Midlife Divorce: The First Days

    When you first really understand that your spouse wants out of your marriage, it’s like a shocking slap in the face or a punch in the gut …. the kind where you can’t catch your breath and you drop to your knees. I absolutely could not believe that my husband of 33 years had a girlfriend and was willing to give up the wonderful family and the life we had built together for all those years. I kept thinking he would come to his senses. I kept praying for a miracle. 

But after three years of struggle, when that day came in 2000, standing on the courthouse steps as a divorced woman, I was a mess. I was devastated on so many levels I can’t even describe them all. Divorce is not only a very personal, but a very public failure, and I felt like a spiritual failure as well. I wondered, “what influence can I have for good in this life if the man I want most to please doesn’t think I’m worth being married to?” 

I had always been a strong, confident, independent woman who loved life and all the joys it offered. But at the very beginning of this ordeal and the days immediately following, I was having trouble getting out of bed in the morning. I wasn’t eating. I couldn’t sleep. I cried all the time. I was a physical, emotional, spiritual wreck. I had told my children all their lives … just always do the right thing and everything else will take care of itself. Even though I am an optimist and a God follower, I wondered what good could possibly come from the destruction of my marriage. In the beginning of the divorce journey I was so heartbroken I was having a hard time holding myself together.   

Early on, I found out that there were several women in my neighborhood going through almost the same thing I had been going through, and about six to eight other acquaintances as well. I called them and admitted that I was really struggling and wondered if they would like to get together every other week or so and just talk about issues we were facing. 

I remember telling my counselor that I was worried about starting this group because I felt so weak myself. I told my older brother that I was afraid we might just all sit down around the table and start crying and not be able to stop. He said, “Well, the meeting starts at 7 a.m. I’ll call at 7:30 a.m. You just pick up the phone and if all I hear in the background is uncontrollable sobbing, I’ll send help to get everyone home!” 

One of the things that is difficult about this journey is that you are embarrassed you are doing so poorly. Our culture seems to say divorce is no big deal. Friends tell us to “just get over it … he/she isn’t worth it, or you’ll find someone else.” There are no grief rituals for divorce. Widows or widowers have friends and family gather around, casseroles, sympathy cards, offers to help. Divorcees usually get nothing. People don’t give you the space or the encouragement to grieve as you must.  

I was a strong, confident woman, and I hated to admit I was doing so poorly. But all of us were struggling. I can’t think of any other situation that is such a devastation to who you are as a person. I went from feeling good about myself to feeling like the biggest failure in the universe. At that first meeting of our group, I wanted to have an agenda in hand so we wouldn’t just start crying, so I passed out a binder that had R.A.D.I.C.A.L. Women on the front. 

R.A.D.I.C.A.L. is an acronym for Rising Above Divorce In Confidence And Love, so we became the R.A.D.I.C.A.L. Women. The subtitle was “A Practical Resource Guide to Transform the Despair of Your Divorce Into A Revolutionary Good.” The sub-sub title was, “How to Keep from Strangling Him and His Pathetic Little Girlfriend and Ending Up in Jail for the Rest of Your Life and Instead Find Peace, Joy, Abundance and Even Fun!” 

The binder  became the Radical Recovery Book and Workbook that was published in July 2007 by Leafwood Publishers. (They made me take off the sub-sub title!) The R.A.D.I.C.A.L. group met and began to talk about practical ways to get better. We started with the basics because we all discovered that when you are going through this storm, it’s hard for you to do even the basic, daily activities of life. 

In my first binder, the first page had just two words in the middle of the page. “Get Up.” We slowly began developing a list that was later called “The Survival Six.” You need to be doing these six basic things consistently before you can move much farther up the recovery ladder.  

The Survival Six:                          

1. Get Up.                         
2. Take A Shower.                         
3. Fix Your Face.                         
4. Get Dressed.                         
5. Eat Something Healthy.                        
6. Get Moving.  

1. Get up. 
Those long agonized seconds in the morning when I first came back to consciousness after the restless nights were the seconds I hated most.  I dreaded those gut-wrenching moments when I first realized – again -- that the life I had known for 33 years was crumbling all around me. I would cover my head in despair and think “I can’t do this again today. Please let me lose consciousness until it doesn’t hurt so much and then I’ll get up.” 

In the beginning, just getting out of bed is a real accomplishment. Each morning you will have to mentally and physically will yourself out of bed. One of the women in our first group had a friend who came over in the mornings, help get her out of bed and help get her kids off to school. Another woman said, “The day I found out he was really going to leave us and marry his girlfriend, I just kept telling myself… Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!” 

Life definitely gets down to the basics. Whatever it takes, call on the people you need. Use whatever mind games you can use to get yourself out of bed. Keep an inspirational thought or affirmation by your bed and read it first thing when you open your eyes. While you’re still under the covers, stretch your fingers and your toes. Tense and release all the muscle groups from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. When you finally get your feet on the floor, say “Thank you for this new day,”  even if you don’t totally mean it at the moment. Stretch yourself. Reach up as high as you can, put your head back, stand on your tip toes. Stretch in every direction. Then take a deep breath and walk to the shower.