As a smug married, I regarded those splitting up with all the fascination of roadkill. I wanted a close look and a real understanding but was often afraid to look as I got closer. It grossed me out. I found it sinister and feared its truth.
If moral indignation is jealousy with a halo- there were later moments when I judged harshly people splitting up, a reality that on one side is disappointing to me, but on the other helps me be patient with how people view me and my decision to leave.
In time I found I was a little envious of their bravery because I was searching for my courage. I wondered how they arrived at their decision. What was their last straw, their defining moment, their note of permission that no one could deny.
Francine Prose says “perhaps what should have tipped me off was the puzzling fact that whenever I heard that friends (or even celebrities) were splitting up, I was suffused with vague inchoate yearning and with something like the jealousy I imagine prisoners experience on learning that one of their jailmates has made a successful escape.”
She did finally leave her husband and subsequently remarried then found that spectator divorce no longer brought her solace, comfort and inspiration. As a once again newly married person she represents the other team – the one longing to keep their hope up and not be the last ones standing.
The happily married, in this day of epidemic divorce rates, float clinging to their marriedness, as if on an ice flow while so many pieces break away- their friends’ marriages,that one acquaintance marriage-the ” epitome of the perfect married couple”, even the pillars of the institution- their parents marriages and friends of parents (often to a chorus of “why bother” as if life ends at a certain point and fresh starts are inconceivable and certainly a dramatic sadness after all the building and memories).
I am on a lonely team now. I can’t find my players- as a divorced woman who still believes in love, hope and partnership – I don’t always find that in other divorced people. Some have given up, many are too pragmatic/logical to go one more round, many, I fear, are broken from the experience. I cling tightly to my belief-like a ridiculous oversized stuffed animal that a grown up girl should let go of- experience sometimes attempting to pull it away from me.
I have a weird job but I love it. Check out my other new post to hear how I spent last week by clicking on this. Come along… you’re not that tired of me yet.