Our interview today is with our very own Agony Aunt Linda Simpson in person.
In this video, Linda talks about how coping with divorce in the first days, weeks and months can be very challenging emotionally. Linda tells us how to go about dealing with these emotions and the normality of their existence.
She also talks about how important it is to deal with those raw emotions and how to go about doing so before you can fully embrace your new life after divorce.
My husband moved out Boxing Day. I don’t know why we thought spending Christmas together would be a good idea when we knew we were separating. The kids were sad, I was angry and he was eager to get through Christmas to leave. Now what?
There are lots of separating couples that make decisions they wonder about at a later date. Some even go on one last holiday and others spend one last holiday season together. You did it, it’s over and there is nothing you can do to change what happened.
What you can do now is focus on your life with your children and your future. If you are OK, your kids will be OK.
Routines are essential to establish stability in the new family unit. If you have shared custody then make sure the children have input on the scheduling of their visits back and forth.
Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of divorce is acceptance of the changes needed in this new reality.
Rules need to be established. Will he be expected to knock at your door and wait for it to be opened? How much interaction between the two of you is another question to consider. Do you keep connected on social media? Too often social media is used as a place to get even and no one benefits from public outbursts. Your children might see it and their friends might see it too.
Your goal right now is to begin to put your new life together ensuring stability for your children after what has probably been many difficult months.
Learning a new language of ‘my’ children and ‘me’ is another task. They are your children together but when talking to friends and family I found it best to refer to them as mine. Using plural pronouns only complicated matters because we weren’t ‘us’ anymore.
He is gone. So another question is how you will refer to him in conversation. The children’s father is one example and his given name another. Both are less abrasive than my Ex.
Starting a new life has its challenges but being prepared for these eventualities helps ease the transition. Your children have probably experienced some very difficult times and keeping the negative emotion controlled will be of great benefit to them.
How will you deal with parent teacher interviews? Do you feel comfortable sharing the interview with him or do you wish to do it separately?
Schools are very accommodating toward separate interviews so ask for it if you feel that is what you want. Above all do what makes you most comfortable and not what he expects you to do. This is your new life now. School concerts and sports events can be dealt with in the same way. Any decision can be altered down the road but for now do what feels best for you.
Resolve to be the best parent you can be. Your children need to know they can depend on you and that you will be balanced and fair in your decision making with them.
Too often our loss of control in the divorce process leads to an anger that is acted out on people closest to us.
Gaining control of our emotions means better decision making and there will be many decisions ahead. Your children have a future that needs to be considered. They can weather divorce and lead fulfilling lives with kindness, security and guidance.
Please Read our Letters to Linda Disclaimer
“I take strength from your calm, your honesty, and the hope you give me for my future.” Cheryl
Linda is a fresh voice in the divorce advice world. She offers a pragmatic, common sense approach to life after divorce issues based on over twenty years surviving and thriving following a very traumatic divorce.
As a single parent, her sons are an enormous source of joy in her life. She is a loving mother and grandmother to four delightful grandchildren.
She holds a degree from the University of Waterloo with concentrations in sociology and philosophy and guidance counselling certification from Queen’s University.
She is an accredited trainer for The Peace Education Foundation, a leader in conflict resolution training. The institute is ‘dedicated to educating children and adults in the dynamics of conflict resolution and promoting peacemaking skills in home, schools, and community.’
In a long and successful teaching career, she also served as a counsellor and workshop facilitator for SEL (social emotional learning) programming and The Peace Education Foundation throughout her school and school district and was a frequent conference presenter for SUNY Potsdam Faculty of Education USA.
She writes for The Divorce Magazine UK and her blog is seen regularly on Huffington Post Canada where the focus is life after divorce and parenting issues.
She is a writer and poet and is presently at work on a book based on her divorce experience.
Today we chronicle and upload every last little moment of our worldly togetherness in pictures and videos.
At the end of a marriage there will be many visual reminders of what life was like before your world took a detour.
Those smiling faces stare at you as you look back in bewilderment wondering how real your marriage could have been.
No matter what the circumstances of your divorce, remember that your own happiness, if it was truly there, was real for you. What others were thinking and feeling is beyond your control.
Pictures are the visual words of my life. Through marriage, separation, divorce and family rebirth pictures chronicle those life moments.
In my mind, I was happily married for many years.
There were yearly family portraits and the camera was rolled out for every extended family gathering and holiday.
But then my family life got derailed. My spouse walked out and so over twenty years ago we became a family of three. As a single parent it was my spirited determination that we would continue as usual and not let the number three change the family tradition. Photographs were a unifying force.
In fact, the very first thing I did after my former spouse left was take my sons off to the photographer and have a family portrait done. We look young and fragile, mother and sons, but we are united in the camera frame.
At that time I collected all the casual family pictures that included my former spouse and sent them on to him.
Many years later he told me they all still sat in the big brown envelope thrown in a corner of his home office. Odd how there can be different priorities in a family, where, for some, photographs are nothing but a cipher in a life lived long ago.
After the divorce, there was the question of what to do about those wedding photos. No one smiling in those very formal 1970’s pictures knew that some twenty-five years later the marriage would be over. In that photo purge after the marriage breakdown I decided, for some forgotten reason, to keep the wedding photos stored in a cardboard box titled “family memorabilia”.
There was a certain irony in the aftermath of a recent minor flood in the basement of my home. The cardboard box containing the wedding photos was damaged but not the pictures.
Pictures have become a touchstone for our family threesome over the past twenty years. Scattered throughout my home are framed photos of the smiling faces of my children and grandchildren.
The poet Mary Oliver wrote, “Joy is not made to be a crumb.”
Pictures helped me find that joy in life after my divorce. As I learned to smile openly, effortlessly for the first time in my life, my picture collection reflected a new and happy me.
The family cottage is where the chronicles of our life after divorce line the walls with a hodge podge batch of photos that go right back to our threesome over twenty years ago and all the way up to the burgeoning family of nine we have today.
There are special collections I mount in photo collages.
This past summer, just as my sons do at each visit, my young grandsons took delight in finding themselves in varying stages of babyhood from previous cottage visits in those frames on the wall. The generations are lovingly bound together within our photomontage.
Whenever the opportunity presents that both sons are home or we are all together as we were last spring, there is another threesome family portrait. In the early post-divorce years I see a look of bewilderment masking some of our smiles. It took us a while to regain our footing after the breakup. It was an astonishingly sad time.
There is one favourite photo of mine I call ‘Top of the Mountain”. The three of us are literally and figuratively atop a mountain in the Rockies. Taken just a few years after the family breakup, we three had finally found the way forward. This photo represented a turning point in our new family life.
That underlying mask of sadness is gone. There’s a sliver of sun over the crisp, white mountain tops in the background. Smiling broadly and effortlessly into the camera, we had truly arrived in our future.
When a marriage ends, those old photos litter our lives reminding us of what was and is no more. In your new life, surround yourself with photos that bring you joy. You will know which ones to choose just by looking at them.
“I take strength from your calm, your honesty, and the hope you give me for my future.” Cheryl
Linda is a fresh voice in the divorce advice world. She offers a pragmatic, common sense approach to life after divorce issues based on over twenty years surviving and thriving following a very traumatic divorce.
As a single parent, her sons are an enormous source of joy in her life. Linda is a loving mother and grandmother to four delightful grandchildren.
She holds a degree from the University of Waterloo with concentrations in sociology and philosophy and guidance counselling certification from Queen’s University.
She is an accredited trainer for The Peace Education Foundation, a leader in conflict resolution training. The institute is ‘dedicated to educating children and adults in the dynamics of conflict resolution and promoting peacemaking skills in home, schools, and community.’
In a long and successful teaching career, she also served as a counsellor and workshop facilitator for SEL (social emotional learning) programming and The Peace Education Foundation throughout her school and school district and was a frequent conference presenter for SUNY Potsdam Faculty of Education USA.
She writes for The Divorce Magazine UK and her blog is seen regularly on Huffington Post Canada where the focus is life after divorce and parenting issues.
She is a writer and poet and is presently at work on a book based on her divorce experience.
My good friend has kindly consented to sharing two journal entries from the years after his marriage breakdown.
He keeps this journal for his son to read as an adult.
As a renowned professional in his field, this piece is at one level a reflection on the impact of work/personal life balance and the price paid for fame.
At another level it demonstrates the difficult but vital role successful co-parenting plays in the aftermath of marriage breakdown. He reflects on his pain and sorrow. Infused in all of it is hope for the understanding and effort he and his former wife made to help their son navigate life after divorce.
You are 11 and I’m 67.
The time that has passed has demonstrated, more than anything that your Mom’s and my life are so fundamentally different is so many ways that we could not possibly have predicted when you were born.
But one fact has not changed – how much I love and care about you.
Your Mom decided to leave me and move ahead on her own path in the fall of 2007. She told me on Halloween night and we told you a couple of weeks later.
You were devastated.
Apparently, when this happened a year or so before to somebody you knew, your Mom had told you it would never happen to you. That’s all you could say at first, “You promised me it would never happen to me!”
I felt your pain so strongly; I still do.
Your Mom took responsibility for the decision, but I know she worries that you will blame her or lose trust in the women who come into your life.
I know also that she would like me to share the blame and at some level I must; all relationships are about two people and their interactions.
The good thing is that we have maintained a positive relationship, especially as it affects you.
Your Mom didn’t move until after Christmas that year so that it would be as normal as possible for you. We then went together to Mexico in February, again keeping life as normal as possible.
It has not been all smooth sailing of course, but we have held it together and it gets better as time goes by.
We share parenting without conflict and share special occasions, most recently Easter morning. The first year was very hard on you with several breakdowns that made clear your pain and gave me such heartache.
I could only hold you and share the pain. That may never leave you, but you seem much better lately.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I wrote above in comparison to what I had written a few years ago. Then I strongly cautioned that we must put family and relationships first, listening and taking to heart what the women in our lives say.
Did I fail that badly? The question comes up right now because I have a girlfriend. She never had children and so can’t readily understand the fact that you come first, and my time for her is partly dependent on what is going on here at the home front.
But I nevertheless find this a very hard question to answer right now, and it is probably one you will face sooner or later.
Anyway, it all seemed so clear a few years ago, but now I’m not so sure about a lot of things to do with relationships. I think part of the problem is that our society today is so oriented to acquiring things, doing things, and succeeding in a very complex, frantic world.
Add to that the shifting understanding of the relative roles of men and women and the desire of women to have equal opportunity and pursue equally fulfilling careers, and we end up with patterns of living that run counter to our root, biological patterns.
Read a little anthropology and you will see what I’m getting at and how the world began to change about three centuries ago with the introduction of money economies and trade.
I’m digressing, but the point is that neither men nor women can really do it all, all the time.
Could I have kept a home office instead of renting one near the canal when you were two, traveled less and devoted less time to work, and still have provided the income to buy things, go places and do what we all seemed to want? I doubt it.
Today I earn more than I did at the normal peak of a career because I work hard and give work a high priority.
Don’t misunderstand me — I like the applause and prominence that I enjoy right now. But I don’t like what it seems to have meant for us as a family.
And when I look at our society and the rate of family fracturing and divorce, I have to ask if this is not also a root cause for so many; that, along with the modern idea that we are owed happiness, with happiness (whatever that is) taking precedence over responsibility.
I’m now sitting in the airport waiting for delayed flights after two long, intense days of meetings.
When I had to break off above, I was struggling with the idea of what exactly we can do to meet expectations in a relationship and still meet the expectations of those who hire and pay or depend on us for their jobs and incomes. I don’t think I know an answer.
As I said the last time, I don’t know the answer to the question of how to neatly package work and home and meet the expectations of people in both worlds.
But don’t kid yourself, you can’t have a job and also have everything else you might want.
You are used to getting pretty much everything you want or need, within reason; certainly more than I ever got because we were very, very poor.
We didn’t even have running water in our little country house when I was in Grade 7/8 and high school.
Compromise may be the answer, and we each have to decide where and how to compromise. On several occasions you have said that you do not want fame, but you do want to be rich. Those two often go together, so I’ll be interested to see how it works out.
None of the above denies the importance of our relationships and of family, but it isn’t easy in our modern world and it seems to get harder.
As I mentioned above, I was supposed to speak this morning in New York and people were paying me to come.
When the flight was cancelled at about 7:20 pm and there was no way for me to get there, I hastily emailed the only people I had addresses for to let them know, hoping they would see the emails this morning and be ready when people showed up.
The thing is that all three of the people I emailed got back to me within two hours last night. What are they doing looking at emails to do with work at that hour?
And that’s the point; it’s a call, text, email, never get out of contact world, and it takes a toll on us as humans, on our families and our relationships.
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons. I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children. Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience. As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
There it was, Pat’s name tucked under the most recent obituaries in the local newspaper.
Her name, short list of relatives, loved her dog, and a successful career as a social worker. Nowhere in the obituary did it say she saved lives. I know she did because she saved mine.
It was more than 20 years ago when I first met Pat.
I was raggedly stitched together emotionally when a very astute older friend identified my emotional abuse and suggested I start seeing Pat.
Emotional abuse is odd in that there are no visible scars. It all happens so insidiously, behind closed doors. I remember vividly the sense of isolation and the lack of self- worth. Back then all I did was wake up every day and hope I could hold myself together for another day in my marriage.
It was her smile I first remember, and eyes that lit up. I felt so at ease from the moment we met. She became an integral part of my life for the next two and a half years through my separation and divorce.
I recall many days when all I could do was numb myself until I got to the appointment at the end of the work day. It was a time in my life when I felt that pieces of me were scattered to the wind like bits of paper and I was running wildly to try to catch them.
I asked her how the perpetrators of emotional abuse feel about their actions. With a nefarious apathy, he saw me in emotional shreds and didn’t stop. She expressed concern for his ulterior motive.
Looking through my journals from that time I see an insecure, immature woman who believed every criticism and insult. They reflect a firm belief that my duty was to prop up his fragile ego. The scam of his mid- life crisis had hung over our marriage for years. It was a crisis alright but had no relation to his mid- life.
I didn’t know how to be me anymore. For years my life had been dedicated to looking younger, slimmer, prettier, anything to make myself acceptable in his eyes. Everything was my fault.
Naïve enough to believe my wedding vows, I was stunned to find my married life had all been a duplicitous lie. Stunned is maybe too banal a word. Shattered probably best describes it. My journal notes Pat said ‘none of the self -help books describes the intricate depth of deception that shaped my married life.’
Pat knew when to guide me, when to let me stumble, always helped to pick me up and keep me moving forward. More than twenty years later and some of her words of wisdom and comfort are still with me.
Pat knew when to listen and when to cajole me forward. She believed in me. The duplicity had made me feel that my married life had been unreal. She was the one who identified my marriage ‘ was real to me ‘ and anything beyond that was out of my control.
Methodically, Pat began to help me stitch my new life together. Emotional abuse recovery carries attributes of a post traumatic marriage disorder with triggers, dark times and risky behaviours. It takes enormous effort to claw your way back to reality.
Pat told me it was not my fault. Very few situations where the blame can be placed on only one partner but it was his life choices and deceit that had destroyed our family life. I was shocked. I had lived with repulsion in his eyes for so many years.
Pat was a woman with incredible patience. There was no pressure to get better fast. Just encouragement and hope. It had been years since I felt hope.
The challenge was to see a future. I had spent years absorbed in my partner’s perceived problems. There was never anything left over for me, believing as I did, if he got enough attention then my life would go back to the fairy tale I thought I lived.
Pat helped me to see and accept that there had never been a fairy tale. It was a deception from the beginning.
I stumbled in so many different ways, making bad choices, and then more bad choices. Through it all she never gave up on me. Feeling very much a lost soul, I muddled my way emotionally for a while.
Every week I would show up at Pat’s office. Eventually life started to lay down new tracks. The ground appeared again. She helped me with those painful baby steps into my future.
I went through horribly dark times over 20 years ago. I was victimized but thanks to Pat, I did not become a permanent victim. If you have been emotionally abused get the help you need. Don’t be afraid, ashamed or embarrassed.
There is a counselor like Pat out there for you.
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons. I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children. Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience. As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
I was married to a liar for 25 years.
At a very personal level, I have first-hand knowledge of the devastation lying creates in people’s lives.
I know that liars can be clever, charming, smug, and thoroughly convincing.
Scott Peck, in People Of The Lie, which The Wall Street Journal called a ground breaking book, described lying as a human evil.
Liars are: “Utterly dedicated to preserving their self-image of perfection…They are acutely sensitive to social norms and what others might think of them….While they seem to lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their ‘goodness’ is all on a level of pretence. It is, in effect, a lie,” according to Peck.
It is a book that deserves to be revisited at this time in our new world order where lying is an everyday occurrence.
Such is the shock that lying has become the new truth, media outlets had to scramble for appropriate language in their reporting. The next challenge was to find a way to approach the liars and their lies at the same time keeping their incredulity in check.
Liars all have very similar traits.
First of all they have an agenda. There is a reason for their lying. In my case it was to hide a very big secret. Or it can be delusions of grandeur and power. It may simply be to play a game to find out how far they can push the other side of truth. There is always a motivating factor.
They build their base carefully. Try the crowd on for size. If they get away with one lie, then they branch out. One lie begets another and another, a bit like Pinocchio’s nose.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, it is another cornerstone of the liar. Deny.
One particularly favourite line I heard when my marriage broke up was ” I have no knowledge of that.” A clever way to dodge honesty. Curiously enough I have since heard many people use that line in television interviews.
Constantly shift the landscape is another tactic. Never let the spotlight shine too brightly on one area. Change the discussion focus, metaphorically go out for a smoke if conversations start going in the wrong direction.
Contrary to popular lore, really good liars do not shift their gaze or get fidgety in the midst of a lie.
Science has proven that these liars build separate brain wave patterns for the lying side of their life. Hence their ability to lie so believably. In that sense it is a truth, their truth or their alternative fact.
A liar has a very astute understanding of the personal target or people in their audience. Tell them what they want to hear is an effective marketing tool and is also in the liar’s arsenal.
If a particular lie gets a very positive response and the crowd roars with approval, they quickly up the ante. Often these lies get more outlandish with each roar of the crowd and the liar lets the adulation wash over them.
All the while the liar portrays sincerity. The ‘awe shucks’ approach is another tactic. I am just like you they will say. The person is drawn into this ‘you and me against the world’ line. Here’s someone that really understands and cares about me the crowd hopes. It’s a dance, an act with a sinister goal of power and control.
A good liar is a good manipulator. If they need to shift the focus they do. They readily identify when the time is right to throw a curve into the works. If one topic is creating too much heat, throw out something truly outlandish to catch the top headline and shift the focus.
What do you lose along with truth when there is a liar in your in life? Trust, one of the basic tenets of any relationship. Once discovered, liars call into question everything they say and do. Remember the story of Peter and The Wolf. Eventually the town’s people stopped listening.
What else do we lose with a liar in our life? The liar leaves a trail of disequilibrium which ultimately results in chaos.
It is that unease, dis-ease that allows the liar to keep lying. Petulant, child-like, always upending the next topic. Sucking all the oxygen out of the air.
Liars are constantly chasing their own fame and glory. It is their ultimate destination. A destination achieved at any cost where we hear the telephones are beautiful-elegant even.
The world is in uncharted territory today. The media noted that we have always had a plethora of tinpot despots. As we’ve seen, the odd Rasputin sidekick is thrown in for good measure. It was easier to rail against regimes on another shore.
Giving attention to the liar fulfils their evil objective. Ultimately the truth will out and we must contribute to that truth at every opportunity.
Meanwhile, in these uncertain times, we can take some comfort listening to Willie, “Living in the Promised Land.”
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons. I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children. Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience. As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
Twenty years after my divorce, I can remember — vividly — the books that saved me during those early days of finding my way alone.
Each book gave me something- the language, hope, and understanding- to help me process the trauma.
Millions of people experience the pain of divorce each year. The right book can be a great comfort.
In one of the ironies of life, I was taking the university course titled “The Philosophy of Love” as my marriage crumbled.
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis was on the reading list.
I learned to examine love beyond the words- I love you. I realized for the first time, that ours had been an immature, naïve love. That’s what can happen when you marry your childhood sweetheart. Sometimes there is no room for emotional growth.
A mature love, according to Lewis is a balance of four loves. Reading his book helped me identify the holes in what I had perceived as our ‘ perfect’ little high school romance.
The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families by Amity Pierce Buxton is one of a very few books on this topic.
It was enormously helpful for a woman like me, 20 years ago, living in a very small town, without any reference material to help me understand. We shared the same marriage experience. She gave me hope for a better day.
Her book dedication reads in part “to my children…whose love sustained me in my journey from trauma to transformation.”
I too will always be grateful for my sons’ constant love and support in my journey.
Man’s search for Meaning by Victor Frankl was sobering.
It is a book that puts real suffering in perspective. There was far worse misery in life than my divorce. Most important, there was- free will- the choice to survive and carry on with life. We can choose to rise above our emotional pain.
Forgiving The Unforgivable: Overcoming the Bitter Legacy of Intimate Wounds by Beverly Flanigan spoke to me of violating a moral code, breaking a trust. It helped me fix the responsibility on him. With that was a letting go.
“If the injurer’s action intentionally breached a vow or promise or violated another moral rule, the injurer was to blame.”
By his own admission, our marriage deception had been intentional.
In The Meantime by Iyanla Vanzant gave me hope that what I was experiencing was but a moment in time. It would only be forever if I allowed it. My choice.
“The meantime is protective as well as preparatory.”
On Your Own Again by Keith Anderson and Roy MacSkimming asked, “Why are you here?” This book helped me understand the healing process requires both acceptance and understanding. There had been unseen holes in my marriage.
Anderson also reminded me that, for children of divorce, predictability, consistency and reliability are paramount.
Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach was my soothing bedtime snack. Her words spoke to me of quiet and peace at the end of each day.
There were many days that I celebrated more for surviving them than for anything else of significance. The daily entries in her book were an emotional lifeline.
The Mind of the Soul by Gary Zukav wrote about moving beyond being a victim of the divorce and not limiting my life. I wanted to get better not bitter.
Soul Stories also by Gary Zukav reminded me to listen to my intuition. Too often when we divorce and move into a single life we make wrong turns.
“listen to what your intuition tells you. A lot of people hear answers they don’t like, so they pretend that they didn’t hear any answers at all. ”
Love and Betrayal: Broken Trust in Intimate Relationships by John Amodeo gave me language to process the divorce. The terms ‘decidedly cruel’ and ’emotionally dishonest’ were particularly relevant.
I think the greatest books of all, a real visual history of my emotional growth, were my personal journals. They meticulously chronicled my path back to living a full and happy life again.
“Be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”
– Nora Ephron
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons. I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children. Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience. As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
It was a novel suggestion. What would I say to my former spouse if given the opportunity?
We haven’t spoken in nearly two decades. Twenty five years of marriage is so far behind me now that most of my life has been without him.
The hurt he left behind surfaces occasionally with me and our sons. We long ago learned to deal with it and push it back in the shadows where it belongs. I wonder if he knows of that paternal legacy.
I used to think he was my bridge over troubled water. Now I realize that notion was reversed. His demons far exceeded mine.
There was a time when I missed him so much I ached. That feeling left me years ago and never returned. My biggest battle today is suppressing regret for time lost in a marriage that was doomed from the very beginning.
Our oldest son saw the demise of the family before we did. He told me that when he was barely a teenager it was already evident. We may have been fooling ourselves but not him.
Childhood sweethearts can be both a boon and a bane. In our situation is was the latter. He skilfully exploited my innocence. I grew up after he left, a painful but invigorating process.
This is what I would say if given the opportunity. Our conversation would include the following anecdote, questions, and observations.
Last summer, our oldest grandchild, all of seven years old, asked ” What happened? Why don’t you live together?” I hope someday he asks you the same question and that you have the grace to answer the question honestly. Not wink and toss it off as a joke as you are wont to do or dismiss it as all just “water under the bridge.”
This time you got a pass on your behaviour thanks to our son who fielded the question rather skilfully. No mention of your trademark deception and dishonesty. Seven years old is too young to know the truth. But someday he will know the answer.
Our sons are our greatest asset together. They are dedicated to their families. I worried about that because of the example you had set as a husband and father. Did your parenting choices ever concern you? For many years they were fatherless.
I would ask you about the phenomenon that a father can walk away from a family and turn a corner and not look back. We are not the only family to experience this type of abandonment. I don’t understand how men, mostly, can have little family contact for years on end. A Facebook connection with the odd puerile quip is hardly parenting.
I would ask you about how you lived a lie every day of our marriage. I get stuck on that fact I must confess. Over 20 years later and it still gets me. Every memory of our life together from high school forward is couched with the fact it was all a lie. Every profession of love, everything you ever said or did was framed by your lies.
I would tell you one of the best decisions I ever made was reclaiming my maiden name. I have a colleague to thank for the change. He refused to address me by my married name after the divorce details emerged. So almost by default I went back to my ‘maiden’ name and for 20 odd years I am grateful every single day I did that. It is a name worthy of that honour.
I would tell you I miss sharing this time of life with children and a gaggle of grandchildren. At least with -the you- the fatherly pastiche you wore so well. All of that is framed with the possibility you never really cared about any of it. Our life together might be nothing more to you than photo ops, well placed good deeds and empty words of sincerity to cover your secrets.
I would observe, that, as is often the case in divorce, you ended up much more financially secure than I did. However, my freedom from you is priceless.
I would ask you those questions and then doubt your answers. Would you just tell me what you think I want to hear, something you do very well or would you be honest? I am not sure what an honest answer sounds like coming from you.
I used to think ours was a great love until I found the real deal. I used to be afraid of you but I am not anymore. I still want to know the name of the silent partner in our marriage that you have refused to reveal.
And thus the conversation would end in an egregious manner, just like our marriage.
More than 20 years of silence is a lifetime. Perhaps it is all water under the bridge.
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons. I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children. Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience. As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
Who knew that grand-parenting would be so much fun? Who knew I’d be a solo grandma?
It was understood in my marriage that somewhere in the future we would be very proud grandparents together. However, like many baby boomers, our marriage didn’t make it. I’ve been single for 20 years and since 2009 I have been a solo grandma.
My grandparents were married 67 years. That was my frame of reference.
They lived to 100 years of age in their own home. Loving and fiercely independent to the very end. Fought the War of Independence with a twinkle in their eye — she was a very proud Yankee and he was a very dignified Brit, who came to Canada when he was just 16.
They were there — together — while I was growing up. There was something solid and reassuring about my grandparents. A pair. A unit. And an example of mutual commitment.
They were the first through the door when my father, their much loved son-in-law, died very suddenly when I was 19. We were reeling from this huge loss – there they were at the door in the middle of night. So solid. The rock we needed.
We always said my grandfather looked like and had the elegance of Fred Astaire. Dignified. Debonair. By example, he made a huge impression on my sons when they were growing up.
For my own sons, their paternal grandfather — the only one they had — was very cold, distant, and rarely seen. So their great-grandfather was the grandfather in their life.
Every holiday was a large multi- generational affair with my grandparents sitting like proud peacocks at the table, smiling privately to each other. Everyone gathered at the table was there because those two met by happenstance and married in 1915. I thought history would repeat itself somewhere in my future. But that was not to be.
From my very youngest grandchild born this past Christmas to the oldest who was born on my 60th birthday in 2009, I have shared every moment with my sons as a solo parent and grandparent. I have taken those first phone calls from the delivery room. Heard the awe in my sons’ voices. Heard the first little cry of a brand new member of the family.
I haven’t spoken to my former spouse for many years. Until recently, his presence in my sons’ lives was very minimal. I don’t stumble over pronouns when speaking about my family. For me, the singular fits very well now. In conversation, these grandchildren are mine.
It doesn’t mean I don’t feel some sense of loss. I miss sharing the history with someone who knew my sons growing up. Marveling when I see my grandchildren behave in a way reminiscent of their father, forty years ago. There is no partner to turn to and nod knowingly.
You loose a lot in a divorce but nothing more than that shared history.
My sons and I reminisce but they don’t remember the trip home from the hospital with them as brand new babies. Those terrifying first days of parenthood. Looking at the little bundle in the cradle – my cradle when I was a baby – and feeling such overwhelming love and responsibility. And then fast forward 40 years and seeing a brand new generation in that very same cradle.
As their grandma, I am seeing life through the eyes of a child again with the time to really appreciate it.
Who knew I would feel such love all over again? From the first moment, just like I did all those years ago with my sons.
Being a solo grandma in no way diminishes the experience. I have learned to love everything about life — solo. I have shared so many wonderful bits of travel and adventure with my grandchildren. In only seven years we have a history together.
First steps, first words, and many ‘I love you’s” wrapped up in chubby little arms. We share private jokes, have favourite books. These early years with my grandchildren are fleeting moments in time. They are snatched up, snuggled up and enjoyed. And then-just like their fathers before them-these little ones will be grown.
Sunrise, sunset, swiftly go the years….
Wasn’t it yesterday
… they were small?
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons. I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children. Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience.
As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
This year, 2016, is officially 20 years after my marriage breakup.
For those of us who grew up in the 1950s, we thought the future would be much like our parents. We married, had families, but then, unlike our parents, many of us divorced.
Twenty-five years ago I would have told you I was the luckiest woman in the world. I was married to my best friend who I adored and had two wonderful sons. I had it all including the home and picket fence.
As it turned out, there was no luck in my marriage. The marital secrets he revealed crippled me emotionally for years after the breakup. I was such an innocent in 1996 and he knew it.
Even in the earliest, darkest days and nights after he left, I was determined to get better emotionally. There are family and friends who thought I talked too much about it. I probably did. But, we are all on our own timeline with grief recovery.
The advice that you will get over it — is not true.
Far more apt is what someone said to me back then. Life after divorce is like having had a broken arm — there is always a slight twinge in the damp weather. It’s a much longer, softer lens when I look back but it is part of who I am. My history.
Throughout, my sons have always been a source of strength for me. They were in their late teens at the time. We became a very single-parent family quickly, creating new traditions, forging a solid family unit.
They forgave my mistakes and emotional stumbling and were my cheering section with my successes.
I don’t believe older children find divorce easier. When a marriage disintegrates, the family unit as it has been known does too. The expected future — lost. Painful for children at any age.
And just how does a parent walk away from a family and turn their back on everything they have known? In so many divorce stories, that narrative repeats over and over. So often, those people who cause the marital breakup, create a future where they drop in and out of their children’s lives based on convenience.
One of the many miracles in my life was finding the most understanding and skilled counsellor during the death throes of my marriage. For the next three years, she helped me piece together a life I thought was shattered. I began to realize my own self-worth and how love had indeed blinded me to the result of constant personal denigration.
A strong lesson in choices was a theme during our sessions.
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” she said, “because he made the choices that brought about the end of the marriage. ”
The past 20 years have been about my choices. I had no control over what had happened in my marriage but I did have a choice in how I lived my life going forward.
Again, I was fortunate to have a career I loved, and a supportive administration who allowed me to pursue and excel in my chosen field of guidance.
I had always wanted to live and work abroad and was able to do that. Packing two big satchels and moving to a brand new country on my own was an extraordinary, empowering experience.
Twenty years ago, when he left, I was denied one future. It hasn’t been easy. However, now I believe that leaving was the greatest gift he ever gave me.
Dating was more of a challenge. Marrying my childhood sweetheart had given me little opportunity for emotional growth. I had to learn how to date again. In retrospect, that was fraught with its own hilarity. But each time a Mr. Right Now came into my life, it gave me another opportunity to learn how to have a healthy, mature relationship. Training wheels for the future.
My own space is as important as shared space. On the evenings that I own the remote control — I am happy that I do.
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons. I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children. Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience.
As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
On Golden Pond clinched it.
We watched it, cried through the credits and saw ourselves years in the future. He, the crotchety Henry Fonda, and me, the delightfully aged Katharine Hepburn — opening the cottage each spring.
We’d remark on all the changes from the past year, ourselves included. Then we’d wait for our children and grandchildren to descend for their summer holiday.
It’s that time of year again. Cottage opening. Prompted by that movie 32 years ago, we scraped together some cash and bought the waterfront property of our dreams.
Travelling down the dusty back roads of our town we found the perfect piece of land. A huge stand of birch trees and a view straight across the lake. Sitting at the shore one sunny morning, watching two loons swim by, we knew this was ours.
Both of us had grown up with old fashioned cottages. Those simple cabins by the shore. Simplicity was the key to our type of cottage experience.
The first year we camped. There was no money left to build anything after buying the land. So, we built a tent platform and pitched a tent. That lasted all of one summer. It turned out, we were not happy campers.
The next year a small cabin sprang up in the middle of the birch grove. It was as simple as it gets. Reclaimed windows, second hand furniture, plywood counter top, ancient stove and cold water. But, we were out of the weather when it rained and more than an arm’s length from each other inside.
For our sons, the days blended into what I call those white nights of summer. Endless games of Marco Polo echoed from the raft. At dusk, they ran wild in the forest with a gaggle of cottage country kids, playing Capture the Flag. A game whose rules still elude me. After roasting marshmallows at the bonfire by the shore, they would drop into bed exhausted.
We added a front porch and the place remained like that for several years. Every night we watched the stars and dreamed of adding on a bedroom wing and a proper bathroom somewhere off in the future. Old fashioned cottages have two things in abundance. Memories and dreams. Nothing is ever completely “finished” and that is part of the fun. The memories and dreams.
Finally we took the plunge, mortgaged it and added on what we saw as luxury. Proper bedrooms and a bathroom.
This is where the idyllic story starts to get derailed.
My spouse began to dislike everything about the cottage, seething at the inevitable projects. Gone were the times where we had once, laughingly, faced the challenges together. Now he turned on me and the cottage. It was all a burden to him. He’d outgrown the summer place, just as he did his family. I was isolated and confused by his indifference.
After some very traumatic scenes, he walked out 20 years ago. I took over the parenting, the mortgage and finishing the cottage.
I learned to tape drywall and do a fairly decent job of it. Repair jobs I couldn’t do myself were farmed out to available handymen.
Like everything else in my newly single life, I began to really enjoy the autonomy of making my own decisions. I found out I could design the finishing touches and organize contractors. I worried constantly about the financial pressures of keeping the cottage. I persevered for my sons and relied on my spirited determination. The cottage became an integral part of the post-divorce family.
Slowly the place began to look more complete.
It is still an old fashioned cottage with a hominess that invites relaxation. There are big comfy couches and we have kitschy memorabilia tacked up on the walls. No granite counter tops. The hallway is a picture gallery of our family fun over the years.
It is now a special place for my grandchildren.
They bound out of the car, just like their fathers did so many years before. The someday that never was to be together with my former spouse is here. It is “Grandma’s Cottage.” And a new generation is running wild in the woods, splashing in the water, paddling in the inflatable boat, and having mud fights at the shore.
The place is still not finished. There’s some drywall that needs taping and painting. The outside should be re-stained but it is “the cottage.” Full of memories and dreams.
Dear Diary on a summer morning:
6 a.m.: steaming cup of coffee, snuggled up in bed with my grandchildren, watching the loons in the bay.
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons.
I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children.
Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience. As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
Listening to a friend talk about their divorce, I pause and think — this all sounds familiar.
My friend details the lead up to her separation and there are so many similarities it’s a bit unnerving. Same actions, same words, same behaviour. How is that possible?
Turns out similarities are not even unusual but predictable, right down to the language a departing spouse might use.
Thanks to Elizabeth Landers and Vicky Mainzer, my suspicions about similarities were confirmed.
This duo have created a bible of sorts for women who might be worried about their spouse having an affair. In their book The Script: The 100% Absolutely Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat, the predictability of what men do when they cheat on you is chronicled with a crisp wit and peppered with humour.
In my situation, there was no “I do” in my marriage ceremony for what my former spouse did. I was never given a choice about the terms of my marriage. He didn’t even begin our marriage ‘forsaking all others’ as the marriage vow stated.
Oddly enough, in a dark humour sort of way, he did say ‘I do’ to that one. However, infidelity is crushing no matter the circumstances.
But as Landers and Mainzer outline in this book, predictable it is — the lead up, the language and the leaving. Unfaithful husbands follow a pattern. From the words spoken to the actions taken.
With my friend it was the language that first caught my attention. It was so odd that her spouse and mine used, almost verbatim, the same lines. This was so in spite of our divorce circumstances being very different.
“It’s not you it’s me,” he said. That’s a big one.
“I have no knowledge,” he said. One of my personal favourites. Even scripts on TV have used that line.
Then there is that crucial time before the affair is to be revealed, and he turns the tables as your suspicions drive heated questions.
“You are acting very strange. Do you have some emotional problems? Do you need to see someone?” he asks.
Disorient the wife is a key strategy in any time before a separation. Make her feel unsure of herself. As if she doesn’t already feel unsure?
He answers accusations with “I would never do that”. And then he does.
Landers and Mainzer’s book is far more than an ‘aha’ moment for anyone in the throes of separation and divorce. It is a guide book and an affirmation that you are not crazy as is so often implied by the departing spouse.
It gives credence to what you are experiencing. When you feel like the ground is falling away, their book outlines what to do next, how to throw out your own personal lifeline. It offers you a before, during, and after template.
Their words of encouragement will go a long way to re-establishing your own personal centre of gravity, when you may be feeling tilted at an odd angle.
You will find passages that jump right out at you. Words that might have felt particularly unique to your very own situation. Sadly, in a way, they were scripted.
If it’s nothing, then it is normal. And if it is normal, it’s nothing. Therefore he did nothing wrong. – The Script: The 100% Absolutely Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat
“It was nothing,” he said. He’d never been faithful but his rationale was that it did not impact our family life. It was a secret, nobody knew about, so that made it OK in his mind.
Don’t be embarrassed to tell your family and friends the truth. If people hear it from you, they get the story straight.
We can feel it is all our fault because we’ve been made to own that in the final days of the marriage.
Externalize the blame is another well-worn tactic. He’s leaving because you failed to interest him enough — his justification — and not because he failed to honour you.
As my counsellor said, “Don’t feel sorry for him and don’t protect him.” That is a hard lesson for any of us. As wives, we spent a lifetime empathizing and supporting them — all part of the marriage package.
The Script: The 100% Absolutely Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat by Elizabeth Landers and Vicky Mainzer is a must have on the book shelf if you are in the midst of a separation or divorce. It will help you set the stage for your miraculous debut as a solo act.
A committed writer and speaker with stories to share based on many life lessons.
I found a voice and style that matches my spirit. The hope is that these articles inspire reflection and conversation.
After a rewarding teaching career that spanned 40+ years, writing became my next step. Many years spent as a guidance education trainer gave me a unique perspective on the lives of children. Divorce twenty years ago provided first- hand knowledge of that life altering experience.
As a very single parent, I am devoted to my wonderful family.
Every day I knock on the sky and believe impossible things before breakfast. It is all shared with the reader.
