Today I was reading a very interesting and revealing blog written by a man who is going through a divorce. Anyone interested in reading a man’s perspective should visit A Life Transformed HERE. His wonderful blog was the impetus for my short three-part series on Divorce Advice.
Once the shock wears off, one of the biggest problems a person divorcing encounters is the complete loss of self-confidence. Everyone wonders what is wrong with them, why their spouse wants to leave them, and so on. This is particularly true for anyone not having initiated the divorce themselves.
In my case, I had married my high-school sweetheart. We were together from the age of 15, married at 20, and divorced at 35 (luckily no children). We had always been best friends, as well. What happened for me was that my ex-husband went through an early mid-life crisis at the age of 35, and wanted to change everything, including his wife. I did not want a divorce, but as he was certain he did, I could not see trying to force someone to stay with me who was clearly no longer interested. What kind of a marriage would that be? Certainly not a satisfying one.
Although we had problems during our marriage like any couple, I had always thought we had a good marriage. I had the shock of my life, therefore, when my husband told me (during the months we were getting divorced) that he thought we had a terrible marriage! This totally destroyed my self-confidence for a full year. After one year of working through this I finally came to the conclusion that it WAS possible for ONE person to feel the marriage was good, and the OTHER person to feel it was not good (due to differing needs and wants). I had been questioning whether I could trust my own judgment during this whole year of soul-searching.
I finally decided that I COULD trust myself and my own judgment. I wrote my ex a very long letter (I had traveled to Egypt at that time and sent it from there) discussing my feelings and conclusion. When I later got back, my ex told me that actually, he HAD always thought we had a good marriage, too (even though he no longer wanted to be in it), but he had told me that we had a terrible marriage because he was ANGRY and thought that would be the thing that would hurt me the most–as indeed it did.
I later saw that most people getting divorced go through similar questioning of themselves. I also learned that even after you are in a new relationship, it really takes about five years to get over the effects of your divorce and come out a better, stronger person on the other side. The worst part is the first one-to-two years.
I think blogging is a great way to find other people to talk to, and just wish it had existed at the time I was getting one! Divorced people also need to find new, supportive friends in line with some of their new interests.
–Paloma Pentarian
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Tags: A Life Transformed, angry spouse, divorce experiences, effects of divorce, forgiving spouse, how long it takes to get over a divorce, loss of self-confidence during a divorce, lying spouse, why a spouse wants a divorce
