You know you watch too many movies (and read too many novels) when you start observing your life from a distance, like through a camera lens, rather than experiencing your days in a way that allows the sights, sounds and feelings to wash over you and stick. Seems a fair description of me lately as I go through the motions of starting life over. As I’ve been depressed and despondent, hardly able to function, yet there’s this voice in my head sizing up my choices, like the narrator in Bridget Jones Diary (only my life isn’t nearly as humorous and my commentary isn’t emphasized by a great soundtrack). My inner voice can’t resist poking fun at me, making sarcastic quips as I wallow in self pity or get all determined to dig in and tackle my problems only to deflate and give up within the day. When life throws you for a loop it is easy to sway between these two states of mind every ten minutes. I often feel as if I’m floating, wishing I would land so I can plant my feet firmly on the ground. But the earth still seems so far beneath me that even if I point my toes I simply can’t touch it.

During this ordeal, I’ve learned there are people who’ve dealt with worse divorce and financial issues than I. Lots. Trust me, they keep coming in an endless stream. Getting divorced is like getting pregnant. When you’re pregnant, it suddenly feels like EVERYONE is pregnant, or at the very least, their best friend, mother, sister, co-workers, etc… are.  And everyone attached in any manner to pregnancy feels compelled to tell you childbirth horror stories, as if this is going to make you more pregnant-savvy and prepare you for what is to come. All it really does is make you feel panic, depression and/or confusion, thank you very much. But people do mean well, and I suppose it is nice to be reminded that the most trying stages of your life are naught but common human experience. Divorce is like that, but at least anyone who has ever gone through it tends to be sensitive and supportive, which helps you feel less alone. Such an alienating and crushing life experience isn’t easily to forget and people feel compelled to help you through it. I’m grateful to new friends and old who have displayed concern and caring for me during these dark days.

I will not share the details of individual people’s divorces, though I’ve heard enough stories to write a dozen novels with spine tingling scenes. But I will say that a few gems I’ve heard had made me rather proud of my own painful, (but not hateful) divorce. Like the friend whose wife put all his clothes in the driveway and poured paint on them because he wouldn’t return her call in a timely fashion.

Or the friend whose spouse went to law school, made him pay for it and used what she learned to take him for everything, leaving him to the ears in debt as she boasted, “I’m not going to stop until he’s destitute, unemployable, and ruined because I’ve learned how to accomplish just that.”  And she did.  Now, ten years later the anger in him bubbles to the surface at just the thought of her. Or the friend who shared just a few words of the nasty commentary sent to him on a text that he plans to keep in his phone forever just reminding him how evil his ex can be. He shared it to me and said, “This is so I never soften towards her ever again. My significant other never liked me as a person. She likes the life I provided, but not me and after living together for 18 years in that state, I have good reason to resent her!” Or the fellow who described alimony as a woman’s idea of a pension plan. Or the woman who was cheated out of her life savings by a spendthrift husband who, after bleeding her dry felt she had nothing left to give, thus was dispensable. He agreed to provide support, but bailed the moment she left the house, leaving her destitute and unable to care for her child. Then he pleaded a case that he was more fit to raise the child than her due to his financial position.

I listen and wonder how romance, once blooming with promise and joy, can take such a 180-degree turn. Divorce changes people like the invasion of the body snatchers. Sad. And listening to numerous people unload the heartbreak and fury attached to their divorces, I began wondering if my depression wasn’t just about my own losses, but also because a magnifying glass has been held up to highlight the endless stream of romance stories with unhappy endings that are everywhere around me.   Listening to these scenarios is witnessing the death of everything I’ve always held most dear – the idea that love endures. I’m a big believer in happy endings – and if this one isn’t it for me, I’d like to think the next one will be. But to trust that, I need to come across at least one happy ending.  Sad to say, romance novels are the only place you find happy endings anymore, and damn if I haven’t given up reading that kind of material years ago.

Anyway, it seems the entire world population has a story to share about divorce, and not a day goes by that I’m not treated to yet another heart stopping tale of anger and loss.  Everyone, everyone, from friends and family to lawyers, doctors and Indian chiefs, continue to lift one eyebrow and say, “You may think your divorce will proceed amicably, but it will get ugly. They all do.”

Me? I continue to shake my head in a condescending way and say, “You don’t know my ex. Perhaps we can’t live together, but we can work together. Always have. Always will. Besides which, we’ve already discussed things and have agreed on how to proceed. I’m moving to Florida to arrange work and set up a life that can support me and my daughter– Mark and the kids even packed the truck for me and sent me off with a hug. There is nothing to fight about. We have jointly agreed it is time to separate, but we appreciate our colorful past and recognize what was good. We will be best friends always.”

Why does this always earn me a jaunty “you’ll see” smile? 

Then IT happened. I was hit with a lawsuit contradictory to all our agreements that threw all our congenial plans out the window. Suddenly, after years of loving parenting and caring for my husband, I was being accused of being an unfit mother, an adulteress, and an all around horrible person who jaywalks. An abandoner! And just like that, I’m dragged into a battle for my respect and my children, who overnight changed their opinion of me. Spending their days as if all things are normal with my ex while I am in my dismal state in Florida, they grew cold and unresponsive – My eldest even wrote to tell me she never wanted contact with me again in a message filled with such venom and ugliness that when I showed it to a few selective confidents they crinkled their brow and said, “And you want a relationship with this child why? I don’t believe any parent could excuse those comments, nor should they. I wouldn’t.”

I sat with that message for a day, rereading one particular line in a long paragraph of vicious accusations, (and this wasn’t the worst.) “You are no mother. You are a sick, sad, confused individual in need of help and I need NOBODY to tell me that.”

I tried to think of any circumstances that might inspire me to say such a thing to my own mother, no matter how mad I might be, but short of sexual abuse and/or being burned by cigarettes as I was locked in a baby highchair, I couldn’t imagine any. So I thought, OK, enough is enough.  Time to let go. Time to stop crying and defending my family’s behavior. Time to stop trying to understand and be patient. Time to stop crying, hiding, and feeling so sorry for the state of things. Time to stand up for my rights, to set the record straight and remind everyone I’ve been a good parent, wife and family provider for over 20 years. I may have been out of work the last 5 years, but during that time, our life tanked. Now I'm relocating to a place where I can kick into action to provide opportunity for my family as I have for the past 20 years. I was major financial contributor for most of our life, and I recognize the need to be that once again. Don't know how I'll rebuild, but I have to try. All I know is I sure don’t deserve this kind of treatment – certainly not because of some selfish scramble for money or custody or because of a defensive knee jerk reaction to a jointly agreed, long overdue separation.

Now, here I am, changing lawyers, gearing up for battle, planning to devote every resource I have to force a fair distribution of assets. I will fight to be recognized as a good mother, even if it means I end up with nothing at all in the end, a ‘la war of the roses. It’s the principal of the matter. And at long last, instead of being devastated and feeling beaten and alone, I’m actually angry, feeling strong.

 Yesterday, I paused in the bathroom and got a glimpse of my own eyes. They were not unlike those of all the people who have survived divorce, the ones sharing horror stories, warning me to beware, prepare, and not to trust. And recognizing that I have finally been dragged into this ugly state made me sadder than ever.

 Everyone was right. I WAS naive. My upcoming battle is the comeuppance I deserve for boasting that we could end 20 years of loving each other with respect. I was wearing dark sunglasses to hide tears - but they were really just rose colored.

But even as I prepare for a fight now, I still wish they were wrong.  I am finally angry, but beneath that emotion I still feel a deep sadness - a sadness so profound I feel awash in it, as if melancholy is seeping into my pours and will leave a parlor on my skin, heart and mind forevermore. I can’t imagine ever feeling cleansed of it.  

   Of course I’m mature enough to know this too will pass. Life goes on, and happiness only awaits those brave enough to sake steps to pursue it.  Divorce when a marriage has gone wrong is a very important step towards happiness for both parties. It may be a horrible end of something on the one hand, but it offers the promise and hope of a fresh beginning too.

 Mad, sad, or whatever...... I hang on to that.