Imagining how our friends will fall in the wake of a divorce reveals much about our character and values.
___
Let’s say I’m in my early forties, married, the father of a young child. Now let’s say that I’ve been with my wife less than ten years, more than seven, and that this is the longest relationship I’ve ever experienced in my life. Throw into the mix other married friends. Okay, now throw in a few divorced friends, separated friends, and, say, one or two single friends.
These are our friends.
What would it mean to our friends if we said adios? What would our friends do? Would I come out on the winning side on that front? Is there a winning side?
|
Now say I’m happy at times. Say I’m not so happy at other times. These ups and downs, they’re completely normal, I think. Life 101, right? Now let’s say that infidelity strikes my marriage (doesn’t matter who’s to blame). The non-cheating spouse says no, I won’t forgive you; we’re done. You strayed. I neither trust you nor want to forgive you.
It doesn’t matter if we have one kid, or two kids, or enough kids to have some reality show whose title rhymes with fate or great or bait.
It’s over.
We have a mortgage to deal with, property, finances, pets, DVDs, photos, cutlery. We have pots and pans and shit neither of us ever uses but are unwilling to part with.
Our problem is complicated enough. But then comes the question of our friends. What about them? How will Bill and Sarah and Judith and Mike and the Warrens factor into our lives moving forward? Will everyone still remain our friends?
◊♦◊
The answer, I think, is that it depends. Sometimes everything works out. Sometimes nothing does. Friends, like marriages, are relationships. Some last till death. Others are short-term deals, like that one-night mishap your first year out of college with that hot bartender. Most are probably somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t mean they’re failures if they don’t end with someone’s death. Some friendships—especially those based on the relationship with a couple rather than a member of the couple—are just as complicated (if not more complicated) than the actual married couple’s relationship.
This is life. This is reality.
When a couple divorces and you’re friends with both parties, here’s what happens: you’re fucked. Not always, of course. Some couples mutually fall out of love, or one of them realizes they’re gay. Those are the good breakups. The happy divorces. I’m being facetious, of course—there are no “happy” divorces, although I do believe some people are better off divorced, and I commend them when they choose to follow through. Sometimes it’s the right move for both of them, and they both realize it. They shake hands, walk off into the sunset, and that’s it. Even so, when you’re the friend of a couple that divorces, you’re fucked.
It’s a strange place to be.
♦◊♦
I thought about my marriage. What would it mean to our friends if we said adios? What would our friends do? Would I come out on the winning side on that front? Is there a winning side? Would I lose friends I thought were more my friends than my wife’s? Would one of her friends betray her? What about my wife’s friend, X? Would she ring me up, console me?
Would any of us get drunk one night to reminisce about some party long ago when she’d come over our house, gotten ripped, and jumped into the community pool in her underwear? Would she do it again, this time on purpose?
What about Jim? Would Jim, my archenemy at work, the guy who, for some bizarre reason, also watches Korean soap operas and Glee, find out about my divorce and friend my wife on Facebook?
It’s an odd world, the world that is created when friends divorce. If you’re mature, you might talk to the couple one on one, figure that stuff out. I guess that’s the smart thing to do.
But I’m not smart. I’m not mature. Our friends know that. They’ve accepted those faults in me. Why would they want to put me through the pain of breaking up with me once they learn I’m getting divorced?
◊♦◊
I broke down our mutual friendships into three categories: friends who would gravitate my way, friends who would gravitate my wife’s way, and those who’d remain friends with both of us.
The process was a lot less complex than I thought it would be. Very few fell to the third category. Let’s say three at most. One of them I’m being very generous on—I’m pretty sure they’d swing to my wife given the chance. They do it now when my wife and I are in separate rooms.
I’m a little bit of a thug. I’m rough around the edges.
|
After those three, though, it’s pretty much a slaughter. My wife, petite and sweet as she is, is a killer when it comes to winning the hypothetical friend-custody-battle. I have a couple of hard-drinking tattooed fellows on my side, but she wins, hands down, everywhere else.
She gets lawyers and designers, technology consultants and housewives. She gets our straight friends and our gay friends, our well-established professional friends and our as-of-yet-unsure-what-I-want-to-be-in-life friends. She gets people who can cook, and others who teach at respectable universities. People she can call to pick up our kid and not get stopped by security before entering the building.
I get guys that will probably be on liver donation lists, guys that think chatting up the gal at the strip club is having a meaningful relationship. Pitiful? Sure. But I’m not shocked. They say opposites attract, and I think it’s pretty much true.
I’m a little bit of a thug. I’m rough around the edges. I curse like I have a vocabulary of ten words, six of them curses, and I don’t mind having holes in the seat of my jeans. My wife? She’s kind. She’s funny. She’s the sweetest person I know, and when she works for you, she gives it her all, and you want her to work for you forever.
What I’m saying is that she’s respectable, and I’m just your average shmo. And friends? Friends usually aren’t looking to be friends with shmoes. Not if they’re given an option between a shmo and a non-shmo.
♦◊♦
Let me ask a final hypothetical. Say we get or are in the process of getting divorced, and I ask one of our mutual friends for, say, help with custody of my kid. Should I be mad if they say no? What if they say Yes, let’s bash your ex-wife to shit, win you some custody! What then? Do I accept it? Is that what I want to do?
Divorce is tough enough, I think. If my wife and I were divorcing, I’d want to set up some rules beforehand, some decency boundaries, at minimum. In an ideal world, I’d say:
Honey, here’s the deal. Before it gets ugly, let’s set some rules. Nothing crazy just, you know, sanity checks and balances. Like, for instance, Rule Number One: No pressure on our friends to choose sides. We can be friends with whomever we want, unless our friends have a preference. Let them decide. We give them enough rope, leeway, that sort of thing, and they make their decision. How does that sound? Cool? Honey? You there? Dear?
Photo by Scarleth White/Flickr.
I hear you. Personally I think women are much more social than men, in particular after a couple goes from dating to married. I know that’s how it is in my marriage. I have a couple close friends, but that’s really about it. My wife has more friends than I do, and even the ones that were my friends first communicate with her to make plans. It’s a duty she’s taken over and one I’ve gladly relinquished. And I’m with you–most of the women friends we have are much more interesting and fun to be around than their husbands. Maybe… Read more »
What about all those ” couples friends” that you both saw frequently mostly because of HER relationship with the other woman? I found a quite a few “friends” that fell into the category of “If it was up to me, I would have never been friends with this guy to start with”. Another strange thing about the friends who are couples. I find the woman to be much more interesting than their husbands. Now I don’t see them much because I’d rather not hang around their husbands. This has hurt feelings with the ladies and I don’t have the heart… Read more »
Thank you
Great article!
It’s an odd situation to be in for sure, Hershey’s Kiss. I think like everything else in life, the older you get, the more experiences you have, the more eye-opening life events take place. Now that I’m in my 40’s, I know a lot more about it. Crews do break up.
Ohhhhh yeah! Great post. When we got divorced I told him “I keep my girlfriends and you keep your guy friends.” Luckily we each “got” most of our own respective friends int he divorce. But there was one couple, *June & Bill* of which I was going to cry over if they went to him in the divorce (lol). So I told him, you get Bill and I get June. AS it happens, they are both friends with him to this day but closer to me. Muahahaha. No but seriously, yeah it sucks when your friends get divorced. Now that… Read more »
I think I saw that, Gint. If I recall, it was pretty damn funny. Life is unfair all around sometimes. It’s how you deal with it, how you cope, that’ll dictate whether or not you adjust and move on or get left in the dust. Divorce would be a much more pleasant process if couples could look ahead, put aside the drama, and think logically and realistically instead of leading with emotions. I know, pretty impossible. But only if.
I don’t remember which season it is of Curb Your Enthusiasm (#3?). Larry finally divorces, and all of his friends come to tell him that they’re “going with Rachel”. She, of course, wakes up to what a douche Larry actually is, buys a beach house, and begins a life of mellow interaction with her beloved friends. They flock to her easily while Larry is left to contemplate his sad self. It’s fiction, and Larry is quite annoying. However, there’s a bit of social commentary there regarding “the decision”. In some cases, you just can’t choose both partners, especially when the… Read more »
I hear you, going through the same thing myself. Lets just say my battle of friends went along lines : Me: Me Grug have spear. Ex-Wife: Panzer Battalion Ready, Take Aim, Fire. Sir we are happy to report we only needed to fire one salvo on the first 2000 tanks to detroy the enemy. 100% enemy casualties reported sir To be fair all of our friends are married with kids and she has a lot more regular contact with them though school pickup and such than I have had. My old friends(pre-marriage) are still my friends but a million miles… Read more »
Sorry to hear it, Luke. Keep on trucking. You did make me laugh with the Panzer Battalion, and it sounds like you have a pretty good assessment of the situation, and a realistic and honest view of why the relationships are as they are. Thanks
Often women put a lot more effort into maintaining friendships. They have more open and intimate relationships with the other women. They are members of the women-only mommy club and work even harder at winning the perception battle when their marriage breaks down.
For many men, their wife is the only person they truly let in and share innermost thoughts with and so …
When the marriage ends, the man, proud in s independence finds himself more alone than hour would have expected.
Some Karma there and some cultural roles playing out, but it sucks just the same.
I want to disagree with you, but I can’t. Except maybe for the perception battle part–I’ve seen both sides of the coin, and neither side was pretty. Your point about men and only sharing their innermost thoughts, etc. I think is pretty spot on. Cultural roles absolutely, in my opinion and experience, definitely drive who we are and how we react when it comes to this particular topic. Thanks, Randomizer, for your comments.
D.A. Wolf–you are so very right. It’s a tough thing all around. It’d be great if people put the anger aside, looked at it as lessons learned and good times had, and went on afterwards in a mature, caring way. We can only hope.
Sometimes, it’s so otherworldly, so ugly, so muddled, the friends back away from all involved, not wanting to be dragged into the warfare.
Sometimes the war rages so long, the last thing you’re worried about is the friends. You want yourself and the kids to come out at the end of the long dark tunnel, as intact as possible.
If you’re lucky, their friends remain their friends, and eventually you will make new friends.
If you’re lucky, that is.
John Mellencamp ain’t John Mellencamp for no reason–that’s a great line. It’s a good thing to think about, I think, thought no one wants to. It’s a tough thing to realize–the fragility of relationships, especially the ones you’re in. But we all have divorced friends. We all know, I believe, the pain and awkwardness of dealing with friends after they’d split up. It’s never easy. But ideally everyone will figure it out in their own smart, mature way, how to get along, because friendships are important. I’m glad your wife still has a thing for you, Steve. I’m sure you… Read more »
That’s some brutal no-bullshit reality right there. There’s a line in a John Mellencamp song, “The Real Life,” that says “but her friends were really his friends, and no one stops by to see her much anymore.” I have no illusions about how things would fall in the case of my own marriage. I’d be mostly at home collecting whiskey bottles and delivery pizza boxes while my wife enjoyed the company and comfort of friends. There are a couple of military buddies that would keep in touch, but they’re scattered over the globe. This is a good reminder not to… Read more »