Plateaus of Divorce

(This is for a friend who is in divorce court today, and another friend who was in court last week.)

One of the constants of divorce (there aren’t many) is that just when you think it’s finally “over,” you actually just hit another plateau. It’s better than the one before, yes, but it isn’t a total and complete severing of all ties or a complete and total solution to all the previous problems.

For me, the first part of the divorce was moving out of the marital home and agreeing to temporary orders. This was so enormously difficult that I kept having to insist to myself that once it was over, then it would be pretty smooth after that. Reader: it was not smooth sailing after that. Nonetheless, I suspect I needed to believe it in order to get through the nasty and bitter pill that I had to swallow to move to this next in-between phase.

I was terrified of trying to live on the meager temporary orders. I was terrified of what was going to happen to my (granted, all adult) children who still needed some financial support, not to mention medical and dental and vision insurance. I was terrified about getting a new job. It was the middle of the pandemic and universities (the only place I’d ever thought I could get a job with my PhD from Princeton in German Literature, of all things) were not hiring at all. Mostly, universities were firing faculty and they were definitely hiring German faculty since most departments had been eliminated or consolidated in the twenty-five years since I’d finished my degree.

The next plateau was when I admitted to myself that I was never going to get a job that I had assumed I was suited to. Not in teaching, not in editing or publishing (which were also at an all-time low during the pandemic). So I had to retrain and I ended up in the financial world, because quite simply that was a world that was hiring, and they were even willing to hire me, a has-been German professor who was in her fifties and eager to start a new life. For every single day of the next six months, I told myself that I was NOT quitting this job until I’d given it a full year. I did all the licensing tests and eventually got used to taking phone calls (sort of). I hustled so damned hard, working 20 hours of overtime most weeks so I had enough money to help my kids.

I felt good about my life for a few months. Smooth sailing now, right? Until I got the paperwork from my (now) ex demanding a new court date so that he could argue that now that I was making money on my own, the temporary orders could be canceled. I was in a panic for months (because that’s how long the court system takes to decide anything). And then, my temporary orders did indeed get changed considerably and I had to scramble to figure out how to make my new financial situation work (it didn’t and mostly I just sailed into credit card debt).

At least things were looking up with my relationship with my kids. I had a house now, courtesy of my older brother who helped sign for it with me. I could invite the kids over for Christmas and other holiday occasions. Only that didn’t go great that first holiday season in the house. And that is a severe understatement.

Two years into the divorce, and I spiraled into suicidal ideation and self-harm. There was a flurry of documents back and forth between attorneys, but no compromise was reached. Finally, we had a court-ordered judicial settlement conference and I girded up my loins and fresh courage took by reading multiple books on negotiation. And I ended up doing a good job advocating for myself and got a settlement that I was happy with (and I think he was also happy with, to a degree). We didn’t have to go to the regular court date. Yay! All should have been well.

But it wasn’t. I’d just hit another plateau. And yes, this plateau was better than the previous plateau. But it didn’t fix all of the problems that I thought it would. Because then I had to get the marital house ready for sale (more credit card debt) and hire a realtor and figure out what price to list it at, and to lower the price. And lower it again. Three more times.

While also managing the first family occasions (graduation and wedding) where I had to be in the same actual space as my ex and figure out how to manage my feelings and also my kids’ feelings about it all. Reader: it did not go well. It was not as bad as it might have been, but that’s the best I can say of it.

Then the house sold and I thought I’d hit the final plateau. But another flurry of documents from attorneys and a new threat to take me back to court if I didn’t xyz.

I think I’ve reached the point now where I’ve accepted that it’s never going to be fully over. We have five children together. We were married for thirty years, more than either of us had been single. It is what it is. I think there will be other plateaus that we will fall on. I hope so, anyway. But I don’t think that it will ever be fully “over.”

If you’re someone in the midst of a divorce and you don’t want to hear this information, I understand. I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it, either. Put your fingers in your ears and say very loudly, “Na na na na,” and you can read this later. It will all be better very soon and will be completely over and all your pain and anguish will be gone. Yup, one hundred percent.