Divorce Isn't Sad
Many, many people, when I’ve mentioned that I would like to work in the divorce space have asked me why. They think that divorce is “sad,” and I’ve heard more than one say something like “divorce is when people are at their absolute worst—is that when you want to try to deal with them?” Generally, my answer to this has been—yes. Yes, I want to help people through a difficult time in their life. I don’t think that the people involved in divorce are at their absolute worst, though I do think that divorce and the court system can feel terrifying and that people can have traumatized responses to the fear that everything they’ve ever known is over.
But divorce is not sad. I say this as someone who has been very sad about divorce in the past. I have been so sad about all the fallout from the divorce that began five years ago (or more, I suppose, if you count the final very bad years of the marriage) that I wanted to be dead. And this is part of the reason that I feel motivated to try to help people through divorce. I want other people to not have to go through what I went through, or at the very least, I’d like to help them get through it faster and with less terror than I did.
Attorneys sometimes don’t have the time to help with the emotional parts of divorce and God knows I didn’t want to pay my attorney $500/hour to hold my hand while I cried. But I did want and need someone to talk to me about the practicalities of divorce. I also wanted someone to give me a sense of the future that was ahead, one that wasn’t tinged by my fear of repeating the past and also of never having any of the good things from the past ever again (yes, I felt both of those at once).
One of the things my attorney told me at the beginning was something like, “some attorneys encourage their clients to earn a minimum to survive so that they can get more alimony, but my experience has been that you will be far happier after this is over if you do absolutely everything you can to earn a good living on your own.” I thought about this again and again and I followed this advice. I think it was extremely good advice and I guess I just wish that someone had given me more really good advice like this.
For instance, here are some things that were true for me about divorce that I wish someone had told me in the beginning and I wish I had been able to believe:
1. You are going to love discovering the new self that you’ve become after so many years of being a shared self.
2. There are so many experiences out there that are waiting for you to reach for them and they will only come with the divorce.
3. Money isn’t the only thing that matters when thinking about your future happiness and security. It is an important thing, but it isn’t the most important thing.
4. You will be making a lot of decisions, thousands of them, in the next year or so. Not all of the decisions will be good ones, but trust yourself. Throw yourself forward and stop holding on to the past.
5. You are a lot smarter and wiser than you were when you got married. This is an immensely good thing about you and not a black mark against your heart and soul.
6. There are a whole lot of divorced people out there who are waiting to become a new community of friends. They are honestly awesome. You’re going to share all the bad stuff, but all the good stuff, too.
7. There are parts of your old self that have been buried for a long, long time that are going to come back to you and you will discover that you missed them and are so glad to welcome them home.
8. Depending on yourself is very scary at first, but it is also wonderfully empowering. You get to make so many choices now, and this will feel incredibly light and freeing.
9. The people who drop you will be far outnumbered by the new people who come to you.
10. Accept help from anyone who is offering; you’re going to have a chance to pay it forward in time, and that will also be wonderful.
11. Some of your big life plans for travel and big house stuff may have to be postponed or even canceled permanently. But there are going to be a ton of smaller things that you will love. I promise you.
12. This isn’t the end of the world. It isn’t the end of you. It isn’t a judgment or a stain or even failure. Or if it is failure, it’s the kind of failure that leads you to some of the best ideas as you work through hard stuff.
13. You don’t owe any part of your story to anyone. If someone asks about your divorce, just say, “We weren’t a match anymore.” That’s it.
14. Buy yourself chocolate and fancy lingerie or whatever is the thing that you never did for yourself before. Massages or dance lessons or that thing you were going to do but kept being told no. This is the chance to reinvent yourself you never had before.
15. Throw yourself a party, Invite friends to buy you gifts. Maybe more than once.
16. Get out that bucket list, or if you never wrote one, start it now. Because now that you know that life isn’t predictable, and that permanent things sometimes don’t last forever, you know that doing stuff now matters more than you thought it did. Don’t wait for tomorrow. Do it today.