Chapter Excerpt from My Memoir
Prologue
The day my husband lost his job, he thought he was going to get promoted. At least that’s what he told me. I broke inside, but not on the outside. I was a cool classy cucumber on the outside. I did all the wifely duties. I kept calm. I told the kids not to worry and to just let us have some space. I soothed him. I rubbed his back as he dry-heaved over the toilet bowl while our cats sniffed around his feet. I promised him it would be okay. We would be okay. We’d get through this. We’d been here before. We knew what to do. I knew what to do.
That was the day that I began making an escape plan. An oddly cold and dissociated heavy stone settled into my chest, anchoring me so that I didn’t go crazy.
For this man, I had been willing to die. I had believed with my whole heart that our souls were bound to one another on the astral plane of existence, outside of our direct control. We had tied the seven knots of commitment to one another. We had tied our hands together in holy matrimony. If there was anything sacred in this world, it was our love.
But truth be told, I’d been in love with one person or another since I was five years old. It might have been earlier than that if I had been exposed to other children before kindergarten. As it was, I was always either in a relationship or pining for one. I was never truly alone, despite feeling that I was alone much of the time. Please don’t ask me what the difference was or when I was able to distinguish puppy love from the real thing. Hell if I know.
It would be another two years before I walked away.
The Science
Theresa DiDonato, Ph.D. wrote a great piece in Psychology Today in 2022, 3 years after my divorce, explaining some of the counter-intuitive effects of divorce for women:
Why Women Are So Much More Likely to Seek a Divorce | Psychology Today
While it is true that I, like most women, suffered a blow financially and with childcare, it is also true that I, like most women, initiated the divorce. Life satisfaction tends to take a deep dip the year after divorce, but then steadily climbs back up, supporting the hedonic treadmill theory that, following a major stressful life event, we tend to adapt back to a baseline level of happiness. Interestingly, in a study by Van Scheppingen and Leopold in 20201, cited in the Psychology Today article, men showed a sharper decline in life satisfaction than women immediately following the divorce.
I did indeed have a hard time adapting, and I’m sure my ex-husband did too. But I’m also sure it was the right thing to do.
Vicki Larson, writing for The Greater Good Science Center earlier this year, notes the benefits of divorce for women, including a greater sense of autonomy and career satisfaction, even while managing childcare solo. I, like others she mentions, have captured my journey into and out of marriage in my memoir.
Mindful Moment
In the aftermath of my divorce, I meditated a lot. I needed it. I was second-guessing myself on the daily and needed to schedule the regular practice of taking space for my mind to settle and focus on my breathing.
When the mind is racing and emotions are surging, meditating can feel impossible. But with brief amounts of time, even 5 minutes, the sand can settle enough to calm the nerves, allow the strong emotions to recede, and allow the chatter to quiet.
The goal was never to make the anger, the pain, the indecision STOP. It was to make it calm down enough so that I could function.
Meditating on the principle of impermanence was especially helpful. Here’s a 10-minute meditation from Calm, if you are reading this and are thinking you could use something like that:
Mood of the Moment
Just when I thought I was starting to move on, I saw this movie and bawled my eyes out. But truly, it helped me get through it. It captured much of the love I still felt alongside the pain and faith in my decision. I highly recommend it.
Van Scheppingen, M. A., & Leopold, T. (2020). Trajectories of life satisfaction before, upon, and after divorce: Evidence from a new matching approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(6), 1444.