Navigating Divorce: Bitterness is a Choice

I feel strong and I feel fulfilled, and I feel empowered. Though that is the end of the story, and not the beginning. A new beginning starts now.

Three months ago, my (not-official-yet-) ex-husband and I were still living together in a four bedroom house in the suburbs. Tonight, I am standing on my balcony of my two-bedroom apartment in the city, listening to loud cars and loud neighbors, feeling life pulsing around me while I sink in the smell of the lavender and rosemary I planted last week. My first lily bloomed yesterday. One of six I’d planted from bulbs about 2 and a half months ago. It’s a bright, crimson-violet: a hard color to image but even harder to describe. I ask myself how I am feeling. How I am feeling really, and I just can’t lie to myself: I feel good. I feel clear. And I feel clear about feeling good.

Now I am taking in the street noise and the steamy rank smells of the city, masked slightly by my tiny garden, with the view of my living room through the sliding door. The living room I’ve built from scratch. Not that I built the furniture or wove the rug or grew the houseplants plants from seeds, but the energy I’d put into it… The intent. This new space, this new life, it is intentional and crafted in part by circumstances not all together in my control and also in part by my choosing.

It immediately occurs to me to feel guilty about feeling so good and settled. It’s too soon. I can’t feel this after having only moved out of the house I shared with someone for 11 years or move on from the life I’d shared with someone for 18 years. If it had been my decision or my push to end things, sure… maybe it’d be okay. But that wasn’t entirely the case. Nor was it the case that it was entirely his decision either. It was a long process. We talked about it, and cried about it. We read books, went to therapy, opened our marriage and dabbled in polyamory. In my opinion, we went above and beyond, with no stone left unturned. We mourned the passing of each phase together, hand in hand, like ushering a dying loved one through chemo and surgery and remission, then recurrence.

People resent hearing about an amicable parting in my experience so far. At least, that is one of three main reactions. Besides resenting, there is disbelieving, or envying. And that makes me deeply sad for how people interact with one another in what are supposed to be loving relationships. Why can’t the ending match the beginning?

I had the same choices as everyone else. I could have chosen to fight through attorneys for months on end, or to take him for the lifetime of spousal support he owed me according to the state of California. I could have submitted a list of all the ways I’d been wronged in the course of our history to anyone willing to listen. But I didn’t. Not because I’m a saint or a hippie, but because I chose not to. There was no black and white answer as to who was the clear hero or villain in our story. If you want to know a secret, there is rarely a clear hero or villain in anyone’s story. Heroes and villains only exist in the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others.

I was not the perfect wife, though I like to think I was a pretty damn good one. I was insensitive at times and I certainly was not always supportive or giving of praise. I was easily exasperated or annoyed and over critical of his introversion and his analytical nature and the time it took to make his coffee every morning. For my part, I didn’t “put the toilet paper on the roll in the right direction” or “I was always leaving kitchen cabinet doors open.” Haha, how petty and annoying we all can be.

When we went to therapy, we both worked hard. He, for the first time I’d ever experienced was on time to something and he made us a priority. He got his own therapist and I had mine. He told me over and over how he didn’t want to lose me in his life and I agreed. Then as the last, powerful tug of the Band-aid ripped off and we were both feeling sore and exposed, we cried and complained to one another mostly about what we were collectively going through and that even though it hurt, it was the right thing to do.

It’s a good thing we had each other. My friends didn’t know how to be. Even the ones who’d been through it. And likewise, I didn’t know how I needed them to be. So I was glad I had the option to call or text my ex when I had angry feelings and he could just hear me out. I realize it is not like this for everyone. But I’d be willing to bet it could be this way for more people if they decided to write their own stories rather than following the examples they’ve been given.

When I try to talk about my relationship transition with people who haven’t been through it, they seem relieved we aren’t at total odds and that I have a shoulder to cry on. I would probably feel the same way. Which is why I’ve been in therapy too. Those I talk to who have been through divorce project a lot and assume a lot of things that have not been my experience. Or they try to put angry feelings in my head that aren’t really there. And that’s okay. They are trying to connect and support in the ways they know how. Some people I talk with get the fact that you don’t have to choose teams or form alliances or that you can speak and connect again after some time and space. We all have the capacity to allow space for things to change and shift along the way.

What I’ve learned from all this is that if you can reflect on your emotions you tend to give yourself that space for feelings to shift and to change. I’ve had massive waves of anger. Rolling, raging weeks at a time. I’ve also had weeks of denial where I pretend none of this ever happened and just live in the delusion that things are the same. Then there is of course, the deep, piercing sadness. The mourning of the loss of something you’ve put a lot of time and energy into. All of these phases come and go and I choose not to stay anchored in any of them. Instead I accept them, even the unpleasant ones, and give each of these feelings the attention and validity they need in their moments.

I’m not naive. I know everyone’s situation in life is different. And that some relationships are truly toxic and abusive and need to be permanently deleted. Sometimes people truly need to go their separate ways. But I also think that we frequently don’t give enough grace or understanding to the people we once said we loved. Sometimes we take love and hate as the TV version we’ve been fed and we never, especially in romantic relationships, take the time to really see each other as intelligent, human counterparts with an inner life that doesn’t include us. There is no curated list of sins against you that cannot be forgiven or a lesser list of ones that can. If there is, it is a list that you yourself decided upon and only you have the power to let go of whatever arbitrary importance you have designated to them. You write your own story.

And in writing your story, feel all the feelings. Don’t make yourself wrong for the good ones or the bad ones. But also, in writing it, try not to get caught up in who you were or who you think you should be. Instead, take a pause and reflect on who you are moving forward and be kind to yourself and be kind to one another. Remember the things and the love that brought you together. And do your best to lay a foundation of communication and self-improvement so that you can be okay no matter what happens in your next chapter.