What was your divorce (or that of someone close to you) like

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was recently talking to a friend who I knew in college about 10 years ago but have mostly lost contact with since then. Back then her relationship with her husband didn’t seem too good when I knew her, at that point they’d only been married a couple years.

So I found out recently they have a kid who is 6 now, and I guess got divorced a year ago. I get the impression it was pretty hard on her (having a kid probably makes it a lot harder). I haven’t really known anyone close to me who got divorced (parents and grandparents stayed married).

Did other people find this to be a soul crushing experience, or was it liberating and freeing? I can see how it could be both, possibly at the same time.

Is divorce as traumatic as people make it out to be?

2

Mine wasn’t traumatic; in fact, I’ve had lots of breakups with boyfriends that were worse. But I was young, only married a couple years, no kids, and neither of us were assholes. We pretty much just decided we liked each other as friends, not as spouses or even lovers, and filed the paperwork.

Assets were a mild pain to figure out, but we ended up just making an Excel spreadsheet, putting a value on anything worth more than a few hundred bucks, and then went through and more or less evenly divided things based on value. Things that were obviously mine or his - like the furniture he inherited from his grandmother - we left out. It would have been WAY more difficult if either of us had decided to be jerks about that kind of stuff, but we didn’t, so it was easy.

Now, we’re both remarried, he’s got kids, and I think it was really a good thing that we split up. We simply weren’t meant for each other, and we figured it out early enough that breaking up wasn’t all that difficult.

3

My parents are currently divorcing. It’s heartbreaking.

4

Mine was hell. My friend is going through worse.

5

It’s not so bad. My wife and I truly like each other, so it’s not super-traumatic, just a little traumatic.

6

It was hard and easy and limiting and freeing. I wasn’t married long, and it was a “starter marriage” (right out of college, no kids). It was disappointing in some ways. I felt like a failure at first, but eventually felt like I’d done something wonderful.

We didn’t like each other by the time it was over.

The process itself was lengthy but easy - my ex didn’t even have an attorney or show up for the hearing. So functionally, it was a year long paperwork process. Which was part of the problem with my ex and part of the reason the experience was liberating - he couldn’t even take responsibility for leaving and moving in with another woman - I had to do it.

7

My divorce was both painless and painful.

Painless in the sense that the legal parts were a cinch. No kids, all of our debts and assets were already in our own names, there was no fight over ownership of anything, no lawyers involved. She moved out, I typed up our own divorce decree and financial declaration, we submitted it, and it was approved a few months later.

Painful in the personal sense for the both of us. We were both dealing with undiagnosed depression which had dragged our marriage down, we felt like utter failures as human beings, etc. , and we ended up dealing with our sense of loss in some pretty self-destructive ways. I’ve managed to bounce back, get out of debt, and finish school. About the only lingering problem is that I somehow keep ending up in relationships where my partner finds it hard to deal with the fact that I was previously married.

One of the things which helped me start to recover was watching my friend go through a tortuous divorce. It took nearly two years in the courts to finally finish, with some pretty nasty fighting over child custody, house ownership, and so on. I was able to look at everything he was going through and realize “hey, I didn’t do so bad” and understand that even at the end, we had still cared enough for each other to not drag things out.

8

My husband’s divorce from his first wife after fourteen years of loveless marriage was fast and simple. He made sure it was fast so it stayed simple.

9

My divorce was difficult, because I never saw it coming, and it happened when I had been out of work for several months. One night, she supposedly went to a meeting of a nonprofit she was involved in. She didn’t come back until the next morning.

I was devastated. She had never expressed any problems (though, in retrospect, my being on unemployment was a factor). And after it happened, she just cut me off emotionally – we went from being close, to her being a stranger to me. I tried to patch things and find out what went wrong, but she refused to say anything about it.

We separated a couple of weeks later, with me moving into her relatives’ house (they thought she was crazy).

With all that, and being out of work, it was the low point in my life, brightened only by a letter from George Scithers of Isaac Asimov’s SF Magazine saying he was willing to buy a story of mine (my first sale) if I made a few small changes. (I had to rewrite the story three times until he was happy, and it was a humorous story, which is very hard to write when your life is going so badly).

The actual divorce was simple. She didn’t ask for alimony and started living with the other guy. She also let me have our house. I didn’t have a lawyer; when I met with her lawyer to go over the terms, he expressed a little irritation that she wasn’t asking for more.

I suffered the hangover from that for over 25 years. Certain songs would hit me so hard emotionally that when I heard them over a store’s PA system, I had to leave. I remarried and was very happy with it, but I was still upset and confused, wondering what I had done wrong and imagining it was my fault.

About two years ago, however, I was contacted by my ex in e-mail. She said it was really mostly her fault: she really wasn’t ready to be married, and went out with the other guy as a way to “play the field.” Afterwards, she thought I was furious at her, mistaking my depression for anger. She also felt guilty, which is why the divorce terms were so generous, and why she cut me off so abruptly – her guilt and her belief I was angry. I was finally able to get over it. I certainly wasn’t guiltless, but knowing it wasn’t entirely my fault lifted a weight from me.

10

Legally, it was easy. No arguing over money, no arguing over the Small One, who we co-parent with total cooperation.

Emotionally, it sucks, there’s no way around it. I’m alone, and I hate it. There’s a lot to be said for having a partner.

11

I always say that divorce is the first step in becoming an adult. The process itself sucks but it is well worth it if you do it right. My ex and I had been married for 10 years and dated for 7 before that. We had two kids and a big house. I wasn’t interested in being married anymore especially looking into the future. We already had kids and weren’t having any more so the purpose had already been served to me and it was almost all downside other than that. I was only interested in getting a fair custody arrangement which I did and I was willing to walk away from everything else including the house and let her keep it. It isn’t a fun process to go through and it is always tempting to try to go back to the situation you know even if you know you will hate it the same way you always did but I resisted all of that and things got much better after the dust settled.

I was fortunate in that almost everyone in my family gets divorced and has for generations so I had lots of support and ‘institutional knowledge’ to fall back on. I am still friendly with my ex and her family. I spend almost all major holidays with them because my family is so far away and I can’t move until the kids get out of high school in 12 years.

Some people express dismay that the divorce rate is so high. I see it the opposite way, it is way too low. If everyone who was in a long-term unhappy or dysfunctional marriage had the means and the guts to go through divorce, the rate would be at least 80% and probably much higher. I would like to be the opposite of a marriage counselor. I would be a divorce counsellor and encourage people to do what’s really best for them.

12

The hardest part was coming to terms with the fact that I would not be tucking my kids into bed every night. Everything else was like a huge weight was being lifted from my chest. It was the best thing that could have happened, given the circumstances of the relationship after 10 years of marriage. My ex and I are not friends. We never will be. But we are on distantly polite terms because we never lost sight of the fact that co-parenting effectively and minimizing the fallout on our kids was of the highest priority to us. Most importantly, I’m very close with my kids and we see each other all the time and I’m involved with every aspect of their growing up. It could have turned out far worse given some of the divorce horror stories out there. If I have any advice to give, it’s do everything you can (and more) to remain an active part of your kids life. If you have no kids, make a clean break, sever ties with your ex and the in-laws. Don’t get mired in the petty crap and get on with your life as fast (and as far, if that’s an option) as you can.

13

Mine went very well. We got together and agreed on how the property was to be divided and then used the same attorney to file the divorce documents. Total cost . . . $300.00.

14

I’m like a goose. I mate for life. So when my wife told me we were no longer going to be married it was devastating. The fact that I was in Iraq at the time didn’t help. It sucked from beginning to end. It still does. Took over 3 years to complete.

15

Mine became final just a few months ago. I was the one that filed and felt guilty about it every step of the way. But I knew it was the best for me and the kids. The funny thing is, now that it is over we actually get along quite well and are perfectly civil to each other. (She even made several offers of the “if you’re not seeing anyone and have some needs…” category :wink: )
I guess that because all the pressure is gone and we have no power to hold over each other, the outcome was well worth it, even though I find myself very lonely these days.

16

The divorce itself was fine, although everything that led up to it was torture. My own stubbornness played a part there, as I didn’t want to leave without being absolutely sure the marriage couldn’t be saved. My daughter was only 2 at the time (she’s 11 now) and obviously didn’t grasp the situation, but for her sake I didn’t want to keep coming and going.

The hardest thing to deal with was not being able to see my daughter every day. It’s turned out very well, though. I currently pick my daughter up from school four days a week and she stays with me until her mom gets done work. Plus I’ll occasionally see her on one of the days of the weekend. She’s always lived close by, and in fact will be moving even closer in a few months. It’s still hard not living under the same roof as my daughter, but at the same time I know I could have things much worse.

17

I work as a paralegal for a divorce attorney. Emotionally speaking, for a lot of people divorce is like experiencing a death. They go through all the stages of grieving, i.e. denial, anger, depression, acceptance, etc. If it’s a long, drawn out divorce, a lot of clients get to the point where they just want it to be over. They’re like, “Give him/her whatever they want!” But of course the attorney must be very careful when clients get to that stage because they will usually end up regretting it.

Kids add a whole ‘nother level of complication to a divorce. I will say that most clients I’ve worked with seem very concerned about their kids’ emotional well being - but it’s very difficult to keep feelings of animosity away from kids no matter how hard they try.

18

Technically it was easy. Emotionally it felt like I was going to die. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. That was twenty years ago and now I wonder why I was so upset.

19

Since we didn’t have kids or own a house, it was pretty easy. We were married 10 years, separated in March 2011, and the divorce was final by October. Now we’re still friends, living in different states, dating new people, and as far as I can tell we’re both happier. I know I am.

Still, it’s not totally easy and requires some emotional introspection I hadn’t expected. That’s been a good thing too. I think I’m a better person for having been married, and for having been divorced.

20

For me it was time when the marriage became more traumatic on a daily basis than the worst case divorce scenario I could imagine. Either way, a devil is going to get to dance with you.

When I finally got the paperwork together and had her sign it I felt like I’d been reborn. And for all the pain it caused the kids I’ve never once regretted it. Not just because I was finally rid of her, but because I could finally put myself together and be at least some measure of the dad I’d always wanted to be.

Don’t do it man!