Life Lessons
What Filing For Divorce Taught Me About Life
Choices, actions, and recovery.
According to Forbes, half of all first marriages in the U.S. end in divorce. I can relate to this statistic. Out of four of my closest married friends, two were divorced by the time we were in our thirties.
Divorce changes a person. Of course, all breakups are difficult, but getting married to someone, participating in the official ceremony, signing the paperwork, and possibly merging assets, bank accounts, children, and pets means that all these things essentially become casualties in a divorce. Significant and painful casualties.
Going through a dissolution of something you had sincere hope for — and I believe that the idea of marriage to many people is still that of hopefulness — can be debilitating.
The concept of finding that one person to be your teammate for life is a dream for many. Finding someone who cares for you. Someone who represents you out in the world as your official person and partner.
Movies, books, poetry, and movies have always been devoted to this idea. The vision of true, everlasting love.
Going through the journey of leaving my first husband and then subsequently divorcing him taught me about endings. Things don’t ever end in a closing-the-book way of ending. I chose to leave him and I also chose to not go back. The not going back part is a way bigger deal, as many people reading this will know.
I chose to file the divorce paperwork and send it to him. That took time, energy, and money. I knew he would never file for divorce. He simply wouldn’t put in the effort. There was never any real closure, there was just the work of creating a different chapter. And it WAS work.
The act of going through the real-world, mechanical motions of filing for divorce showed me that I was capable of making decisions when I had to, even when I was in pain. That sticks with you. I wasn’t just sitting around in limbo. I knew what I had to do and I did it even when I would rather have hidden under my covers for several months.
Despite what I was going through during and after my divorce, I went to work every day. I paid my bills. When I got home at night I would drink too much wine and feel the loneliness of not having a person who was in my corner.
However, then the realization hit that even when I was inside the marriage that person was never in my corner. That was BIG.
That seemingly small epiphany was the nail in the proverbial coffin that kept me going daily and eventually led me to a healthier place.
Divorce ended up becoming the teacher and ally I needed the most.
When I eventually got married for a second time, my previous experience with divorce deepened my understanding of commitment and relationships. I was well aware that marriages don’t always last, yet I was also keenly in tune with what maintaining a long-lasting relationship entailed.
I knew that holding onto a toxic marriage just for the sake of staying married was foolish and I had come to a place where I could truly value a healthy partner — as well as be one.
Divorce altered my wiring and rebuilt my inner voice. It gave me the wisdom to know that moving on wasn’t death. It forced me to tap into my independent self again.
My second marriage is stronger because of the mistakes I made in my first marriage as well as the arduous and painful journey of divorce.
I don’t recommend the process of divorce as a form of self-help, but I can tell you that, for me, my divorce became a vehicle for personal fortitude that I still carry with me today.