunt down a vase, trim the ends of the flowers, and arrange them in water. While simultaneously cooking dinner. And monitoring the kids’ homework. And folding laundry. All while he tugged off his tie, draped it over the back of a chair, and flopped down on the couch, switching the tv from whatever show the kids were watching to a baseball game.
It might sound like a sweet gesture—Hey! She should be happy he got her flowers!—but to Megan, it was one more task to add to her long list of things she needed to take care of. It felt like yet another chore that she was left alone to accomplish, hidden in a pretty wrapping.

Megan revealed later that it was all she could do not to scream and storm out of the house right then. She called a divorce attorney the next day. And it wasn’t about the fact that Josh didn’t make a fuss over her birthday. It wasn’t about the fact that he needs time after work to decompress. It was just the last straw: She was tired of feeling like she was expected to do everything at home, despite also working an emotionally exhausting and physically demanding job. She was tired of feeling unappreciated and taken for granted by her “partner.” She was tired of voicing how she felt to Josh, only to be dismissed or ignored.

She told me she’d been fantasizing about divorce for years. She’d had a card in her wallet with the name and number of a really good divorce attorney, knowing that calling her was the nuclear option, and waiting until she was absolutely certain before she used it. Every time Josh ignored her stated requests, her fingers itched to pull out the card and pick up the phone. The day after her birthday she finally did.

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Here’s the sad truth when it comes to divorce: Because it’s so expensive, because it drags everything into the light, because it encompasses heartbreak and broken dreams and severed relationships and disrupts your life as you’ve known it, no one gets divorced on a whim. To my knowledge, when you’ve been married for years (especially when you have kids), there’s no divorce equivalent of an elopement. Perhaps mediation—if you both already agree on how to split assets and time with the kids—but even that takes weeks at best.

It’s something that people think about for ages before they initiate proceedings. The decision torments you. You begin observing your partner, and every action either takes you closer to or further from splitting up. Every time you speak up and ask for what you need to feel safe or cared for in the relationship—and every time your partner dismisses or ignores you—adds fuel to the fire. Conversely, offering (and being able) to hear your partner and make changes, to renegotiate the terms of the relationship, means you’re one step closer to saving the marriage.

If you care about your partner and you believe them when they tell you what they need, figure out how to accommodate those requests. It just may save your marriage.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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