Oh what a lovely response! I’m going to remember that one.
I had one person tell me, “Congratulations! Now you get to carve out your new life!” and it was so affirming to hear that when everyone else was telling me how awful it was that I was getting a divorce and how sad they were for me.
Thanks for this series! I would also appreciate the perspective of people who have long-term relationships end end but weren't ever married. Coming out of a 10-year-one myself, it's murky waters when there isn't even a word for it. My relationship lasted longer than some people took to meet their spouse, get married, then divorce - yet there's just not the type of social recognition this type of loss can bring, and how you navigate the history of being together so long yet it's just a "breakup."
Seconding this, also ended a 10 year non-marriage relationship and I really felt that the breakup was taken much less seriously than if I'd been able to say "I'm getting divorced." It added a layer of difficulty to the experience that I resented.
+1! I do refer to the break-up of my 10-year relationship as "the divorce" (as in, "my ex got those friends in The Divorce" or "where's that cool lamp I used to...oh, the divorce.")
I would love to hear more from adult children of divorce -- what they wish their parents knew/understood, esp after a very long marriage ending in divorce after the kids are out of the home. Prob too much for comments but I find there is a lack of information on that aspect of a very specific type of divorce (and when I do see comments about it, it's clear that the young adult children, or adult children, have very real, strong opinions on the subject).
I got told my parents were divorcing about two weeks after I got engaged and basically had a full on mental breakdown for a month lol. (That was over a decade ago and things are much better now!) But I agree that looking at this specific type of divorce could be useful for folks.
I second this. My husband's father asked for a divorce a month after the youngest boy left for college. Both boys and my MIL took it very hard and the effects are still ricocheting our family almost 20 years later. Having more conversation and resources for this type of divorce would be very helpful.
fwiw, if you do something like this, ahp, I'd be happy to be on this sort of panel. my parents divorced when I was finishing high school, ended up back together for a bit when I was in college, and now haven't spoken in years. I'm in my 40s. my younger brother's experience of it all was quite different and we've talked about it a lot, especially as he divorced.
when my friends going through divorce (or considering it) are talking to me, if we have that sort of closeness, I often ask: do you want to hear what I thought about things then and what I think now as someone who went through it from that side? and if they do, I share a bit
I have frequently heard comments to the effect that having my parents divorce was 'not as hard' on me as it would have been for a younger child. This thoughtful group of CS readers probably already knows this, but please do not assume such things.
And seconding the comment that adult children can want their parents to be happy (or can acknowledge the difficulties of their marriage and their incompatibilities) and still find it sad or challenging.
I am a therapist (for individuals and couples) whose parents told my 3 sisters and me they were divorcing after 35 yrs of marriage my final year of grad school. I now joke I got some "on the ground" training for my future work.
I am writing this from a place of "This is what I'd want anyone with adult children to consider when they separate/divorce":
1. Acknowledge how devastating this news can be and do not rush the grief process of your adult children. It can be the right decision for you and/or your spouse and still be such a huge blow to your adult kids’ sense of stability. I had taken my parents marriage- and my family unit- for granted. Our family and shared stories and jokes and traditions and vacations and on and on provided a sense of safety and continuity. I felt like I was grieving a death when they decided to divorce- and a friend whose parents divorced and who then lost a parent validated how I was feeling. It is a death of your family as you knew it and as you imagined in the future. Allow your children to grieve and do not fault or guilt them for this.
2. Building off that point- your adult kids can simultaneously want you to be truly happy and also be deeply sad that your happiness means not being with their other parent and maintaining the family structure they grew up with. They are not selfish for being sad.
3. Do NOT use your adult children as confidants and peers. I cannot emphasize this enough. It is so incredibly damaging. Your children deserve time to reflect, grieve, and accept this new reality. Do not speak poorly about their other parent, half of whose DNA they have. Do not make them choose- in subtle or overt ways- between parents or try to get information about the other parent from them. This puts your children in a terrible bind. They need room for their own feelings and process. Please get your own therapist (!) and talk to friends, not your children.
4. Get help from a therapist regarding how much and when to communicate changes to your adult kids- it can be tricky to strike a balance between clear communication (not leaving your adult kids in the dark- ex. “I/ your Dad and I want you to know your Dad is moving out of the house this week. He is moving into an apartment and will share his new address with you”) without oversharing. Every step in the process may be painful and it may provide clarity/relief. Again, two things can be true. Ask your adult kids how and when they would like to receive any updates. I do not recommend what I call a “text bomb”- i.e. sending them paragraph text messages without warning about what is happening and your feelings about it. This is unfair and can cause hurt and resentment.
5. Eventually, discuss any relevant ways you will move forward with holidays, vacations, etc. Demonstrate that you - and your spouse if they are willing- have put thought into how these changes will impact your adult kids and their families. Ask for their thoughts and input. If you are sad about not getting to see them on holidays, please process that with a therapist and/or friends. Your adult kids may already be sad and/or resentful about how your decision impacts the holidays, etc. If they know you are sad and you guilt them at all about this, it will not be good for your relationship. You have a right to be sad even if you made this decision, but do not make your kids carry your sadness in addition to their own.
*I am sure there are more, but these are my gut responses from my own experience and from sitting with many clients whose parents have separated/divorced. Happy to answer any additional questions! I honestly may write a whole post about this.
This is all super helpful, and yes, you should write a post about it! I know so many women who are choosing to leave long-term marriages (25 years+) with adult children. What I have found is that there is much writing and research available about young children and divorce, or teens and divorce, but it is really hard to find anything about adult children and divorce. And I think adult children present their own unique challenges or needs.
What I've heard from attorneys who handle these "gray divorces" is that there isn't much discussion about the adult children, which, from a legal perspective, makes sense b/c separation/divorce agreements cannot cover adult children (unless there are care-taking concerns or conservatorship issues). However, I think this approach from attorneys oddly indirectly effects how the parents may look at it -- "They have their own life" "They're out of the house now and it doesn't really affect them" "They'll be less of a concern b/c they're grown now." Of course I'm not saying all parents think like that but I do wonder that b/c there is less data/research and b/c attorneys don't ask about the adult children while going through agreements, if there is simply less attention in general being paid to what are legitimate feelings of loss that adult children of divorce experience. Anyhow, that all goes back to my original question about what would adult children of divorce want parents who are contemplating divorce after a long-term marriage to know and to understand. Your comment was very helpful, and please, if you do write a post about this topic, update the comments here!
I'd be happy to contribute to that one. My parents divorce (riiiight around the time I was deciding to leave my PhD program) really knocked me sideways, even though I understood it all intellectually and didn't blame them for anything at all. And it definitely contributed to my own long-term relationship starting to fall apart, although that took years to finally happen.
I'm not divorced or considering it, but I just want to say that the advice on how to interact with your loved ones who are going through it is just plum good advice for interacting with folks going through anything tough. Being available to listen nonjudgmentally and with compassion makes people feel seen.
I knew it was time to say I wanted a divorce on the 4th of July in 2009. I stood at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, thinking about whether or not I had given my husband enough chances to change.
The words that came to me were: “Growth is not health. You need health.”
A friend posted a tweet that pinged my phone right then: “We usually know what to do. It’s the consequences that seem unacceptable. Happy Independence Day!”
For the person telling themselves " boredom isn't a good enough reason to leave" - I started that way, and so we tried multiple counselors and life changes and 12 years later the boredom had turned into bitterness and resentment (he was still perfectly content and I was STILL the unhappy one) and now I can see it was more telling than I wanted it to be.
This series is so important. There are so many things I wish I’d done differently but I just didn’t know how. I felt so trapped with a nice enough person that I just didn’t love in the way that I should’ve. Part of it is accepting the fact that you will likely hurt someone you love and that some people may not understand it, but it is necessary for your own survival. It’s the hardest and bravest thing I ever did.
It's eye opening how many cis-het women I know (including myself not so long ago) who tell themselves "but he's nice enough/not abusive/doesn't cheat so I don't have a good enough excuse to leave" - the bar is so low. So very, very low for what we tell ourselves is supposed to be this central, lifelong relationship that we prioritize above all else.
Exactly. I cared about him and he was a kind man, but he was not someone that I wanted to build a life with anymore. And in some ways that was harder to walk away from because on paper, everything looked perfect. Everyone thought I was making a huge mistake because they all thought they wanted what I had. But like you said, the bar is so low in cishet relationships, and I’m so much happier now. It’s wild how much of ourselves we’ll sacrifice for mediocrity.
Re: What was the single best piece of (solicited) advice you received as you were making the daily decision to leave or to stay in your marriage?
I finally got into therapy in the last year of my 8yr relationship. A month or two in, my therapist asked me, "What does the worst case scenario for the future look like for you?"
I said the worst case scenario would be that more years of my life would have gone by and nothing would have changed -- my relationship would be the same (or worse), I would feel the same (or worse) within it. It was clarifying: leaving was always going to be an awful experience, but it would be an awful experience with an ending.
I'm 3.5 years out of that relationship now. Hardest, best thing I've ever done for myself.
I was married for 19 years, together for 22, with one teenager. Many years were great, many weren't, and intensive Gottman-style marriage counseling kept us together for many years.
The phrase that came to me, and one I keep repeating, is/was "I have all the information I need." I did. From the outside, we were a great couple. We were a *terrific* family, and I was tired of being taken for granted. For not being able to - or want to - meet his needs. For not being a priority or allowed to have psychic space in the relationship. I had no desire left in my marriage, and when I realized he wasn't even my friend, I was done. I was 44 (the portal) and realized that I had half of my life ahead of me, and would rather be alone than feel alone in a marriage.
Reader, I *love* being divorced. There were many difficult parts. So many. And in the past three years I've fallen in love, experienced a long-term relationship and the subsequent heartache of that relationship ending (which felt harder than my divorce, because in divorce it's "over" for years before it is), and bought my own condo. I've met kind, sweet men who have taken me on lovely dates, made me laugh, and helped me realize what I want and need, and how to ask for it. There's a clarity that comes from dating in my 40s because I don't "need" it - I've been married and had a child (I am very lucky), so I don't need to be on the relationship escalator. I date for fun. It should always be fun, and now, without a "goal," I can truly enjoy myself.
I never want to get married again or live with someone full time. With my ex-boyfriend, I lived there about 40% of the time and lovingly spent time with his children. But I never want to hear someone cut their toenails, or get angry about how they spent our money.
What helped me was asking for help. For saying to my friends, "can you be my emergency contact?" and "can you help me move this dresser?" Because none of us are meant to do it alone. I would want someone to ask that of me, and I would happily oblige. We need each other, and most friends want to be a person to help in your life.
In the wise words of a dear friend, in both my marriage and my most recent long-term relationship, I saved myself. Easy? Hardly. Better? Absolutely.
"I never want to hear someone cut their toenails," preach.
I would add for ways people can be helpful - gift cards to stores to replace stuff or meals when you're too tired or being on call as someone who can help move furniture or hang pictures or whatever.
Definitely! Two people gave me Target gift cards and that was *huge*
I also offered something similar to someone staying in their home after their ex moved out - to help them paint or rearrange art since some was taken, and to make the rooms feel more like theirs.
I am planning on doing it soon, and I am finding these words so helpful. I am terrified. I have, on paper, an ideal marriage with no big issues (at the moment). We have similar values, he's a great father and partner, he thinks of me. I feel guilty most of the time, because of this. So in many ways I am doing it for him. He deserves someone who is in love with him in a reciprocal way. I don't feel the romantic chemistry, and havent for some time, but my intellectual brain had really talked me out of "blowing up my life" for something "superficial," that I thought we could work through. It has made physical intimacy a mental marathon of sorts and I realized, If I were him, I would NOT want my partner feeling this way about me. I would hate knowing they were avoiding intimacy or not feeling it, but felt obligated to do it. Also, I want us both to live out our sexual desires! We both want and deserve that.
The other big factor, for me, was timing. We have a 5-year-old together and the last few years were spent trying to get pregnant again, but running into multiple miscarriages, and now, possibly perimenopause. I could not bring separation to mind when it impacted whether my son would have a sibling or not, it felt too selfish. Now that time has passed, and I've worked through the grief of those miscarriages as well as the fact that I may not be able to get pregnant, I feel less tethered to keep things together. As women we spend so much energy managing and strategizing our personal needs with our family's needs, and it can be so exhausting.
Divorce might not be where this ends, but an open marriage is a minimum for me. I feel grateful to grow up in a time where other types of relationship structures exist and are accepted (at least in our community). My husband and I know other couples who do things in an alternative way, and I'm hopeful that we can find a structure that works for us.
I'm sorry you've dealt with so many hard things over the last few years, and I'm especially sorry for your pregnancy losses.
I wanted to offer a perspective as a divorced person who was in an open relationship when I was married and continues to have a polyamorous relationship orientation. Something that became easier to see in hindsight were the ways in which my former spouse and I were meeting core relational needs with others via polyamory, which was personally satisfying but sometimes made it harder to tend and strengthen the bonds between us. Put differently, I think there were ways in which we may have unconsciously used polyamory as a band-aid without resolving core relational stuff between us.
I share this not as a cautionary tale - if you and your spouse are aligned around opening your marriage, it can be a generative pathway to explore! - but rather as encouragement to reflect on (alone and together) the why of opening up as well as the how. Open marriage and polyamory have become increasingly 'zeitgeisty' in recent years (e.g., in works like Molly Roden Winter's memoir, OPEN) and I appreciate the critiques of writers like Brandy Jensen or Tracy Clark-Flory who are situating these works within wider conversations about why marriage isn't working for a lot of women.
There are also some useful books on polyamory how-tos that could be a helpful resource - happy to share a few recommendations if helpful.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I will definitely look into those resources. I am not sure what the future holds, and instead of assuming or expecting things to go a certain way, I am open to exploring and finding a way through this in a way that works for both of us. It might look a lot different than I imagine and he might even surprise me.
You're welcome! If you (or anyone else reading this comment thread) is looking for books more focused on the how-tos of polyamory, a few helpful resources are MORE THAN TWO, SECOND EDITION (the one by Eve Rickert and Andrea Zanin); POLYAMORY FOR DUMMIES by Jaime Grant (an admittedly cringe title but it comes highly recommended by a trusted friend) and Jessica Fern's POLYSECURE and POLYWISE.
My ex-husband struggled with addiction. About 2 years before we split he went to rehab for alcohol and oxycontin (the pill addiction he had been hiding from me for about a year). I considered divorce but I was very concerned with how others would judge me if I left him when he was on his knees - "in sickness and health, for richer or poorer" etc. etc. I felt like I needed to stay with him because he was the father of my child and my family and who walks away from family when they are struggling? A bad person, that's who. Well, the problem continued off & on and eventually I said "enough, I can't do this anymore." I don't necessarily wish I had walked away earlier, I think it all unfolded the way it needed to, and when I was done it was very clear in my mind that I was DONE. And who's to say that people would have judged me? Most of the time people are not paying that much attention, or they are so busy thanking their lucky stars that it's not THEIR lives that are falling apart.
For the person who asked about their 4 and 8 yo children shuffling between homes where Dad has the “fun house…”
It’s me. That was my childhood. My mom divorced my dad when I was 6 and my sister was 1. We spent the next 12 years going to my dad’s every other weekend, the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and for two weeks in the summers. My mom ran a very tight ship and remained a single mother the rest of my life (she has never remarried and rarely dated and I am so jealous of her single lady retiree life). My dad is a permanent 12 year-old in a lot of ways (hence the divorce) and that gets old quick as you get older as a kid. Sure it’s all fun and games for the first two hours of the weekend, but it’s also fun to do things like eat dinner at a reasonable hour and go to bed when you’re tired.
This will be an adjustment for all of you but from what you’ve described regarding your custody arrangement and how you run your home, I think your kids will emotionally and mentally benefit from the stability and structure they know they will always have with you.
Now will they ever admit that? Maybe someday?!
I’m in my mid-40s with my own children now and can appreciate how effing hard that must have been for my factory-working mom in the mid-1980’s in a small town. Now that I’m writing this I realize I’ve never told HER this, so am going to call and thank her for doing it.
I've also been thinking about that question. When we told the then 6 and 9yo we were moving into separate apartments albeit in one building the 6yo said "daddy's apartment will be the screens apartment and Mommy's will be the calm apartment." (Screens = very popular around here). And it's been true - dad buys a new video game every weekend and I still don't have a TV. BUT. it's also true that when screen time is over they end up up here in my place working on a puzzle or reading a book next to me on the couch. Kids love the Fun stuff but they also know they NEED the other stuff. And. I'm finding my fun side again? The more balanced our kid time is, the more energy I have for when they are with me, and the less energy I spend on their dad, the more I have to do more fun stuff than I ever did when we were together.
I've also worried about my kid's dad's house being the "fun" house and mine being the house with rules and structure. Earlier on in my post-divorce journey I worried that my ex wasn't providing enough actual active parenting at his house -- like he + the kid were just living together as roommates. I was fretting to my therapist about how maybe I needed to push to adjust the 50/50 custody schedule to have more time, as the more competent parent. She gave me the great advice that as long as a kid has one stable parent, they'll be fine. I didn't need to overcompensate for what my ex wasn't doing (or what I *perceived* he wasn't doing). Now that my kid is a teenager I definitely don't worry about this as much. I think he likes his relative freedom at that house, and he also likes having a bedtime and being more nurtured at my house. Recently we were all sick at my house and he commented that he thinks he coughs less when he's at my house "because it's cleaner and doesn't have as much dust in the air." My current partner and I got a good laugh out of that!
The clearest way I look at divorce - including my own - is this: no good marriage ends in divorce. I think it's why SO FEW divorced folks (and no cis het women) I know regret it.
Actually, I do. This person believed the divorce was her fault and that she got one chance and blew it. I’ve never told her that a bunch of us sat around before the wedding debating if we should tell her that the marriage was going to be a big mistake. I think she would have married him anyway because she wanted to be married, and would have hated us for speaking up.
NO FAULT: A MEMOIR OF ROMANCE AND DIVORCE by Haley Mlotek just pub'd yesterday. I just began reading it, and it's not going to help everyone seeking advice here, but it's well-written and a tender and often clever voice on this topic.
Weighing in late with a small but important bit of tactical advice: If you are divorcing and have (a) kid(s), write into the divorce agreement that you will both maintain your life insurance policies. My ex was very, very broke after we split up - he had chosen to switch to a low-paying career for Reasons - but he kept paying on that policy because I had emphasized it in the mediation process. He was a young, healthy guy - and three years after we split, he dropped dead of an undiagnosed heart condition. While we would so much rather he still be around, that life insurance policy paid for me to take reduced hours at work for a few months after he died -- and since then it has covered any number of things, including, now, the entire cost of college. The money does not replace my daughter's dad, but it has eased our path in some really, really consequential ways.
A friend told me later that the best thing I said to her when she spent many years contemplating divorce was "I trust that you know what's best for you and the girls." I wasn't pushing my agenda on her (even though I agreed with everyone telling her to leave), and it meant she had a safe space to talk through things without feeling judged.
The most helpful thing a friend said to me during my separation: “I want you to know I’m not pulling for any particular outcome, I’m pulling for you.”
It raised my bar for what support could look like and helped me (to quote Aundi Kolber) “be on my own damn team.”
Oh what a lovely response! I’m going to remember that one.
I had one person tell me, “Congratulations! Now you get to carve out your new life!” and it was so affirming to hear that when everyone else was telling me how awful it was that I was getting a divorce and how sad they were for me.
Yes! I now say that "congratulations!" People light up.
Thanks for this series! I would also appreciate the perspective of people who have long-term relationships end end but weren't ever married. Coming out of a 10-year-one myself, it's murky waters when there isn't even a word for it. My relationship lasted longer than some people took to meet their spouse, get married, then divorce - yet there's just not the type of social recognition this type of loss can bring, and how you navigate the history of being together so long yet it's just a "breakup."
Yes! Will figure out how to include this too
Seconding this, also ended a 10 year non-marriage relationship and I really felt that the breakup was taken much less seriously than if I'd been able to say "I'm getting divorced." It added a layer of difficulty to the experience that I resented.
+1! I do refer to the break-up of my 10-year relationship as "the divorce" (as in, "my ex got those friends in The Divorce" or "where's that cool lamp I used to...oh, the divorce.")
I would love to hear more from adult children of divorce -- what they wish their parents knew/understood, esp after a very long marriage ending in divorce after the kids are out of the home. Prob too much for comments but I find there is a lack of information on that aspect of a very specific type of divorce (and when I do see comments about it, it's clear that the young adult children, or adult children, have very real, strong opinions on the subject).
I got told my parents were divorcing about two weeks after I got engaged and basically had a full on mental breakdown for a month lol. (That was over a decade ago and things are much better now!) But I agree that looking at this specific type of divorce could be useful for folks.
I second this. My husband's father asked for a divorce a month after the youngest boy left for college. Both boys and my MIL took it very hard and the effects are still ricocheting our family almost 20 years later. Having more conversation and resources for this type of divorce would be very helpful.
fwiw, if you do something like this, ahp, I'd be happy to be on this sort of panel. my parents divorced when I was finishing high school, ended up back together for a bit when I was in college, and now haven't spoken in years. I'm in my 40s. my younger brother's experience of it all was quite different and we've talked about it a lot, especially as he divorced.
when my friends going through divorce (or considering it) are talking to me, if we have that sort of closeness, I often ask: do you want to hear what I thought about things then and what I think now as someone who went through it from that side? and if they do, I share a bit
I have frequently heard comments to the effect that having my parents divorce was 'not as hard' on me as it would have been for a younger child. This thoughtful group of CS readers probably already knows this, but please do not assume such things.
And seconding the comment that adult children can want their parents to be happy (or can acknowledge the difficulties of their marriage and their incompatibilities) and still find it sad or challenging.
I am a therapist (for individuals and couples) whose parents told my 3 sisters and me they were divorcing after 35 yrs of marriage my final year of grad school. I now joke I got some "on the ground" training for my future work.
I am writing this from a place of "This is what I'd want anyone with adult children to consider when they separate/divorce":
1. Acknowledge how devastating this news can be and do not rush the grief process of your adult children. It can be the right decision for you and/or your spouse and still be such a huge blow to your adult kids’ sense of stability. I had taken my parents marriage- and my family unit- for granted. Our family and shared stories and jokes and traditions and vacations and on and on provided a sense of safety and continuity. I felt like I was grieving a death when they decided to divorce- and a friend whose parents divorced and who then lost a parent validated how I was feeling. It is a death of your family as you knew it and as you imagined in the future. Allow your children to grieve and do not fault or guilt them for this.
2. Building off that point- your adult kids can simultaneously want you to be truly happy and also be deeply sad that your happiness means not being with their other parent and maintaining the family structure they grew up with. They are not selfish for being sad.
3. Do NOT use your adult children as confidants and peers. I cannot emphasize this enough. It is so incredibly damaging. Your children deserve time to reflect, grieve, and accept this new reality. Do not speak poorly about their other parent, half of whose DNA they have. Do not make them choose- in subtle or overt ways- between parents or try to get information about the other parent from them. This puts your children in a terrible bind. They need room for their own feelings and process. Please get your own therapist (!) and talk to friends, not your children.
4. Get help from a therapist regarding how much and when to communicate changes to your adult kids- it can be tricky to strike a balance between clear communication (not leaving your adult kids in the dark- ex. “I/ your Dad and I want you to know your Dad is moving out of the house this week. He is moving into an apartment and will share his new address with you”) without oversharing. Every step in the process may be painful and it may provide clarity/relief. Again, two things can be true. Ask your adult kids how and when they would like to receive any updates. I do not recommend what I call a “text bomb”- i.e. sending them paragraph text messages without warning about what is happening and your feelings about it. This is unfair and can cause hurt and resentment.
5. Eventually, discuss any relevant ways you will move forward with holidays, vacations, etc. Demonstrate that you - and your spouse if they are willing- have put thought into how these changes will impact your adult kids and their families. Ask for their thoughts and input. If you are sad about not getting to see them on holidays, please process that with a therapist and/or friends. Your adult kids may already be sad and/or resentful about how your decision impacts the holidays, etc. If they know you are sad and you guilt them at all about this, it will not be good for your relationship. You have a right to be sad even if you made this decision, but do not make your kids carry your sadness in addition to their own.
*I am sure there are more, but these are my gut responses from my own experience and from sitting with many clients whose parents have separated/divorced. Happy to answer any additional questions! I honestly may write a whole post about this.
This is all super helpful, and yes, you should write a post about it! I know so many women who are choosing to leave long-term marriages (25 years+) with adult children. What I have found is that there is much writing and research available about young children and divorce, or teens and divorce, but it is really hard to find anything about adult children and divorce. And I think adult children present their own unique challenges or needs.
What I've heard from attorneys who handle these "gray divorces" is that there isn't much discussion about the adult children, which, from a legal perspective, makes sense b/c separation/divorce agreements cannot cover adult children (unless there are care-taking concerns or conservatorship issues). However, I think this approach from attorneys oddly indirectly effects how the parents may look at it -- "They have their own life" "They're out of the house now and it doesn't really affect them" "They'll be less of a concern b/c they're grown now." Of course I'm not saying all parents think like that but I do wonder that b/c there is less data/research and b/c attorneys don't ask about the adult children while going through agreements, if there is simply less attention in general being paid to what are legitimate feelings of loss that adult children of divorce experience. Anyhow, that all goes back to my original question about what would adult children of divorce want parents who are contemplating divorce after a long-term marriage to know and to understand. Your comment was very helpful, and please, if you do write a post about this topic, update the comments here!
I'd be happy to contribute to that one. My parents divorce (riiiight around the time I was deciding to leave my PhD program) really knocked me sideways, even though I understood it all intellectually and didn't blame them for anything at all. And it definitely contributed to my own long-term relationship starting to fall apart, although that took years to finally happen.
I'm not divorced or considering it, but I just want to say that the advice on how to interact with your loved ones who are going through it is just plum good advice for interacting with folks going through anything tough. Being available to listen nonjudgmentally and with compassion makes people feel seen.
This column is such a valuable service.
I knew it was time to say I wanted a divorce on the 4th of July in 2009. I stood at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, thinking about whether or not I had given my husband enough chances to change.
The words that came to me were: “Growth is not health. You need health.”
A friend posted a tweet that pinged my phone right then: “We usually know what to do. It’s the consequences that seem unacceptable. Happy Independence Day!”
And that was it!
People were right. I knew when I knew.
For the person telling themselves " boredom isn't a good enough reason to leave" - I started that way, and so we tried multiple counselors and life changes and 12 years later the boredom had turned into bitterness and resentment (he was still perfectly content and I was STILL the unhappy one) and now I can see it was more telling than I wanted it to be.
This series is so important. There are so many things I wish I’d done differently but I just didn’t know how. I felt so trapped with a nice enough person that I just didn’t love in the way that I should’ve. Part of it is accepting the fact that you will likely hurt someone you love and that some people may not understand it, but it is necessary for your own survival. It’s the hardest and bravest thing I ever did.
It's eye opening how many cis-het women I know (including myself not so long ago) who tell themselves "but he's nice enough/not abusive/doesn't cheat so I don't have a good enough excuse to leave" - the bar is so low. So very, very low for what we tell ourselves is supposed to be this central, lifelong relationship that we prioritize above all else.
Exactly. I cared about him and he was a kind man, but he was not someone that I wanted to build a life with anymore. And in some ways that was harder to walk away from because on paper, everything looked perfect. Everyone thought I was making a huge mistake because they all thought they wanted what I had. But like you said, the bar is so low in cishet relationships, and I’m so much happier now. It’s wild how much of ourselves we’ll sacrifice for mediocrity.
Re: What was the single best piece of (solicited) advice you received as you were making the daily decision to leave or to stay in your marriage?
I finally got into therapy in the last year of my 8yr relationship. A month or two in, my therapist asked me, "What does the worst case scenario for the future look like for you?"
I said the worst case scenario would be that more years of my life would have gone by and nothing would have changed -- my relationship would be the same (or worse), I would feel the same (or worse) within it. It was clarifying: leaving was always going to be an awful experience, but it would be an awful experience with an ending.
I'm 3.5 years out of that relationship now. Hardest, best thing I've ever done for myself.
I was married for 19 years, together for 22, with one teenager. Many years were great, many weren't, and intensive Gottman-style marriage counseling kept us together for many years.
The phrase that came to me, and one I keep repeating, is/was "I have all the information I need." I did. From the outside, we were a great couple. We were a *terrific* family, and I was tired of being taken for granted. For not being able to - or want to - meet his needs. For not being a priority or allowed to have psychic space in the relationship. I had no desire left in my marriage, and when I realized he wasn't even my friend, I was done. I was 44 (the portal) and realized that I had half of my life ahead of me, and would rather be alone than feel alone in a marriage.
Reader, I *love* being divorced. There were many difficult parts. So many. And in the past three years I've fallen in love, experienced a long-term relationship and the subsequent heartache of that relationship ending (which felt harder than my divorce, because in divorce it's "over" for years before it is), and bought my own condo. I've met kind, sweet men who have taken me on lovely dates, made me laugh, and helped me realize what I want and need, and how to ask for it. There's a clarity that comes from dating in my 40s because I don't "need" it - I've been married and had a child (I am very lucky), so I don't need to be on the relationship escalator. I date for fun. It should always be fun, and now, without a "goal," I can truly enjoy myself.
I never want to get married again or live with someone full time. With my ex-boyfriend, I lived there about 40% of the time and lovingly spent time with his children. But I never want to hear someone cut their toenails, or get angry about how they spent our money.
What helped me was asking for help. For saying to my friends, "can you be my emergency contact?" and "can you help me move this dresser?" Because none of us are meant to do it alone. I would want someone to ask that of me, and I would happily oblige. We need each other, and most friends want to be a person to help in your life.
In the wise words of a dear friend, in both my marriage and my most recent long-term relationship, I saved myself. Easy? Hardly. Better? Absolutely.
Long-story medium:
* You have all the information you need
* Save yourself
"I never want to hear someone cut their toenails," preach.
I would add for ways people can be helpful - gift cards to stores to replace stuff or meals when you're too tired or being on call as someone who can help move furniture or hang pictures or whatever.
Definitely! Two people gave me Target gift cards and that was *huge*
I also offered something similar to someone staying in their home after their ex moved out - to help them paint or rearrange art since some was taken, and to make the rooms feel more like theirs.
I am planning on doing it soon, and I am finding these words so helpful. I am terrified. I have, on paper, an ideal marriage with no big issues (at the moment). We have similar values, he's a great father and partner, he thinks of me. I feel guilty most of the time, because of this. So in many ways I am doing it for him. He deserves someone who is in love with him in a reciprocal way. I don't feel the romantic chemistry, and havent for some time, but my intellectual brain had really talked me out of "blowing up my life" for something "superficial," that I thought we could work through. It has made physical intimacy a mental marathon of sorts and I realized, If I were him, I would NOT want my partner feeling this way about me. I would hate knowing they were avoiding intimacy or not feeling it, but felt obligated to do it. Also, I want us both to live out our sexual desires! We both want and deserve that.
The other big factor, for me, was timing. We have a 5-year-old together and the last few years were spent trying to get pregnant again, but running into multiple miscarriages, and now, possibly perimenopause. I could not bring separation to mind when it impacted whether my son would have a sibling or not, it felt too selfish. Now that time has passed, and I've worked through the grief of those miscarriages as well as the fact that I may not be able to get pregnant, I feel less tethered to keep things together. As women we spend so much energy managing and strategizing our personal needs with our family's needs, and it can be so exhausting.
Divorce might not be where this ends, but an open marriage is a minimum for me. I feel grateful to grow up in a time where other types of relationship structures exist and are accepted (at least in our community). My husband and I know other couples who do things in an alternative way, and I'm hopeful that we can find a structure that works for us.
I'm sorry you've dealt with so many hard things over the last few years, and I'm especially sorry for your pregnancy losses.
I wanted to offer a perspective as a divorced person who was in an open relationship when I was married and continues to have a polyamorous relationship orientation. Something that became easier to see in hindsight were the ways in which my former spouse and I were meeting core relational needs with others via polyamory, which was personally satisfying but sometimes made it harder to tend and strengthen the bonds between us. Put differently, I think there were ways in which we may have unconsciously used polyamory as a band-aid without resolving core relational stuff between us.
I share this not as a cautionary tale - if you and your spouse are aligned around opening your marriage, it can be a generative pathway to explore! - but rather as encouragement to reflect on (alone and together) the why of opening up as well as the how. Open marriage and polyamory have become increasingly 'zeitgeisty' in recent years (e.g., in works like Molly Roden Winter's memoir, OPEN) and I appreciate the critiques of writers like Brandy Jensen or Tracy Clark-Flory who are situating these works within wider conversations about why marriage isn't working for a lot of women.
There are also some useful books on polyamory how-tos that could be a helpful resource - happy to share a few recommendations if helpful.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I will definitely look into those resources. I am not sure what the future holds, and instead of assuming or expecting things to go a certain way, I am open to exploring and finding a way through this in a way that works for both of us. It might look a lot different than I imagine and he might even surprise me.
You're welcome! If you (or anyone else reading this comment thread) is looking for books more focused on the how-tos of polyamory, a few helpful resources are MORE THAN TWO, SECOND EDITION (the one by Eve Rickert and Andrea Zanin); POLYAMORY FOR DUMMIES by Jaime Grant (an admittedly cringe title but it comes highly recommended by a trusted friend) and Jessica Fern's POLYSECURE and POLYWISE.
My ex-husband struggled with addiction. About 2 years before we split he went to rehab for alcohol and oxycontin (the pill addiction he had been hiding from me for about a year). I considered divorce but I was very concerned with how others would judge me if I left him when he was on his knees - "in sickness and health, for richer or poorer" etc. etc. I felt like I needed to stay with him because he was the father of my child and my family and who walks away from family when they are struggling? A bad person, that's who. Well, the problem continued off & on and eventually I said "enough, I can't do this anymore." I don't necessarily wish I had walked away earlier, I think it all unfolded the way it needed to, and when I was done it was very clear in my mind that I was DONE. And who's to say that people would have judged me? Most of the time people are not paying that much attention, or they are so busy thanking their lucky stars that it's not THEIR lives that are falling apart.
and of course now that I'm over 50 and in perimenopause I think, "who the fuck cares if they judge me??? that's their problem, not mine."
and all timing is right timing
For the person who asked about their 4 and 8 yo children shuffling between homes where Dad has the “fun house…”
It’s me. That was my childhood. My mom divorced my dad when I was 6 and my sister was 1. We spent the next 12 years going to my dad’s every other weekend, the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and for two weeks in the summers. My mom ran a very tight ship and remained a single mother the rest of my life (she has never remarried and rarely dated and I am so jealous of her single lady retiree life). My dad is a permanent 12 year-old in a lot of ways (hence the divorce) and that gets old quick as you get older as a kid. Sure it’s all fun and games for the first two hours of the weekend, but it’s also fun to do things like eat dinner at a reasonable hour and go to bed when you’re tired.
This will be an adjustment for all of you but from what you’ve described regarding your custody arrangement and how you run your home, I think your kids will emotionally and mentally benefit from the stability and structure they know they will always have with you.
Now will they ever admit that? Maybe someday?!
I’m in my mid-40s with my own children now and can appreciate how effing hard that must have been for my factory-working mom in the mid-1980’s in a small town. Now that I’m writing this I realize I’ve never told HER this, so am going to call and thank her for doing it.
I've also been thinking about that question. When we told the then 6 and 9yo we were moving into separate apartments albeit in one building the 6yo said "daddy's apartment will be the screens apartment and Mommy's will be the calm apartment." (Screens = very popular around here). And it's been true - dad buys a new video game every weekend and I still don't have a TV. BUT. it's also true that when screen time is over they end up up here in my place working on a puzzle or reading a book next to me on the couch. Kids love the Fun stuff but they also know they NEED the other stuff. And. I'm finding my fun side again? The more balanced our kid time is, the more energy I have for when they are with me, and the less energy I spend on their dad, the more I have to do more fun stuff than I ever did when we were together.
I've also worried about my kid's dad's house being the "fun" house and mine being the house with rules and structure. Earlier on in my post-divorce journey I worried that my ex wasn't providing enough actual active parenting at his house -- like he + the kid were just living together as roommates. I was fretting to my therapist about how maybe I needed to push to adjust the 50/50 custody schedule to have more time, as the more competent parent. She gave me the great advice that as long as a kid has one stable parent, they'll be fine. I didn't need to overcompensate for what my ex wasn't doing (or what I *perceived* he wasn't doing). Now that my kid is a teenager I definitely don't worry about this as much. I think he likes his relative freedom at that house, and he also likes having a bedtime and being more nurtured at my house. Recently we were all sick at my house and he commented that he thinks he coughs less when he's at my house "because it's cleaner and doesn't have as much dust in the air." My current partner and I got a good laugh out of that!
The clearest way I look at divorce - including my own - is this: no good marriage ends in divorce. I think it's why SO FEW divorced folks (and no cis het women) I know regret it.
I don't know one single divorced woman who regrets her decision.
Actually, I do. This person believed the divorce was her fault and that she got one chance and blew it. I’ve never told her that a bunch of us sat around before the wedding debating if we should tell her that the marriage was going to be a big mistake. I think she would have married him anyway because she wanted to be married, and would have hated us for speaking up.
NO FAULT: A MEMOIR OF ROMANCE AND DIVORCE by Haley Mlotek just pub'd yesterday. I just began reading it, and it's not going to help everyone seeking advice here, but it's well-written and a tender and often clever voice on this topic.
Weighing in late with a small but important bit of tactical advice: If you are divorcing and have (a) kid(s), write into the divorce agreement that you will both maintain your life insurance policies. My ex was very, very broke after we split up - he had chosen to switch to a low-paying career for Reasons - but he kept paying on that policy because I had emphasized it in the mediation process. He was a young, healthy guy - and three years after we split, he dropped dead of an undiagnosed heart condition. While we would so much rather he still be around, that life insurance policy paid for me to take reduced hours at work for a few months after he died -- and since then it has covered any number of things, including, now, the entire cost of college. The money does not replace my daughter's dad, but it has eased our path in some really, really consequential ways.
I’m sorry for your and your daughter’s loss. This is really sound advice and generous of you to share.
A friend told me later that the best thing I said to her when she spent many years contemplating divorce was "I trust that you know what's best for you and the girls." I wasn't pushing my agenda on her (even though I agreed with everyone telling her to leave), and it meant she had a safe space to talk through things without feeling judged.