For anyone who is going through a divorce, the holiday season ranks right up there with root canals as a fun time. And why shouldn’t it? It’s a time when families get together and share all the warmth and love they’ve stored up all year long for each other.
Only you’re alone. And perhaps you’re not even welcome in the family setting that you’ve enjoyed for so many years when your marriage was going along so well (or at least that’s what everyone thought). What do you call in-laws when you’re no longer married? Ex-in-laws? It’d be nice to be able to call them friends. But probably not this year. Maybe next.
Of course your kids want to see their father or their mother, your ex or soon to be ex, and they’re not too happy that you won’t be spending the holidays together like before.
There’s a bright side, though, they get two Christmas mornings, one at your house, one at the other house, and that should mean double the presents. Only you don’t have a lot of money and your ex does so you’re going to come out looking a bit shabby in the kids’ eyes when they compare their presents.
Holiday cards are a problem. Do you send them from the “family” and hope nobody pays any attention? Or do you send them from yourself and the kids and hope nobody notices your spouse’s name is missing? Maybe no cards this year is the best answer.
What about the phone calls from relatives and long lost friends, the ones who keep in touch once a year. The phone calls when they ask “how’s Dave?” and you have to say “oh, didn’t you know? Dave and I are divorced…” and then there’s the awkward silence, or the gasp, or the need for explanation. Maybe a chatty newsletter with a little “PS” at the bottom “PS, Dave is living with his new wife, kids and I are fine.” Maybe not.
What the holidays do is open the wounds, make them hurt particularly painfully during a time that you’re supposed to be happier than usual. It’s the holidays! Hey, be happy! How does that stop the pain that comes from having a husband say he’s tired of being married, or having a wife say she needs to find herself – alone. What do you do when everyone around you is celebrating the New Year and you’d give anything to turn the clock back to two years ago when the two of you were celebrating the holidays together?
How about those holiday parties everyone is having and they’d like to invite you, but your ex is going to be there so, maybe some other time. Or you’re invited but now who do you invite so you don’t spend the whole evening wishing you’d never ventured from home. Or you’re invited and your hostess has already decided that she’s got the most fantastic person for you to meet except that the two of you take an instant dislike to each other and the evening drags on forever. Or you go with or without a date and you let everyone see you having a good time even though you’d rather be anywhere but there, but you know that sometime you’ve got to get over the pain, and the healing might as well start now.
I remember a Christmas many years ago when I was newly divorced and away from family and friends. A friend from work invited me to her home for Christmas dinner. It was four of us around the dinner table, she and her husband, their five-year-old son and me. It made a big impression, that lonely feeling as I shared the holiday with their young family. It’s one of the few Christmas dinners I remember, and I treasure the memory even though she and I haven’t seen each other in years.