Hello. I am a divorced dad. Wow ok I said it. Some of you already knew that some suspected and some had no idea. I debated for a long in my mind if I should talk about this out loud, to share my feelings in a forum that is usually reserved for silly rants, simple observations and general dadbod life. Plus, I’m generally a private person in my day-to-day life so this post I’m writing is in a word – difficult. But I think it is important to put virtual pen to virtual paper here as it’s part of a personal healing process for me, and maybe provides some helpful perspective for anyone else that has recently gone through this or may encounter it in the future. I’m also embracing writing more as a therapeutic outlet. To be clear this isn’t a story about why I got divorced. That’s intensely private and something that stays between me and my ex-wife as a matter of utmost respect for her and her privacy. That is her own story to tell if and when she chooses. This is about my journey, the purposeful path I took of which there are many options, none of which are pleasant but perhaps some less destructive paths than others, and what that outcome has produced.
Even when ending a marriage in the middle of a pandemic in a largely shut down world divorce is still very much something you have to deal with publicly. Schools may be shut down and bars and restaurants are closed but we live in a tight knit community, and it was remarkable how fast word spread that we had split. We had told a few close circles of friends and it’s inevitable that word will get out. Some people reached out. There were ranges of reactions from shock to sadness to bafflement and perhaps for a few resignation that this news was perhaps inevitable. That’s the outward facing dynamic that I knew we had to deal with and it’s also the one I was determined as much I could possibly control the narrative, less so by words. People will always draw their own conclusions no matter what you say. My control was focused more by actions. And that action for me was embracing harmony. Harmony of how you still interact with your ex-spouse during the process and after its complete. How you speak about her when she is around and when she is not around. I’ve seen many couples and men in particular embrace destruction and bitterness. Anger about spousal support. Embracing passive aggressiveness. Being petty. Lawyering up to spend tens of thousands of dollars based on emotions only leaving a path of destruction and permanent damage not only with your former spouse but your kids as well. I was determined not to go down that path. To be an angry divorced dad. You get one life and I was not going to live in resentment. And at the end of the day this is the mother of my kids. The person I have spent over half my life with and will forever be connected to as co-parents. Someone at one point I loved and pledged to live the rest of my life with and at the time felt that to be true. Someone I wanted to still have as a friend after this process played out and it all came down to one sentence. I wrote it down early on to make it more impactful for me and I say it often…. I’ve got your back.
Fortunately, I did have a blueprint to refer to that had shaped me and that was the divorce of my parents when I was about the same age as my youngest son at the time life came full circle for me. My parent’s split was largely amicable. Yes, there were definitely awkward moments and no divorce for a child is easy but there was no infighting over custody, late alimony payments or awkward holidays where we spent Christmas morning with Dad and Christmas evening with mom. Before they got married, they were friends first and when they ended their marriage, they stayed friends. That was the foundation they had to rely on and in fact when they both moved to different cities and remarried in later years, they would each open up their respective homes and invite each couple to stay with them when in town. My dad and my mom’s husband play golf together. That situation is unfortunately rare, especially as a product of divorce in the 80s but it’s what I knew and what I hoped to emulate when I found myself in a similar situation with my own marriage.
While I had that foundation to help guide me it takes both individuals to embrace a similar path to make harmony work and I will be forever grateful that she agreed to join, and we have stayed on that course largely with only a few bumps along the way. There are no arguments about money. We allow shifts in our custody schedule when needed to accommodate unforeseen schedule conflicts. We still have Sunday family dinners with the kids. We’ve even taken a few family vacations together platonically to destinations that were always on our to-do list and want to get them achieved before the kids finish school and begin their own lives as adults. Some of our friends have remarked they are somewhat baffled about how we do this, and my response is that while you are no longer married you don’t have to also give up the friendship. I feel confident we achieved that and I sleep well at night because of it.
That’s the outward facing element of divorce. The inward facing stuff is harder for me to express but I feel it’s important as part of the healing process. The hardest one for me and one I’m still processing is the guilt I feel toward my kids. That I failed them. That I couldn’t work it out and stay married. They never asked to have 2 separate homes to live in. To have to answer awkward questions from their friends, most of which still have parents who are married. Knowing we had to make some sacrifices financially in order to manage the funding of 2 separate households. And while they never complain it’s somewhat of a cloud that hung over me and still does somewhat to this day, albeit with lighter clouds and a path to sunlight that I see coming. Kids are indeed resilient but no matter how you process it this divorce will shape them in terms of how they approach relationships. I have no idea if that will have lingering effects either positively or negatively. That narrative has yet to be written but I think about it a lot and the only element that gives me peace goes back to the harmony component I spoke of earlier.
Then there is the loneliness. The lowest moment for me looking back was about a month after I had moved into my own place. We had staggered my move in to help ease the transition for the kids but now I was fully moved out. I had just turned 50 and it was the first time in my life I had lived on my own. I went from growing up at home, to living with friends my senior year in high school, to dorm life, fraternity life, roommate life and fiancé and married life. Now it was dad living on his own life. I walked around the house staring at furniture, beds and desks, some assembled. Some still in boxes. My garage was full of cardboard Styrofoam and plastic, remnants from boxes I had already unpacked that I had no idea how I’d get rid of. I was sick of looking at assembly instructions and my wrists hurt from 1 million clockwise screwdriver motions. I had largely moved in on my own because it was generally easy logistically. I didn’t own anything. Wayfair stock probably doubled in the months of my transition. At one point I got a call from someone from Wayfair asking if I was a home designer and was invited to be part of that program! Alas this would be my only binge purchase and the levity was short lived. Thankfully I have some wonderful friends who tried to be there for me as much as they could but it’s still a journey. I don’t think is inescapable. Here I am at age 50 lying in bed I had just assembled the day before staring at the ceiling at 2am hearing noises in a house I’m not familiar with wondering what’s next for me. That can be sobering for many. It certainly was for me. I also had to process loss. Not only the loss of my marriage but the married “life” I had built. The couple friends we took vacations with our kids together. Extended family gatherings. Transitioning from married life to single life. Entering the dating scene and introducing that element with my social circle that had only known me with my ex-spouse. Not knowing how to deal with it. I didn’t want anyone feeling awkward, so I went out of my way not to try and mix these worlds and in retrospect that was 100% wrong. I might have paid a terrible price for this in actions I took that hurt others that I never meant to inflict and I’m still processing that. The reality is true friends will take that evolution journey with you no matter what transitional part of your life you are on. I see that now and wish I had seen it earlier. Thankfully I have that clarity now and I’m appreciative of the wonderful set of friends that have stayed with me during this. I’m also so thankful that I decided to embrace therapy as I realized I did not have the tools to do this on my own.
Now almost 3 years into this journey I’m left with hope and optimism that I’m through the worst of it and can see a lovely path forward for me. I’m proud of the fact that I didn’t let this process destroy me. It’s made me stronger while at the same time allowed me to be more vulnerable. I have a wonderful relationship with my kids. I still call my ex my friend. My friends are there for me whenever I need it and I reciprocate as much as I can for others that have or may go down a similar path. I am fully emotionally ready for whatever my next chapter is. I still believe in marriage because I still believe in love. Because at the end of the day when this life is over, and you look back I want everyone who knew me through friendship, family, colleague or true love to think the same thought universally.
He had my back.