Looking back over the past six months, I notice that many friends deserted. They didn't offer extra help with the kids, or to take me out for a dish session. When I saw them on the street or at the school they told me how terrible - terrible! - this whole divorce was and how they had thought I'd be with my husband forever.
I patiently explained that my husband and I get along much better when we don't share a house; when there are no expectations except explicit ones. That we both are nice people who had a great marriage and now it needs to take another form. That he and I will always be family, because of our kids. (My joke at the time was "Just like family - people you love but don't want to spend too much time with")
I told them how much happier I am, and that my husband must be too, without having me breathing down his neck about everything.
I espoused my theory that family doesn't have to mean man, wife, children, picket fence. That love and family are where you find them.
My so-called friends would listen, nod and agree. Then they'd reiterate how terrible this all was, and walk away and never call.
Initially, I was hurt. And thanks for the couple of besties who stuck around and listened to my fears and pain.
But these other friends; these (mostly) women who were married with kids; whose lives resembled my own - they backed away like I was contagious. They of all people should understand my frustration and lost dreams. Wouldn't they most be able to sympathize, to know the bad that outweighed the good in my marriage? We had previously listened and consoled each other as we moaned about husbands, households, kids. They best knew the frustrations of marriage and the times when you think I just can't take it anymore. They knew my marriage had been going downhill for years. Where were they now?
Hurt at the time, I didn't understand. I thought maybe they were sick of my depression and fears. I did avoid social situations, feeling like I didn't have much else to talk about. Divorce, like loss or illness, takes over your life for a while, and becomes the only topic.
Maybe it was my fault - I'm not the best at asking for help, or accepting it when it comes. I know there's a thin line between reaching out and uncommitted bitching*, so I'm always a little leery of over-sharing or of going on and on without action.
*Uncommitted complaining, as introduced to me by a Landmark course, is consistently complaining about a thing or situation without the faintest intention of ever doing a thing about it. It's the reason I had dropped a few friends over the years, once I realised that they had no intention of changing the things they bitched about the most. Bitching as a way of asking for help is one thing, but bitching just to complain and not admitting your own contribution to the situation is just annoying.
I was hurt at the time, but with the clarity of retrospective, I see that those whose situation most closely resembles my own are the ones who mostly disappeared. Those with unconventional relationships or attitudes stuck around.
A lot of people were shocked when I announced our separation. People thought we had an ideal marriage and were the best of friends. "Living the dream" had often been used by others to describe my marriage.
I think that when an outwardly great-seeming relationship breaks down, those who idealized it are shaken to the core. If a couple that seems so established breaks up, it casts doubt on their own marriage - is there hope? They turned away from me and huddled tighter, keeping the divorce demon from the door.
