How to Divorce: A Lesson from Mom

Nothing about our lives was the same, except for everything

At the age of forty-one, I moved back home to the US—broken and depressed by the ugliest breakup you'll ever see. Mom was sixty-four years old and lived a state north of me in Yakima, Washington.

She will comfort me and be in my corner - at least on the phone. That's what I thought.

Um, no. She was busy with a new man and was drinking again. This is written as unavailable. The lights in her office were off. She stopped being a mother-who-listens-and-advises when she drinks.

However, my mother taught me the "how" to get out of a bad marriage, and I learned from her. I didn't want to spend more years waiting for things to get better. My marriage with Ken did not improve. In fact, the time I invested in us was so vast—like the Pacific Ocean, deep and blue with no end in sight.

Did I have more time to invest? No way, I thought.

I needed to get to my destination quickly. Time is precious: If the marriage is bad, get out. My marriage fell apart beyond repair and I, like my mother, ran away. It took time though. I can't claim to have handled my divorce perfectly. And mom too.

Our gaps were different. My parents hosted lovers in the 70s, and the truth caught up with them. Who cheated first? Did it matter? For them it is. Of course! Because the first swindler was to blame for everything. I heard it all. Again and again - from my mother.

Thank you, mom. At the age of fourteen, I was also in the ring wearing gloves. When Mom divorced Dad in 1980, she made sure I was on her side. Attention readers: don't do this to your kids.

When I was fourteen, I was constantly protecting my mother. True, it was not easy to live with dad. He hated teenagers, but there were three under his roof: me, my sister and my brother. Why did he hate us, his children? Hard to say. Like all teenagers, we were unpredictable and selfish.

We ignored him and felt his coldness return tenfold. When I became an adult, I noticed that my father did not treat teenagers well. It wasn't just us.

Mom was warm and caring and comforted me when I was going through my teenage heartaches and breakups. She let me steal her cigarettes and rummage through her purse for a half of Wrigley's Spearmint gum. I could take a few blocks to lunch and she wouldn't be mad.

But my dad was not kind.

You don't look good! Dad said as Mom first crawled out of bed and sat at the kitchen counter sipping coffee. I thought it was terrible and cruel, and the harshness of his voice angered me. Never the silent teenager, I defended her.

Part of the problem, I argued, was that the women were supposed to look like Venus floating around in the half-panel. I complained about it!

Dad! Come on now! Women, we are just people, normal people! How does a woman wake up after eight hours of sleep with shiny pink lips and a rosy complexion? The problem is all the advertising and nonsense, Dad!

Of course, Dad wasn't ready for my feminist lecture—ever. Mom smiled under the hood of her robe. My work was done.

Din-din! The first round goes to mom and her support team.

My mother was forty-one years old when the most terrible event in our lives happened. My brother died in a serious car accident. The clock stopped. She stopped living for a very long time. She filled the mug with ice and poured vodka, half past four. The mug was never empty. I watched and could do nothing. At nineteen, I coped as best I could. My grief was unbearable and I did not know how to save my life. I looked at my mother.

And she disappeared. Her eyes were clouded. She smelled like a bottle of alcohol in the bathroom. She divorced her dad and quickly married someone else, a short little guy who drank with her.

She made wrong decisions, but later admitted them. After sobering up, she evaluated her choices and corrected her mistakes as best she could. She divorced the man she married when she moved away from her dad and began making efforts to start life fresh and new. I was so proud of her.

As long as she considered leaving her father, they were happier apart. That's one thing I learned from my mom. Believe in yourself. If you're leaving a relationship, there's a reason. Don't guess - move on and rebuild your life. Be as healthy as possible.

I was forty-one when my marriage to Ken broke up. Our business was abroad, in Cambodia. We were both American and flew out of Oregon six months after we were married. Ken and I planned to travel for six great months! However, it didn't work out that way. Oh no.

We traveled through Southeast Asia for nine months, and in 1994 we settled in Cambodia. Dad later said, "I knew he was never coming back." Dad was smarter about people than I was. He understood manipulation in a way that I did not; I saw the best in people and pushed those red flags aside.

Cambodia has to be one of the most unpredictable places for a newlywed couple from the US to settle down. It was like another planet. Frangipani trees and purple orchids filled the markets, silver elephants and folding mahogany doors were for sale. People were nice, kind and friendly.

The obvious manifestations of poverty and corruption overwhelmed us - and I was often in unpleasant situations - grabbed by men who thought I was one of the call girls from Eastern Europe. The military police pressed on the back of the motorcycle. There we were surrounded by death - the Khmer Rouge remained active in some parts of the country. It was a dangerous, backbreaking way of life, but Cambodians were the kindest people I have ever met.

And there was such beauty in the country. The great wide Tonle Sap River along the waterfront in Phnom Penh as we watched from the Foreign Correspondents' Club. The grandeur of the Royal Palace. Angkor Wat temples, Siem Reap. All the photos below are from Angkor Wat - Ta Prohm, a jungle temple with Bayon tree roots growing inside the structure. The huge faces of the Bayon Temple — along with mine.

We built a business, a publishing company, and had three or four competitors that kept us interested. Over time, we became well established and successful.

So successful that Ken thought he could do whatever he wanted and I wouldn't go. Money has never motivated me more than love.

Our business; our marriage; our life! was built around his dreams and desires. I adored him. Then he stopped loving me. He was completely uninvolved in "us". He made the decision alone.

We had money, a lot. Why would I leave this life we ​​built?

He greatly underestimated me. He also misjudged my independent series.

In Phnom Penh, I got dressed for work every day, including hair and makeup, because I was selling advertising for our publishing company. Many people knew me. I worked well with others, conducted business with integrity, and made financial deals every day. I was attractive, but I wasn't Asian. Men who moved to Cambodia—at least expatriate guys from Europe and America—loved petite women with long, shiny black hair. I was not one of them.

I weighed Ken's secret girlfriend by about sixty pounds and towered over her by six or seven inches. I am American made and will not apologize for my size. I was born this way.

My husband hasn't slept in bed with me for a long time. Think back to the Mesozoic era—you know, the years of the dinosaurs.

The last time we made love, a whole year before I left him, I got pregnant and then miscarried. It was another disaster that landed me in the hospital for emergency surgery.

Unfortunately, I have had good luck with tubal pregnancies, which are never viable. They are also the leading cause of death in the first trimester. I know this well because I had two ectopic pregnancies — the first in 1997, the second in 2000.

Surgeons and doctors told me, "Don't try to get pregnant 'naturally' again because the results are bad for you."

IVF was the only option, but it didn't happen.

When I went to Bangkok to get checked out for my miscarriage, my ex stared at me and said, “Can you buy me a pair of black boxers? You know, the ones that look like boxers but stretchy?”

He wanted to look good in his underwear. I wanted to die. No exaggeration.

Inuit people in Alaska are said to have many words for snow. In the same vein, I knew all about crying. Mourning. weep. Call. On top of the miscarriage and postpartum depression, I cried because my husband was running around like an Energizer bunny on steroids. At least as far as testosterone is concerned.

I finally stopped crying and got angry. Furious. Indignant. Beyond the pale to put an end to nonsense! No more sad girl. I was a warrior woman and I wasn't going to let "Peter Pan" ruin my life.

Like my mother before me, I got out of marriage.

My ex finally drove me over the edge. Our publishing house in Cambodia flourished - the money was unreal. We had an office, many computers, many employees whom we trained. Ken made time for his girlfriend—whose apartment he was financing—late at night after I went to bed. I heard the motorcycle start up and take off. After a few months, my depression subsided and I planned to leave.

I talked to his Vietnamese girlfriend and basically gave her the keys to the kingdom. It sounded a bit like "He's yours", but more colorful. Maybe "He's all over you" or something like that.

During that exciting transition period, I planned to rebuild my life from the ground up. The first step is to leave Cambodia. Next, find a good guy. To say I was lonely was an understatement. But I was here, alive and planning for the future.

Living with my dad and stepmom in rural Oregon wasn't easy, but I got my life together, got a job, and figured things out.

At the age of forty-one, I left Cambodia on time.

It was clear. The writing on the wall was in bold. I had to break up with the guy I loved. He came back. I needed to face the truth.

I was looking at a small electronic map on the back of the airplane seat in front of me. To the north past Japan. A loop around Alaska and the Bering Strait. South past Seattle to Los Angeles where I disembarked and flew north to my family home in Oregon. I made a list of all the positive changes I had planned for myself—my sad, heartbroken self.

Over time, I achieved all my goals with a master's degree and a good person. For two and a half years after leaving Cambodia, I taught high school in Oregon, lived in an amazing old house I bought with my new boyfriend, and breathed in the fresh Oregon air. I rebuilt every aspect of my broken life.

I trained every day. "Be patient. To see beauty. Be positive. You are smart. You can do it.'' It helped negate the horrible things my "sad self" wanted to think.

Like my mother, I divorced my first husband, but unlike my mother, I focused on health. Don't drink to me. I had someone I cared about - myself. With a compass set to optimism and hope, I followed my path.

Although I'd like to think I've gotten over it quickly, I'm struggling. My challenge is not alcohol; rather, I am persistent and think too much. To counter this, I cycled about thirty miles every day. It's not the world's worst coping mechanism! I got fit and healthy and continued to incorporate the local triathlon into my lifestyle.

My mother taught me how to cope with a divorce. I learned from her mistakes, and when she corrected her course, I applauded and learned from her success. There is no perfect way to deal with life's ups and downs, including divorce, but resilience and optimism helped me and my mom get through it.

I am grateful for that. I don't wish divorce or loss on anyone, but if you have to face hardships, it can be a magical time of reflection and renewal.

Do so

Thank you for reading.