Thanks to everyone for your concern and prayers, I am feeling better today. Boring as hell, but better. I haven’t had pain meds in almost 12 hours and I’m making it. I’m hoping tomorrow I can get out and get back to normal.
Last week was pretty bad. It sucked actually. First I had Stanley dropping the “I don’t want to keep the house and bird nest anymore'” bomb, my looming surgery, and in addition, I had a male reader who left several comments bringing up the fact that it would be nice if there was a way to share Stanley’s side of bird nesting and expressing his concern that Stanley had no way to defend himself. All true. What he said was fair and I took it to heart.
However, there was a section of his comments to which I took offense. It seems to be a recurring theme I am seeing on other boards, i.e. the Huffington Post comment section, other blogger’s comments sections and then on my blog.
And I quote:
“You were the one that instigated the divorce.“
SO?
I don’t understand. Are women not allowed to instigate divorce?
When did it become wrong for women to have the right to pursue happiness?
I was the one that instigated the divorce…
sue me
Because Stanley was the one who sucked.
Okay, so there is an increase in the number of women filing for divorce. So what? It just means we expect more from our partners. We are working as hard as men in our professions, taking care of the home, taking care of the children, and in some instances, a disengaged man at home, not pulling his weight, just becomes another chore.
The day I broke down and learned to work the electric drill to do something that he had ignored for 2 years was the day he was made redundant.
And through my clinical work and my life experience, I don’t believe that most women bail. Some do, no doubt.
But among the women I see, and in my group of friends, and of course speaking for myself,
women want to create a home that is safe and secure.
Ending my marriage was the biggest admission of failure in my life.
I had tried for years to get Stanley to go to marriage counseling. For years prior to the divorce, I had been telling him, not hinting or giving him passive aggressive signs to read, I had been TELLING him that I was not happy. The day I asked for a divorce was the day that he told me in therapy,
“I don’t think I care enough about you to want to work on our relationship anymore”.
So, yes, I instigated the divorce. But Stanley was in no way abandoned. He had every opportunity to change the course of our fate. The last thing I wanted in life was this divorce. Actually, it is the 2nd to the last thing I wanted in life.
The last thing I wanted was to spend the rest of my life with a man who
didn’t care enough about me to work on our relationship.
So, anyone that thinks that I abandoned my marriage, can
Bite me.
We all have a right to happiness.
AMEN! and again, AMEN! I’m right there with ya’.
Why is it, though, when MEN instigate the divorce, people seem to want to say how unhappy he must have been – and it’s all the woman’s fault in THAT scenario, too. ????
(I really don’t expect an answer!)
First off, I’m glad you are feeling better. I hope the recovery goes quickly and smoothly.
I don’t think that women aren’t entitled to divorce. In fact, the statistics point that by far the majority of divorces are instigated by women, and I’ve certainly noticed that in my own personal experience of friends and family.
It does sound like in your relationship it was Stanley that owned most of the suckage, but that is through your filter. I’m sure if my ex blogged it would wind up looking much like yours (without the evidence, just the perspective). In it would be how I don’t want to do counseling with her now, but missing would be how I begged her to go to counseling when she started the split, but she didn’t because “no one could help [her] with the path [she] was on.”
I don’t mean to belabor the point, and maybe you’d be glad if I stopped commenting, but I think there are two sides to every story. You ever watch a movie where the antagonist is so evil the one dimensional aspect of it just turns you off? You think to yourself, “This is so unrealistic, as no one could be this bad.” I would so love to hear more about the struggles about bird nesting rather than what’s the latest dumb thing Stanley did yesterday or long ago in the past. Maybe Stanley is such an awful person that those are the struggles you wrestle with, and if that is true then I am sorry for the cards you have been dealt. I just keep hoping that there is a different narrative where there is more sharing of stories about co-parenting where one person isn’t such an ass, particularly when that person is the dad. Dads get such a bad stereotype in this manner. For those of us dads out there that aren’t one dimensional, I crave for realism.
Have a great 4th of July, and may this day of independence have special meaning for you!
@Anonymous, your perspective is anecdotal and personal. So is the perspective in this blog. In both cases, it’s one person’s story, and she doesn’t have an obligation — or even maybe, a right — to tell his side. In public, I say that my ex is a great dad and good friend and we’re working together to make the best situation possible. In private, which is what this blog is, too, I admit to myself that the problems we had in our marriage didn’t evaporate now that we’re divorced, and it’s HARD to coparent with someone who has checked out. Let’s face it, it’s hard to even work with someone like that, when the stakes are so much less important. And I don’t think she’s stereotyping the kids’ dad. She’s trying to find a way to be okay with the short-comings, and that means saying things in her blog that she wouldn’t say in front of the kids.
If you want a different narrative, you can find it. They exist. Or, of course, you can write it yourself. But it seems odd to criticize someone’s blog for not telling the story you want to hear.
The line about Stanley becoming redundant? Oh how that ressonates with me. Still stinging my ears. SO true.
As a long time divorced woman who is still living the consequences of the divorce (I didn’t want), and the decade of skirmishes that followed, and as one who writes for the Huff Post Divorce Section, may I say – that ignorant and silly recurring theme of “who filed the papers” is just that – ignorant and silly?
Ignore it.
Who filed is irrelevant. I don’t want to generalize here, but I will all the same… women are often shoved into a corner where they do the filing – sometimes to protect children, sometimes to protect themselves, sometimes because they want the divorce, sometimes because the spouse maneuvers them into an untenable position and doesn’t want the accountability for the filing.
The finger pointing over “who files” is a smokescreen to divert the attention from more serious issues to do with divorce:
– choosing better in the first place
– ridiculous state differences
– custody issues
– absurd assumptions (and disparities and loopholes) re child support
And more.
BigLittleWolf is my hero.