My pending divorce is about as uncomplicated and no-conflict as it gets.
Husband #2 and I don’t have any children together. There is no co-parenting to navigate. No child support. No visitation. No Disney Dad Syndrome. He has his kids (long gone from home by the time I came on the scene). I have my kids (now moving into young adulthood and ready to leave the nest permanently in a few years).
We’re not suing each other for spousal support, alimony, or whatever you want to call it.
Asset splitting has already taken place. All that is left to attend to is the car titles. I need to remove him from my car title, he needs to remove me from his car title. Ending our “marriage business arrangement” will take place when we finally sign the “disillusionment of the marriage”… aka divorce papers.
And I’ll change my last name one more time.
We don’t fight.
We don’t communicate, at least not for the last three months since our final phone call.
My expectation for the future is that I will never see him again simply because we live too far apart and our paths will never cross.
Yet, with all of these non-issues, I can honestly say:
Our divorce SUUUUUUUCKS
No matter how you slice it, we’re still two people who used to love each other. Now we’re facing off in a Me Versus You battle. It’s written at the top of every legal document that refers to our union ending:
Plaintiff, Husband #2 vs. Defendant, Deja Vow
My Twitter feed is filled with people who are having “happy divorces” and throwing parties with divorce cakes and wishing each other “congratulations on new beginnings” and it just makes me want to throw up from all the seemingly false bravado and superficiality. I don’t personally know these people but I wonder if they should have ever gotten married at all – based on the minimal amount of impact the demise of their marriage seems to have caused them.
Divorce as a wonderful experience??? You’d think so with some of sugary comments.
I wondered for a long time if I was being petty, or maybe overly dramatic, or dare I say it, a victim. But yesterday I found something on my Facebook feed that summed it all up perfectly – a writer with the same tormented feelings that I’ve struggled to articulate.
I was reading and nodding and agreeing and, more importantly, empathizing. This guy verbalized what I already knew. Divorce rips you to shreds no matter how much of a non-event you try to make it.
Oh, I get that you can sew yourself back together into something different – possibly even better – but why couldn’t you (or I or anyone) experience the same growth with a supportive partner rather than in spite of an oppositional ex?
But what about those times when the memories bubble to the surface. For him, it’s standing in the kitchen. For me, it’s breakfast on Wednesday mornings, sweeping the bamboo floors, even cleaning the shower.
When it all boils down to the basics, that’s where relationships are made… in small, daily, seemingly unimportant exchanges like eating French toast every Wednesday, the two of us laying bamboo flooring throughout our home, and cleaning the shower tile that Husband #2 installed in the bathroom before we even finished unpacking our moving boxes in our new home. The big trips were nice, but the daily ritual of lighting a fire while having tea and coffee outside on our patio, listening to the birds sing… ah…
Those are the memories that tear me apart at the seams. I’m surrounded by them and they won’t leave me alone.
Divorce sucks.
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