Yes, Divorce Sucks, but So Does Living a Lie

I sometimes write about my experience getting divorced and the lessons it taught me, and I also read a lot of other authors writing on the same topic. Some of that is curiosity—was their experience similar to mine?—and some is for my edification and healing.

My heart cracked in two at a response left on someone else’s post: The commenter and his wife are splitting up—her choice not his—and he is still feeling resistant and reluctant like this is being foisted upon him unwanted. They were solid, he says. They have a good life and two small children.

He’s deep in the hurt stage. The part where you shake your hands at the sky and scream “WHY,” or burrow under the covers, unable to eat or shower or do basic housekeeping tasks. Nothing I say in response will make a difference, but I also know he’s not the only one out there suffering heartbreak.

I wish I could offer him tranquility. I wish I could tell him that even when something like this is thrust upon you unsought, there is beauty and magic in what follows the healing stages. I wish I could share my own (eventual) relief at the fact that my ex filed.

“We were happy,” he laments. The thing is, divorce is likely not a decision his wife made impulsively. Particularly when there are small children in the picture, people tend to drag their feet more often than they rush considerable life decisions. And happy people don’t usually throw their lives into upheaval. Most likely he was distracted with work or other areas of his life and complacent—hey! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—and she either buried her real feelings until they came bubbling up, or tried to share with him repeatedly how she was feeling, only to find nothing ever changed. Nothing she said mattered.

Overwhelming frustration and hollowness inside usually prompts changes like divorce.

But perhaps I’m just projecting my own story onto his.

While I wasn’t the one who filed (though I had certainly mulled it over through the later years of my marriage), there was an eventual sense of relief. It didn’t happen right away—maybe not even the first year post-divorce—but eventually, I got through the heaviest part of the grief and started seeing this newfound freedom as a blessing. I lost so much in the split—finances, friends, family—but I found myself.

I would no longer have to be the receptacle for someone complaining constantly about hating his job but refusing to look for something else. I would no longer have to listen to the only three topics of conversation that he wanted to have (his daily health status, day trading with stocks, and Fortnite video games). I would no longer have to constantly shelve that sense of frustration and rejection every time I asked if he wanted to join me on an adventure or outing and he said no. I would no longer have to accept him belittling my fears and invalidating my worries, and then railing at my inability to be vulnerable with him. I would no longer have to bury myself to keep the status quo.

Change doesn’t happen in our comfort zones. Change occurs when we are shoved—or we push ourselves to strive for something more—and it’s rarely comfortable. Usually, it’s messy and accompanied by breakdowns. But change, like any good metamorphosis, reveals the next level of growth. Divorce, like any major transition, catapults us toward what follows.

So, to the gentleman who is in the midst of his heartbreak, I wish you peace. I urge you to heal, and to eventually see this for the opportunity it presents: You are about to have focused time with your kids, since you won’t see them every day, and your time with them is precious. Your quality of interactions will uplevel. And if you can reflect honestly about your relationship and the roles you played, you’ll find the standards and boundaries you want to settle into place moving forward.

Living an inauthentic life is like living in a barbed wire cage of your own making: Don’t brush up too closely against the sides, or you’ll shred yourself to bloody ribbons. Here’s your chance to shed all the ways you stifled your spirit to make your spouse happy. Here’s your chance to break free of that cage and shine and find authentic happiness. Maybe not right away, but eventually.

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Previously Published on medium

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