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For the past eight months, I have tried to wrap my head around the fact that I am becoming a statistic. Like fifty-four percent of Americans, I will soon be divorced. And, if things go as planned, I will be the exact median age — 30.5 — of divorcées after their first marriage.
I never thought I would be in this club. Growing up in California,
I was taught that divorced people were tainted, morally deficient. My parents
often used divorce to explain the erratic behavior of my friends. "Oh, well,
it can't be easy with divorced parents," they would say. My parents had
been married for more than thirty years, and even though they were social workers who dealt
with broken families all the time, the sneer was there — unquestioned. No one in my family had
ever been divorced except a second cousin, and he was seen as eccentric, volatile.
Divorce was something that happened when you rushed into things — and
so I thought I was safe. My wife and I met when we were nineteen, at a school
affectionately known as the Quaker matchbox. Marriages pepper the class notes
like Ph.Ds. Caroline
and I had been
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After
we got married, we stopped having sex. Reminders of
how long it had been were labeled extortion.
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together for eight years when we finally married. We grew up together. We painted
her parents' beach house and moved to New York together in a U-Haul, worked
lowly assistant jobs and then quit with no future prospects. We kept lists of
things we wanted to do by thirty.
We always assumed we would get married, but one thing pushed us over the edge. We were in New York City on 9/11. Without saying so, we decided we would live each day as if it were our last. Two months later, we were engaged.
Our wedding wasn't just an idle get-together. It was
a coronation. People began arriving on Thursday and some didn't leave until
Tuesday. Friends sat in circles like it was a reunion. My ninety-five-year-old
grandfather
came and my grandmother left her husband's deathbed to be there, too. It
was inspiring. Seeing people from every corner of my life in one place made me
realize how big we had become. I was overwhelmed. It made me feel like if things
turned sour, there would be a safety net.
The fact that I look back on my wedding with such unequivocal happiness makes me distrust memory. Surely there should have been a sign that day — a mammoth panic attack, a glance across the room loaded with fear — but no, and I'm really trying here, there was nothing ominous. And nothing leading up to the wedding either. It was as if all the task-mastering of getting those letter press invitations and parsing DJs and ordering flowers made us closer — and that made me believe in marriage even more.
I have to go back to before the wedding, to ancient history
it seems, to find the fissures and cracks which would later stretch into canyons.
True, after the first few years, our sex was never great. Married people always
complain about sex — at least most of the ones I knew did — so I
decided
to embrace the cliché. Married people also rolled their eyes about each
other's jobs. We were normal and that was reassuring.
But that didn't mean I stopped trying. After we got married,
Caroline and I stopped having sex all together. Months would go by — I
tried being forceful, I tried being sweet. Candles, massages,
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A
friend of mine and I occasionally joke about setting up
our exes and letting them have at each other.
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nothing worked. Reminders of how long it had been were labeled extortion, shameful
exercises in shaming. Around then I realized that Caroline had stopped listening
to me talk about my work. She worked her way out of a winter depression, got
a life
coach, then a personal trainer. In three months she'd reinvented her body
and had a new wardrobe to match. She looked great, and I felt like somehow she
was finally emerging from the cocoon of a body that never quite felt like her
own. Instead, our relationship was the cocoon.
In retrospect, I see how much I compartmentalized. Our relationship
began to resemble Sarah Winchester's mansion, with me furiously building
one new room after the next for each part of myself that Caroline couldn't — or
wouldn't — deal with. Marriage, I thought, was a pact that meant
we'd stay within the same house. And that eventually, when she was ready,
Caroline would come into these other rooms and I'd show her around, point
out
what I'd done with the place. Instead, she allowed me to build further
and further away from her.
The strange thing about the end of a relationship is that it forces you
to go back to memory — which is a palimpsest really — so you can
square it with the present. Of all the things Caroline told me during our breakup,
none of them rang quite true. This is not my life, I kept thinking.
I never thought marriage was a barrier to change; I never thought we had been
struggling. It actually never even felt like work to me, which should even be
more frightening.
Eight months out, I look back and see a very different me. I no longer have a divide between what goes on in my head and what comes out of my mouth. I can use the word fuck when talking about sex without wincing in embarrassment. I never have to apologize for staying up until four to read a book, and most happily, I never, ever, have to talk about the South Beach Diet again.
But there are things I miss and miss terribly — some
of them too intimate to name here. One thing I can talk about, though, is the idea
I used to have of marriage. I am happy to give up the notion that divorce only
happens to other people, even happier to know, now, rather than later, that marriage
requires a level of honesty that often hurts. What scares me, though, is how
little marriage actually ensures. I always thought that if you worked on it,
a relationship would — or could — survive.
It never occurred to me that a marriage would fail because one of the two partners
simply didn't want it to work.
I have a friend who is recently divorced, and it's curious how different our perspectives are these days, given how similar our breakups were. We occasionally joke about setting up our exes and letting them have
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I crave the romance and stability of marriage's implicit — if imperfect — promise.
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at each other. But that's where the similarities end. She doesn't want to date, let alone think about marriage. Shortly after my wife and I split up, however, I met someone. Wary as I was of a rebound, I was astonished by how willing I was to love again.
And after all this I still would get married again, too — but I would do it differently. First off, there would be no crashing waves and color-coordinated wedding party or first dance to a Sinatra song. I think that's when weddings become a production, and every actor knows that you'll believe your lines to the death on stage if the stakes are high enough.
If I got married again, it'd be quiet and small, maybe even secretive. I would spare my friends and family the second plane ticket, yet another piece of all-clad kitchen wear (the wife got those anyway). By the end of those big affairs you're so busy responding to gifts and talking to friends that you forget what a big commitment you just made. Once you come down from it all, here it comes boomeranging back at you. Sometimes I think that's why I am where I am today.
I guess this makes me a reformed traditionalist. I don't want the pomp and circumstance of a social wedding, but I do crave the romance and stability of marriage's implicit — if imperfect — promise. I couldn't marry again without being aware of how fragile and breakable is that agreement, though. I used to believe that marriage was like a sine curve. Sometimes you were far apart, some times close, but it all averaged out in the end. If I married again I would never let my wife get that far away from me again.
I think about marriage now and realize how much it has changed. In my grandmother's generation, it seemed people got married out of necessity — and out of love — and they stayed together because that's what one did. In my parents' generation, it was nostalgia (for their parents' values) — and love — that explained marriage.
In my generation, however, marriage is supposed to be even trickier. I could say that women are under more pressure to have a career and to live dramatic, enthusiastic lives outside of raising children and being a wife. But that alone doesn't feel right to me, at least in my case. It feels like explaining my relationship from the outside. It's easy to place the blame on society. What's harder to do is to explain it from the inside. And that's when I realize I must accept that what's wrong with marriage has been there from the beginning. That just because two people love each other, it doesn't mean they always will. It seems an essential, obvious truth. But if I could do it over, it's something I wish I'd never had to learn.
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Join the discussion! Tell us what you think about...
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Same-sex marriage
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Open marriage
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The future of marriage
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©2004
John Freeman and Nerve.com
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Commentarium (40 Comments)
Le Painfully Obvious.
John, you have no idea how much I needed to read this article. The timing was perfect. Thank you for putting this out there.
thanks for the article. i'm going through a divorce, though i didn't make it to the median age. got married at 22, divorced at 26. i'm going through a lot of the same thoughts and anxieties. what i really identified with was the idea that one person can just want out. there's a whole misconception of "working things out." sometimes it just doesn't go down like that. if they want out, they're gone. sad, but true. i guess i'm a reformed traditionalist as well. tragic, but the times we live in.
Hi John,
Excellent article. Very courageous of you to write it. One thing I am wondering though... What do you think went wrong, from your wife's point of view? I don't mean this as a put-down to you, but I am wondering why it all began falling apart as soon as you got married. At the core, were you really just good friends but never in love? Did she never really want to get married at all, so she immediately withdrew from you after the wedding? Something else??
WOW.......YOU WROTE WHAT I'M FEELING RIGHT NOW IN MY SEPERATION AND EXPECT TO FEEL IN THE FUTURE OF A DIVORCE,BECAUSE I THINK THAT IT'S HEADED THAT WAY..........
Hey Iam glad you met someone you can communicate with without the rules and regulations.
Lots of women and men want their partner to be mirrors
of reflection to the point of nausea.
Here is a poem I wrote.
Enjoy it
Rick
webdezine@shaw.ca
...................................................
From Here To There And Back Again
what if I were to tell you a story
a story so complex in dialogue and mystery
that time it self will change and rearrange itself for you
so take a breath
lean back relax and just take it easy
and slow yourself down down down
I will begin to change your intuitive sensibility
so you can hear and see me with more clarity
more dimension more realism
for now come along to a place not far away
where we can both sit and talk you know talk the old language
the words from ages on ages ago
when we were so diverse in lingual personification
as to be free of talk free of voice free of form
ahh a breath a breath a breath
can you see the aural wisps which abound
around the illuminating embers of our souls
with whom we share all of our stories
all of our achievements all of our sorrows
oh no not our sorrows
please do not dwell on that
and come back come back away with me
to move time and space and dimension
into an alternative parallel reality
so please hold on tight
for the trip is so very dense in foliage
a spiral parable of twining vine movements
within the souls code of ethics
honoring our deep sensibility of who and what we really are
for there is a voice a true voice
so remember this voice when we are fused in a moving duality
with such force of unity determination and pure intelligence
that waves of such intense love radiate outwards and beyond
and inwards spiraling to a microscopic point
now slowwwww down down down and stop
take a breath a deep breath of the sweet fresh air
and see through my eyes yours to see through mine
our holding of hands and feeling the pure sweet energy
of the continuous souls spirit from all of the times before
and for all of our consciousness yet to come
and still we stay to reside here on this earth
to dream to dream to dream
Great story. I'm about to start the divorce process with my husband of 2 1/2 years, so this story came at the perfect time. I feel like I can really relate to what has been written. Thanks.
Mr. Freedman,
THank you so much for this essay. I am six months out from leaving my marriage. I got married very young to my literature professor, but I thought I did it with the utmost gravitas and consideration, meditation, and prayer. I grew very Catholic, and there was the same atmosphere. We don't SAY that divorced people are damned, but we refuse them communion if they re-marry without annulment - my parents would disown me if I ever want to try marriage again without going through the contortions of an annulment.
Anyway, nevermind my life story, but I'd always thought, until the day I had to leave that divorced people were -
1.) Victims of abandonment
or
2.) Never gave a damn about marriage in the first place.
I took marriage so, so, so incredibly seriously. And I was the one who left. It's very hard to reconcile these truths with the truth that I am going to be a divorced person.
So thanks for writing this - I can identify. And hey, I'm 21, so maybe I'll bring the median age down a little bit, right?
Something that I heard before and it really does seem to ring true in a lot of marriages. The idea was... we set goals for ourselves, internally we think there is a certain age we must be married by and an age to start a family (as well as other goals) and when that age nears we look around and see the person standing next to us and all the sudden they are "the one". In the days gone by that look around happened at an early age, possibly when people needed to move out of their parents house, possibly when one wanted to start having sex (religion kept people from premarital sex) etc.
Now we have stretched the marriage date and we start to feel the urge to marry at a later date... usually after 25 and nearing 30 we start to really look around. Those not in relationships get depressed and speed up their search, usually making no ground until they relax and let things happen on their own. Those that are with someone feel that they have found the perfect person.
If you and the other person are on the same timeline you end up married. This doesnt mean you are in love. It doesnt mean you are destined for a lifetime together. It only means you were both ready to marry at the same time.
I am divorced. I spent 15 unmarried and 10 married years with my ex. We were together since highschool. I was very happy in my time with him. Then one day poof it was gone. We got far away from each other as you describe and neither of us wanted to work on it, to get things back. We have been divorced/separated 6 years and I dont miss him although I see him or talk to him every day about our kids. We have an very good relationship now because we have joint custody and will not have the children affected anymore then they have to be.
I think if I had a divorce where I never saw him again (for the most part) I would feel it. Go thru a grieving etc. For now we still have common goals, where the children are concerned. We live within 2 miles of each other and we attend anything kid related together etc. He has remained a good friend.
Sex was never an issue for us but I can tell you and every man that for a woman sex = intimacy and that if sex is gone, intimacy is also gone. Yes there is more to intimacy but this is a good indicator of something wrong. A woman goes thru tons of hormonal changes and becomes a ferocious nympho at age 40 (atleast us divorced ones would call ourselves that) because the hormones are settling out. We are getting more male hormones.
The other issue you mentioned does play a part. Women are expected to have all the house/child tending duties and a career and a life. I found that I could do all but my own life. I had the responsibility of the kids even though my ex would help out. I had the responsibility of the house and cooking and dishes etc even though he would help out. His idea of helping out was to take the kids downstairs after supper so that I could do the dishes (this would be after his 1 hour pre-supper nap which I would never have been able to do) so there is still inequality in a lot of marriages.
This eats away at women. I used to get up at 6, get three kids ready for the day, get myself in professional atire and drive 30 minutes to the city with two separate stops to daycares. This would be repeated in the evening, getting home at 6 pm. Then supper, dishes, homework, baths, bedtime stories and it would be 9 pm. Then 1 hour of something for myself and its 10 pm. Then my ex would join me in bed and wonder why I was not enthusiastic about sex.
It took us some heart to hearts to be able to work out that he could realize that bed was for sleeping and that sex would happen anywhere but the bed. This was just our way of working this out. We had great sex, just not every night.
Anyways, now I am alone, I have had a love affair and a broken heart. I have realized that its tough to meet someone new that meets up to my standards. I have realized that alot of singles my age are enjoying their new found freedom from living with another person and this means they are reluctant to getting into a relationship. For me as a woman sex is not an issue, I can have sex with anyone from age 22 to 55. I choose not to fuck like that but I could. Sex to me means making love. That intimacy that comes with playful times with one person. That I miss.
Your column made me think you are one of a few people who actually look at their failed marriage to see if there was something that they should have done different. If only to watch for future relationships. So many people play the victim and let others around them reinforce this by going along with that. He/she is responsible, I had no part in this. That is the message 95% of divorcees give out. I am totally disappointed in people when I hear them talk like that.
So much more to add but I do need to stop here.
susannas37@yahoo.com
Susanna
Thank you for writing this. I'm a child of divorced parents and swore I wouldn't make the same mistake. Alas, I'm in the middle of one now, and this has been the most difficult decision of my life.
I think the biggest takeaway for me was learning that marriage isn't any guarantee of lifelong love or security. It takes work each and every day, and after years of feeling invisible and taken for granted, I'm learning to concentrate all that energy once expended on my marriage back on me and what'll make me happy.
That said, I haven't given up hope on loving -- even marrying -- again. I'll just do it differently next time. (By the way, I eloped the first time around, and next time I want the dress and the first dance. I guess we all want what we didn't have in our first marriage!)
Best wishes to you -- and to everyone in similar circumstances -- as you start this new phase of your life.
Marriage sucks. Don't marry- live together!
I also would like to thank you, I met my wife when I was 19 and we married after seven years. Three beautiful children later and 23 years I am in the middle of a very accrimonious divorce, but I have found my first love.
I still like the idea of marriage, however feel it is very much an outdated institution belonging to an era very different from ours.
It is a truism that love does not last forever, and I mourn the passing of those nights of feverish passion, they have been replaced with a more grounded and frankly more caring loving.
It is unfortunate that society still encourages us to fall into the marriage cycle, in the UK and probably in the States we are given tax advantages if we marry and if we have children, this state funded support of marriage is turning out to be a bad investment, judging by the divorce rate today.
So we should think again, and we are, thanks to essays like yours and to Nerve having the 'nerve' to address such a controversial subject, but until our parents stop expecting us all to marry by rote and until we encourage our own children to take a more realistic view of a concept that seems doomed to failure in an age when we expect instant gratification, then marriage is still a route that many of us will take.
A couple of years ago I told my 14 year old daughter that marriage was not expected of her and that if she chose not to, that would be fine by me.
Unfortunately she decided to repeat this to her British grandparents (very country) in a typical British understated way my mother in law gave me a look that conveyed her murderous feelings about me.
Keep at it Nerve and John you are breaking barriers, and that is great.
nice article---captured a lot of the hidden "essence" (I wish I could think of a better word)--of a marriage..
As a freshly-divorced middle aged guy, it seemed like everything Mr Freeman said had come out of my mouth at some point during the breakup. My wife was always going out and "doing things", while I worked two jobs, then came home and took the kids to Tae Kwon Do, violin lessons and school programs. During the worst of it, she gave me grief for "not having a life". Well, DUH! Someone had to take care of things while she took off. It is difficult to know that the person you have loved (and still love) considers your 24+ years together a mere "learning experience", but that's how she minimized the importance of preserving the union. I truly believe everyone should sign a marriage contract. Maybe something like 3-4 years, with options to add more years, as in professional sports. Then, instead of divorce, you can tell your spouse you are "not picking up her/his option".
Terrific read. You captured so much in a few paragraphs. I too was divorced by 31. I am the woman in this situation but our situations aren't very different.
Agreed. Next time....(if), itimate and unbreakable. I will accept nothing less.
Thanks for your insight.
I think I love you. Thanks.
Very good article John. I can relate. I met my ex at 19 and we dated on and off throughout college (different schools). We were engaged at 24, married at 26 and split at 28. My advice to people (although I know it is unrealistic, yet the average age of people getting married keeps going up) is to "play the field." Have a few long relationships before you get married. This is not a surefire formula but I think it should increase the odds of survival.
I divorced my husband earlier this year, and like the woman in this account, I had simply "not wanted" our marriage to work. Also, my ex seems happy to love again while I am much more wary. I agree that when I remarry it will not be a show but a private promise. Time teaches things that no advice can. Today I sold my engagement and wedding ring to a dirty little man holding a faded alligator skin briefcase and wearing bone-colored SAS shoes. He peeled a wrinkled $100 bill from out of his wallet before I crept out of his mothball-smelling "store", which was right next to the XXX adult movie store and "Dancing Bare" burlesque theater. I nearly ran into a drunk carrying a gigantic bag of beer bottles before I made it to my car. I broke down in tears as I finally realized--I got what I asked for--freedom--for what?
dear author--you reveal much when you compare your marriage to the winchester house. if i remember rightly, the house's' rooms built upon rooms were the result of fear, fear of living and sleeping in the same place each night.
in marriage, what do we do with fear? expose it and breath it to the one we love? or create around it an object, a room of invulnerability apparently sound in structure yet having no function other than the preservation of our ideal. my former husband built me a beautiful bathtub with a skylight--instead of admitting how precarious our relationship was. like you, he wanted to show me the room, his work, a solid object of his love. i know now that if he had asked me to help him build the tub, get messy and cut the wrong tile, the bath would still be for us, instead of just me.
My friend forwarded this to me and I am so excited to know that there are others who have been through my same situation. I suffer from 'terminal uniqueness' that keeps me from seeing the big picture clearly. I am touched and comforted by your honesty and it made me want to hug you. You have explained so intricately the ways that we try to wait for our spouse to notice what we want from them so much but by the time they do notice--at least for me--we've been screaming so long our voices are hoarse and there's nothing left to say. It took my physically leaving for him to notice that I was there the whole time.
I really enjoyed your article.
I am not divorced, I am considering this.
I still love my wife but i dont really want to be together
with her anymore. I feel changed and our sex life is
not much to speak of. I still care and care for her
well being after i leave. Friends and others tell me to
think about my well being, my happiness. But i now
know that i have to be honest to her and me. I found
this article was very helpful
This was a great essay. I really feel for the writer and can relate in many ways. I always had the romantic notion of love and romance and one would think that would be a benefit to a marriage...marry your soul mate and live happily ever after. I found however, that that exact romantic notion puts blinders on you to the fact that everything takes effort and people change.
Very touching and the kind of perspective that all unmarried people need but never get. I'm on the verge of entering into a traditional 'arranged' marriage but I'm holding back because I'm not 'in love' and popular culture will have us believe that getting into marriage before being in love is a recipe for disaster. John's story makes a completely differnt case.
I just finished my divorce and though I have always used writing as a way of expressing myself, I have not been able to put my situation as rationally as you have. Thank you and best of luck.
I don't know what to say, I'm totally stunned after reading your article. I am 22 and unmarried. I just ended a 2 year relationship and it hurts and I could relate to you in that sense. Your article actually brought tears in my eyes, especially the last line "That just because two people love each other, it doesn't mean they always will."
I guess life is not meant to be fair. People are always unhappy in this life in some way or the other.
keep up the good work!
I wish it were as simple as that - in our case, at any rate.
Last January my beloved wife of 28 years said she was going to leave me. Not that she was thinking of leaving me, but that she was going to. She had been formulating the decision for four or five months, but had said nothing for fear of being talked out of it.
In many ways I thought (as did our friends) we had something like an ideal marriage. We came to it as independent adults - I was 40, P was 30. Neither of us had any idea of marrying (or remarrying, in my case), and we were both astonished to find an overwhelming need to be together.
Obviously we had ups and downs. But the ups kept coming; only two years ago, after a big row that (I suppose) heightened our emotions, we seemed to embark on a second honeymoon with raw, passionate sex and renewed closeness.
If I had become repulsive, or boring, or if another man was involved, I might be able to come to terms with P's seemingly irrevocable decision. As it stands, she seems to be leaving me not for nothing, but for less than nothing; together we were financially comfortable, apart we'll be near the edge. P - who is a very talented lady - will have to give up her low-paid or unpaid creative work to earn a living in menial jobs. She knows this, and is fearful about lonliness and lack of money. But she "has to do it."
There is still much affection between us, and we are living much the same life as we did before the bombshell - doing most things together, arguing, having fun, going to the theatre, spending lovely days in the country. The only thing missing is sex, though we continue to share a chaste bed.
The final split will come when we complete the sale of our house (which we were going to do anyway - empty nest). I can't believe it's happening - it feels like a dreadful mistake for both of us.
I think we should divorce, if only to force myself to believe we're finished. Bizarrely, P won't consider it. "It would be too much on top of everything else" she says. And she has a vision of a post-split life in which we see each other a lot. "Maybe I'll fall in love with you again" she says. "Maybe we'll end up in bed"
Meanwhile, I'm finding it very, very difficult to cope. I can't contemplate life without my soulmate of thirty years.
If I could get inside P's head, or heart, and understand why she has come to this decision I might be able to come to terms with it. Meanwhile we alternate between tearing each other apart emotionally and leading a near-normal married life. Both of us are deeply unhappy - in P's case out of concern for my distress which - she says - was completely unexpected by her. She thought I would receive her decision with relief, and maybe even welcome it. "I would only drag you down if we stayed together" she says.
Of course, I still hope we can find our way out of this mess, which looks like an all-round disaster for both of us. But God knows how.
There, that's got it off my chest. Thanks for listening.
R in London
Marriage scared the shit out of her. She's still a child and is the incarnation of the impetuously fickle nature of children--she had one foot out the door. Then she spent some serious time re-buffing herself, hoping somehow that it would give her strength and confidence. The problem is, strength and confidence in what? Strength and confidence gained from such a material patina will erode in concert with her physical fitness. She handed you a big break, send her a Thank You card. Let her have her mental meltdown somewhere else.
I just wanted to say that this is an amazing article. I'm going through a break-up with my fiance after six years, three of those living together. So much of what I thought about marriage and forever has been so challenged. This author was able to capture so many of those feeling smore eliquently than I ever could!
I'm in the process of getting divorced now. Like the author, I assumed our relationship woes would all balance out in the end and forever was forever and there was no option about divorce. It is refreshing and comforting to see others coming out of the same unexpected agony with a sense of hope.
At this point, I dont see myself getting married again unless I want to have children. If that point comes, I want it to be with someone else who has seen a marriage fail for no other reason than one party no longer wanted it to work.
Kudos! Excellent article.
I work in a law firm that specializes in family law and specifically divorce. I see men and women daily that have gone through what you so eloquently described in your piece on divorce. And what is so wonderful is that a majority of the people who go through divorce, if they are smart, they use the time afterward for self exploration and renewal. They walk away with a new sense of what is important and vital. Not just for their next relationship, but more so what is important and vital to them selves. Because ultimately that is where change begins, within yourself.
I am single and always have been. I love miss at times being part of a coupling, being in love. I have come close to marriage but I must confess, I enjoy being alone. I enjoy the small nuances that being single affords you. You can do so many things when you are single that you can not when you are married. Because with marriage comes obligations to another human being. Your time is not necessarily "your time". You do indeed owe your partner the courtesy of knowing where you are, what you are doing and whom with. Which is the number one reason I see relationships fall apart. Far to many people live as if they are still single within the confines of marriage. That doesn't work.
Le Divorce provided a wonderful and very accurate glimpse into what and how divorce affect one's life. You may have been sharing your life's experience, however you should know it is echoed by thousands world wide.
Very heart-wrenching writing. Loved it. Even better to read these words from a man. Thanks for sharing what is certainly a very painful experience.
You nailed it. This is my second divorce. The most profound thing you said was how a marriage could fail if the other person didn't want it. The first marriage.. I was that person. My second marriage it was my husband. I'm in the same boat. It's been six months since our separation. I still believe in the institution of marriage though. Outstanding job.
Interesting conclusion, but does the survival of marriage require both partners to always love each other? If we acknowledge feelings do change, and we each experience life as individuals, do changes in individual feelings (even if transient)doom the relationship? In such cases it would seem our failure to honor the traditional social constructs and instead believe the unknown other is waiting out there to complete us may lead us to a betrayal and wounding of things we deeply value, but don't simply experience in that moment. My personal opinion, in relationships not characterized by pathologies, or abuse (eg, as in the author's case, one spouse withdrawing physically and emotionally), it may be "better" for both parties to work it out (particularly if children are involved). Of course this requires a commitment to the relationship and the honored status of your partner in your life. Everyone married for any length of time will go through a period in which they ask themselves why are they with the person they are. The key is for both not to act on impulse, or change your treatment of your spouse as beloved because you no longer perceive them as meeting your emotional needs.
I read your article on "Le Divorce". I'm 28, female and never married and going through what I'm calling the 28 is the new 40 life crisis. I recently went through a breakup. The person I was dating wanted badly to get married and had a fixed idea in his head what that would be like and what that woman should be like. I'm watching at the same time my thirty something friends get divorced and reading your article with some trepidation and fearing "is that it?" All that life, love and marriage has to offer? I don't know. Everyone seems to have a fixed idea of what their marriage and ideal partner is like, but that seems to breed stagnation that kills the marriage. Don't know. Certainly admire the courage to love again.
Please forward the following feedback to the author (I am an old friend):
John-
I am so sorry to hear about your divorce. Your article gave a great perspective on it though. I hope that things will turn around for your and that you are doing well. Erin mentioned that you were not at the reunion last year, and I was so sad to hear it because I have often wondered where life had taken you. It would be great to hear from you! Please shoot me an email if you get a chance... cfeldmann@deloitte.com.
Take care of yourself and keep in touch!
Cara (Fievel) Feldmann
John--
I just read your piece. I thought it was terrific--I can see a lot of my own divorce in what you write about. Not to mention not having sex while married, entering another relationship fairly quickly, and being willing to get married again--minus the pomp and circumstance.
Best,
Bob
wow-going through something similar-that is my first marriage is rocky and really your story struck a cord.
We had a small wedding though-my fears were the same as yours it appears.
I just loved this piece. I am going through my own divorce, and it is so refreshing to see such honesty come from a man's perspective. I didnt want the story to end since I wanted to read more.....
I loved this article. I have not personally gone through a divorce, but I have grown up with it. I though the incredible honesty of the writer was so touching. I have always felt that Divorce becomes so cliche in today's society, but that it is still an emotial event in ones life that colors a person forever. I really enjoyed reading such an honest perspective of Divorce. Thanx.
I think divorce is hell and at the same time it can be very liberating. I don't think anyone should get married in their 20s and I wish like the author of this piece I had hit this place some 10 years earlier than I did, but at least I got there.
Now you say something