I sat down recently to write about the end of my marriage. Someone needs to hear this, someone needs this story, I thought. I had 1000 or so words typed out and started shaking. I realized the details around the demise of my marriage still have a strong impact on me and may be better told after some deep work with a trained professional. So I tabled the topic and wrote about other things.
But I’ve dated people who were in varying stages of their own divorces, and I have friends who have divorced, even my own parents divorced. I am not an expert, but I do have firsthand experiences with all aspects of the aftermath of the end of a marriage. You tend to learn a few things during the throes of the legal process and the emotional, physiological, and social fallout. Stepping into single parenting, single living, and trying to date and find love when your forever didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to is terrifying, surreal, filled with grief, self exploration, and a lot of mistakes. So let me share (at least) five things I learned from my divorce.
1. There is no shame in walking away from a relationship that is no longer working.
I’m sure my divorce made waves. I am sure there were some who talked about me behind my back. One acquaintance commented on a Facebook post that I had made up the things I experienced so that I could get out of the marriage and take the house. You’re not going to stop people from judging, talking, making assumptions. But hear this loud and clear – NO ONE walks away from a marriage without a considerable amount of thought, pain, and determination that life apart is better than life together.
If holes are being punched or kicked in walls. If one of you has a substance abuse problem. If there is shouting that frightens your children. If you cry yourself to sleep every night praying for a way out. If there is any form of infidelity. If you have tried therapy and the problems persist. If you have talked and argued and asked and talked some more and your fundamental needs are not being met, you hold your head high and you walk away and you do not listen to anyone who thinks they know better. Because everyone’s fundamental needs are different, and the only two people who know if they can make it work are the two people who exchanged rings and signed paperwork. The only person who has to live with your life is you, and if walking away is what you need to do, then do it. Fuck them.
The data shows in the United States, divorce rates are dropping, 40 – 50% of marriages are still ending in divorce. Of those, around 70% of divorces are being initiated by women. I fall into that statistic. I was the one who filed for divorce. By the time my marriage ended, I had not felt real love for my husband in over a year. Feeling generally unsafe in your own home has that effect.
I stayed in my 16 year marriage probably 15 years longer than I should have. There was evidence immediately that substance abuse existed, but we were young and I was idealistic. I thought love would get us through anything. I was so wrong. Remaining in an unsafe relationship had a profoundly negative impact on my mental health, my self worth, and how I am able to function in relationships since then. It has had a profoundly negative impact on my child. We are both in the process of healing, but if I had worried less what other people thought, I probably would have gotten out much faster.
I wish I had been more honest with my friends and family up front. I wish I had told someone it was that bad a lot sooner than I did. A lot of people around me saw the signs, but few understood how truly bad it was. They expressed relief when I finally told them. They swooped in to help in whatever way they could. I wasted a lot of time suffering alone because I thought it was better not to tell anyone. Please do not stay in places where you are made to be afraid, where your life revolves around managing the moods and varying levels of sobriety of another human. I loved my husband, but there is no amount of love in the world worth losing yourself to another person’s demons.
2. Your Tribe Is Your Lifeline – Because Adjusting to Single Parenthood Is Going to Suck. A Lot.
You’re going to find yourself managing logistics, like lawyers and paperwork, splitting finances, dividing assets, moving, rearranging daycare and school dropoff schedules. What might be a delicate logistics dance with a spouse is going to become infinitely more complex when you’re doing it alone, but you’re going to get through it. You’re going to lay awake at night worrying about money, feeling loneliness crushing you into the floor, wondering if you’re screwing your kids up breaking up the family like this. Your spouse may or may not step up as a solid co-parent. And where once you had someone there at the end of the day to debrief and help carry the load, you’ll now be alone with all of it and no one to talk to.
I’m hyper-independent and carry the enduring belief that I am a burden to those around me, so asking for help was really difficult for me to do. But I knew I needed help, and I found a safe person who I trusted to help me. In my case, this was my dad. I wish I had leaned on my friends more. I wish I had told them about the loneliness, the fear, the worry, the devastating weight of a life built around two adults being present that had now shifted entirely to my shoulders. Many of the things I carried alone would have been easier if I had asked for help just a little bit more. My friends love me, we show up for each other during the darkest times. They would have been there in a heartbeat. And I wouldn’t have slipped so deeply into depression carrying it alone had I held up my hand and told someone I was drowning.
Your people love you, but they don’t know what you need if you don’t tell them. So call in the tribe early and as often as their schedules will allow. You’re going to need a hand, a last minute babysitter, or someone to sit with you while you process the enormity of the end of a dream. A divorce is like a death. When someone dies, we show up with food and comfort, we hold space for the bereaved. We pray, we cry, we mourn. Allow yourself to do that with your friends and family.
3. Therapy. Full stop.
I waited until last year, nearly 5 years after my divorce, at the devastating end of yet another relationship, after the death of my dad, after I turned my life upside down and moved from the city back to my hometown, before I got myself into therapy. I needed it before the divorce, and I definitely needed it afterward. By the time I started going, I had so much trauma and loss built up that it felt like I would never find the other side of it. I did not have the tools to understand how to navigate what I experienced in the marriage, and I certainly did not have the tools to help me navigate the relationships that would come after. I needed trauma support and a way to process my feelings in a safe environment. Instead I processed alone, poorly. My son felt my short temper. He felt my impatience. He felt my grief. He watched me struggle over and over again, all while processing his own grief about how his life had changed.
I have been finding my voice again, looking hard at the ways I abandon myself in relationships, picking apart all the ugly emotions I stuffed away so that I wouldn’t have to face them, and unleashed all the fear I had bottled up and carried around with me. It has been the hardest and most rewarding thing I could do for myself, and for my son. We’re both thriving where once we were just surviving. Don’t wait until the death of a parent or the 200th panic attack or the 5th failed relationship to get help. You need it now. You need it if you ever want to find a healthy relationship in the future. And you need it so that the brokenness from the marriage doesn’t follow you into single parenthood. If you can’t do it for you, do it for your kids.
The good news is: It is never too late to get into therapy. So you didn’t start then; start now. So I lost 4 years of healing work, my son and I are both so much better with the support we get. Most clinics and therapists will bill you on a sliding scale based on income. Some insurances and Employee Assistance Programs will cover some of the cost. Use every single benefit offered to you through work, and discuss your financial situation with the therapist.
You may need to see a few therapists before you find one that is right for you. They need to be professional enough to hold up the patient/provider relationship but you need to feel comfortable enough to open up to them completely. Therapy only works if you can walk in and be completely honest about EVERYTHING. Your therapist can’t help you if you don’t let them see all of it. And it’s ok if the first one doesn’t feel right. Most clinics have multiple clinicians, and therapists do not take it personally if you are not a good fit. They want you to heal and you can’t heal if you don’t trust them. Don’t feel bad if you need to try on a few. I was lucky enough to click with my therapist right away. My son had to see a couple before we found someone he aligned with enough to start doing the work. Give it time. And actually do the work. If you are given homework, do it.
4. Staying for the Kids Isn’t for the Kids At All
I stuck it out after our son was born, even though I realized the marriage was done during the 2nd month of my son’s life. I knew I couldn’t trust him to keep my baby while I traveled for work. I knew that he was not the kind of man I wanted my son to grow up to be. And I still stayed, for four more years.
I have watched people I know and love sit in tense silence next to their spouses, their skin crawling at having to be near the other person. I’ve seen the anxiety on their children’s faces, knowing another fight could erupt at any moment. There is some research that says that children benefit from having two parents in the home, but the nuance is that the parents need to be capable of working together for the good of the children. No couple I have witnessed who stayed together for the kids was actually doing it for the kids. They were staying out of fear, because of finances, because there were codependent dynamics present, and because they were afraid of starting over again apart. When two people are no longer in love and are no longer capable of healthy communication, the children are the first to suffer. Every time.
My son was young enough that he only remembers parts of his childhood when we all lived together. But he remembers the yelling, the doors slamming, “daddy talking funny.” He remembers when I called the police, and he remembers the aftermath. He was fully aware of what was going on no matter how hard I worked to keep it from him. We forget they are whole entire humans with functioning brains who are just as aware as we are of when voices are raised in the next room, or when someone has been crying. So many couples pretend their kids don’t know what’s going on, but they do. And you’re teaching them that slamming doors, raised voices, silent treatment, arguing, crying, constant tension or drama – those are things they can accept for themselves in their future relationships. You are teaching them that love should hurt. That love should be disfunctional. That love should be filled with drama. You are teaching them to repeat the cycle. And no one benefits from this kind of cycle repeating.
The first time my ex husband screamed at me, punched the roof of the car from the passenger seat with my son in the back seat while I drove us home, and I heard my son screaming “Daddy, stop, you’re scaring her!” That was it. I was done. Full stop. Staying meant he was going to watch the most important man in his life treat the most important woman in his life like a punching bag, and I will be damned if I let my son grow up thinking that is normal.
5. The Dating Scene is a Nightmare
You’re coming out of a long term relationship. For many, it has been over a decade since they had to think about dating. You have lived a decent portion of your life being comfortable with one human, having habits and patterns with someone who knows all your flaws, warts, and demons. There is some comfort in a marriage when they have seen absolutely every side of you. It’s easier to take your clothes off. To let your mask fall off, to let your guard down when you have built that kind of comfort with another person.
And then you re-enter the dating world older, with trauma and baggage, into a digital dating world that is fueled by apps, where users can scroll endlessly a seemingly limitless menu of dating options. All different shapes, colors, careers, interests, backgrounds. Any flavor you want, there are at least three of them swiping right on you and asking the inevitable “So how’s your day/night/weekend going?” Distilling your entire personality and lived experience into 200 characters or less. Selecting the most flattering pictures of you.
And you will find that people lie. I wrote a separate post about the perils of online dating and the kinds of men you will meet. The data is terrifying on its own. Dating apps encourage people to avoid commitment. They encourage people to have more sex and less meaningful interactions.
When you first become single, the years of grinding away and losing yourself in a marriage can make meeting new people exciting. And everyone fresh out of a long term relationship is starving to feel desired again. It is going to be tempting to give in to that need to feel validated, to feel seen. Every new person you meet will make you feel that. But let me tell you – that first heartbreak with the man you date after divorce is going to feel almost as bad as the divorce. Because you have convinced yourself that the marriage was so bad that the next one is for sure going to be your soulmate. They are not.
If you have not done the work in therapy, you are going to waste time on a lot of people who want your attention without committing to you. The validation you seek to fill the emptiness inside you is only going to work for a short time. And if you haven’t done your own work to understand your own trauma responses, your own toxic contributions to the marriage, then you’re going to carry all of that into every relationship you have afterward. Take my advice – do the work to heal before you even think about setting up a dating profile. Your future self deserve that time to heal.
6. You’re Going to Be Ok
I count myself lucky. I had the good fortune to find a good paying job in the career field I always wanted to be in. This afforded me the ability to pay for my bills on my own. To not have to move out of the house. And the house was completely in my name. My ex husband didn’t fight me, so I kept the house. I made strategic moves to ensure my son’s life would be disrupted as little as possible. I could afford a lawyer, and now I can afford therapy. So many women are not so lucky, and I recognize that. My good fortune did not, however, lessen how hard it was in the first couple years, and even today. No one can prepare you for the crush of being devastated while holding down a full time job, raising small children, and trying to re-enter the dating scene.
You are going to cry. You are going to rage. You are going to sometimes take your stress out on your kids. And you are going to make many, many mistakes. We’re all human, and divorce is one of the most difficult things a human can go through. In the darkest, loneliest moments remember: no matter how hard it is, the strength it took to walk away and start over from scratch – that strength is going to get you through every single hard day you have. The peace in your home and the freedom you will begin to feel when you start living life on your own terms, not having to ask for permission or tiptoe around someone else’s moods is going to set your soul on fire. You are going to meet both the worst, and then the best versions of yourself and you will take your own breath away with how strong you are capable of becoming. There will come a time when you will look back on your marriage, the divorce process, the struggle immediately afterward, and it will feel like bootcamp for your soul to be ready for the best life you’ll be able to live after you’ve adjusted, done the work, and found yourself on the other side of it.
It’s going to be ok. I promise.
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