Divorce

I've been thinking a fair bit about divorce, lately.

Not mine, I hasten to add. Eva is every inch still the "wife of my days,
the companion of my journey,
the friend to my life",
as our vows predicted and affirmed she would be. But all around me relationships are either teetering or outright collapsing, and it's a heart-wrenching thing to watch.

I am a child of divorce myself: a bitter, acrimonious divorce far too personal to detail that happened when I was five years old. My mother kept exhaustive scrapbooks of the first seven years of my life; some of the stuff written in them for the year 1977 I can actually recall on my own, while other things are best viewed through the prism of a relationship dissolving in a house full of acid.

I still vividly recall thinking...no, knowing...that it was my fault. My five-year-old brain was certain that I was a VERY BAD BOY. I was repeatedly told, of course, that I hadn't done anything to cause this, so I decided if it wasn't something I did, it had to be something I was. Which was ever so much worse. Done things could be undone, even at five I knew that. Things that were...how could you make them...not be? Things that weren't, like my parents, together...how could you make them be, again? I didn't understand.

On some level, I think, I never did fully outgrow that perceived rejection, despite the best efforts of my mother AND father AND stepfather. I say this not to assign blame (there being none to assign): divorce was quite simply the only reasonable course of action for my parents and once I was old enough to really appreciate that, I became, and remain, IMMENSELY glad they took that course. And there is absolutely no reason, based on how I was treated during and after, for me to have internalized "rejection". Nevertheless, I think I did.

In my prepubescent and early teenage years I was rejected by virtually every one I came in contact with, and that was my doing, or rather my being,  to a very large degree. Once the 'nerd' label was affixed, I couldn't seem to peel it off, so I decided I would be the nerdiest nerd in all of nerdom. The god of geekery, the sultan of spaz, the...you get the picture. Why was I so nerdy? Well, to escape the drama playing out in my house when I was a little kid, I had two choices: I could go outside, or I could go upstairs, to my room where my books were. That was no contest. Outside was only one world. Each book was a world unto itself.

It all ties in.

Once I started to grow up -- way too late, considering I'm 43 now and I'm not entirely sure I've finished yet -- I gained a modicum of social grace and shed some of the shackles of the outcast. But I've always, always, been quick to feel rejected, unwanted, unneeded, unloved. Losing my job last year, for all my bluster about how I'm not my job, really sent that rejection-meter into the red zone. I mean, we're talking retail here. Retail, not rocket surgery.  I thought I was good at retail. ("It's a business decision", they told me. The store manager actually said "this is not because of anything you've done."

Yeah, right, I know how this goes.

That spiralled out. I suffered a very real, extremely painful rejection a couple of months later that took almost a year to get over, and since then I think everyone's been trying to walk on eggshells around me, which only breaks eggs. I had my own little pity-omelet going all year. Actually, an omelet that big is probably better called a full-fledged omel.

You'll be pleased to know I'm mostly quits with that thought pattern. I had an episode of it the other night and was right soundly rebuked for it...whereas even six weeks ago I would have taken the rebuke as its own rejection, this time I just shrugged, said to myself yeah, I guess I had that coming...and walked away.  I'm thinking at this point I can count on people to tell me when it's actually me, and if they don't, well...it isn't.

The pills really are helping, it's not my imagination. I was in a solid good mood all night last night. My step was light, I had a smile on my face that wouldn't go away, and I got a HELL of a lot of work done. I'm not naive enough to think it's all moonshine and rainbows from here on out, but I have noticed there is a floor to my lows, now. I don't sink near as low and when I do sink, my thoughts don't go into that corrosive loop that was so familiar and so exhausting.

------------------------

Divorce, though.

I ran across a story in today's National Post--evidently a reprint from here--about "conscious uncoupling" and the rise of the "divorce selfie". (God, I hate even typing that word 'selfie', but it's a word that defines an age.)

TL;DR:

"In all those scenarios, couples have essentially reimagined what divorce is: neither a tragedy nor a failure nor a source of shame, in their minds, but a natural, amicable point of transition. In the process, of course, they’re reimagining what marriage is, as well: a partnership that, counter decades of Western thought, is not necessarily all-important, all-fulfilling or immutable. "

I am of two minds about this.

It's pointlessly antagonistic, almost in the way so many divorces are pointlessly antagonistic, to call this new trend "a celebration of failure". How many marriages do you know of that are just struggling along, without any joy or passion in them? Are those marriages "successful"? I'd say no, and I'd say it emphatically. It is very common in our society to equate longevity with success. Here's another perspective (click to embiggen):

Kudos to a couple who can separate amicably, being true to themselves and recognizing their life's paths no longer align.

Pity about the kids, though.

No matter how you spin it, divorce is hard on children. "Shared custody" isn't quite like being able to get a hug from Mommy in the living room and another from Daddy in the kitchen. From guilt to powerlessness to anger, the feelings kids go through mirror their parents' and are amplified, the way everything is when you're a child.  Which isn't to say parents with kids should not divorce; that's not what I am saying at all. But while you should never stay married "for the sake of the children", you should certainly make every effort to stay parents for their sake. Which means being civil when the kids are present. Which means not badmouthing the other parent to your kids ("you're just like your father!" was the worst epithet my mother could hurl at me, and it wasn't until I was 28 that I could give that 'insult' the response it deserved: "Thank you.") Which means making every effort to be in your kids' lives as much as you can. You may not owe your wife anything (beyond a hell of a lot of money, that is)...but you owe your kids. Big time. If you feel you don't...listen to this:



There is something to say for love, even after it has curdled. "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." And hold those kids tight.