I’ve been divorced twice. The first time, after quite a lengthy marriage, my personal midlife crisis began and I decided there had to be more in this life than my marriage and my husband were capable of providing. My husband was not happy I was leaving. Not because he loved me, but because I disrupted a routine he had grown comfortable with.
Since divorce was my choice, I left the marriage taking a few personal items. I also took care of all the legalities and paid for the attorney. My husband did not get his own attorney as he didn’t need one. We weren’t fighting over property distribution and there were no children requiring support or custody provisions.
Having moved from my parents’ home to my husband’s home, with no time for my own independence prior to marriage, I should have felt alone and afraid. Instead, I felt liberated.
Leaving this marriage was particularly difficult because I had been raised to believe that marriage lasted forever, regardless of the circumstances or the happiness of either partner. After divorcing, I realized that not every marriage can or will or should succeed.
I thought my second marriage would be my last. In what some might consider a “what goes around, comes around” payback, after eight years of marriage, my husband said he wanted a divorce.
This, too, was an uncontested divorce. By the time he decided divorce was the only answer, I realized that I was powerless to hold onto him any longer. This time I didn’t feel liberated, I felt drained.
After each divorce, I tried to figure out what had gone wrong in the marriage, where I had failed, where my husband may have failed. No divorce is 100 percent the fault of one person, despite who wants to leave or who wants to stay.
After my second divorce, I decided I hadn’t yet learned enough about myself to make a proper choice of life partner. I had to be fine-tuned some more. In my search for me, I found that all the stumbles and falls throughout the years didn’t occur without reason. Not that I understood the reasons when they happened.
It took looking back in time to see why each occurrence happened and how each prepared me for the next step in my life. We aren’t handed more than we can carry, but sometimes we have to be toughened up to carry what we will be handed.
Divorce isn’t easy, no matter who initiates it or how civilized the participants plan to be. It will change your life forever. You will lose friends. You will lose contact with in-laws you love. Your own family members may dislike what you’ve done to the family circle. Your children will suffer. Your financial security may be in jeopardy.
Sometimes, there is just no other choice.