One of the biggest mistakes you can make after divorce? I made it and it’s this: hiding from the world.
It’s isn’t about shame, but it may be about embarrassment. It certainly was for me. I was mortified that my marriage was disintegrating and I couldn’t somehow repair it. And it all seemed worse because there was never an outward sign of a crack or a false step; my spouse and I had done an excellent job of denial to ourselves, and an even more expert PR job for friends, family and neighbors.
Somehow, that made for less support as my life seemed to crumble. “Surely you can fix it,” well-intentioned friends would say, though I had tried, and tried, and was still trying.
I was also failing. To rebuild a broken marriage, it takes two who are willing to start again.
So my embarrassment defined the shape of my responses as well as my behaviors. I was uncomfortable any time I ran into an acquaintance, beating a hasty retreat. I was humiliated as my finances, worsened by exorbitant legal costs, made once simple outings for my children a source of angst. I was unable to turn to a parent or sibling or almost any friend; all I got was blame or platitudes or a sort of restless fearfulness, as if divorce were contagious.
So I hid.
I avoided going out, and was grateful that I worked from home at the time things were falling apart. I now realize I would have been better off if I had been forced out of the house.
We need to be in the world to put our problems into perspective, and also to enable others to comfort us.
Putting on a brave face? Sure, we need to do it some of the time.
Hiding so you don’t have to? Hiding because you don’t know what to say?
If you ask me, it’s bad news.
Listen. Old friends may feel so put in the middle, so squirmy with discomfort, and so worried about the flaws in their own relationships somehow coming to the fore that they withdraw.
Mine did.
Withdrawal may become desertion.
It did for me, with few exceptions.
Too often, following the divorce of a friend, women walk away. This is not to deny that we may create walls or challenges to friendships, but true friends wouldn’t walk. Or so we believe.
This phenomenon is all the more reason that you need to get out – not necessarily “dating” out, but the sort of out that means a strolling a bookstore or mall, eavesdropping on an entertaining conversation, noting the way a mother ties her child’s shoes or the child savors an ice cream cone. Perhaps you prefer to take an hour to sit in a park, to remind yourself of the beauty of nature. The activity is less important than its effect: dwarfing the issues you’re dealing with, even briefly.
Don’t get me wrong. My divorce was miserable. What came after, in many respects, even more so. All the grieving had to run its course, and when your adversary is constantly provoking and you never know when provocation may strike, it’s difficult to return to anything like “normal” much less finding a new normal.
I also had two little boys who were devastated by what was happening. I needed to be there for them, and to a large degree, they gave me purpose that guided me through the worst of my very bad days.
And yet if I had been able to step outside my own little world for a time, I’m certain that would have helped. I believe I would have forged new friendships more quickly and felt more confident about myself and my future.
So just don’t do it. Don’t make the mistake that I did. Sure, grieve as it suits you and there’s no need to do so publicly. But don’t isolate yourself for years because you’re embarrassed. Don’t withdraw because money is tight. Don’t say no to a friend who wants to listen because you’re worried about being a burden.
We need human connection. We need touch. We need purpose.
So don’t hide.
And when you do step outside the confines of your world and its problems, what helped me is this: Giving to others (your knowledge, your labor, your caring). Giving is, without question, the best possible remedy for reducing your own pain. And gradually, you ease your way back into a larger world, you find mechanisms for making new friends, and you do indeed find your footing.
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It has only been a little over a year since my husband of 33 years walked out of me and our marriage. It took me by complete surprise that he wasn’t happy, because nothing was ever said. I felt decastated, lost, and felt like someone kicked me in the stomach and hit me with a brick all at once. But, as they say, time does heal wounds, and while I am still very angry, and hurt that someone could do this, I must move on with my own life, and that of my 2 sons, who still live with me.
I haven’t dated since 1979 when I met my husband, and because my feeling towards the opposite sex are still a bit unstable and unsure for me, I am just learning who I am again, with lots of queit time, alone, writing a book about my tragic life, not only with my husband leaving me, but then finding out at age 56 years old, that I was “adopted” and never told about it. It was a double-whammy for me to deal with.
While I’m not hiding, I don’t feel I am in the right geographic location to go out on my own either. Living in a college and retirement town of Bellingham, WA, does not make me feel that I have many options right now. All I see here are young 20 year olds, or people in the 70’s. I hat e the contant rains here too, and cannot be myself to go out and feel alive-like I am living in a kind-of “purgatory” of sorts. This dark, dank town doesn not speak anything to me but pain, loss, or sadness.
In the late summer, my plans are to leave northern Washington state and move towards a sunnier climate, where I have family nearby, and can feel more alive, and be my total self. For now, I am content just taking it all “one day at a time” until the time is right, and can live the best I know how to, with my sons, and loved ones.