228 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
Divorce after a long-term marriage brings lots of loss and change, as well as
potential growth. My ex and I were married for nearly 30 years. Prior to our
marriage, we dated and then lived together for 5 years. Altogether, I was with
Ned for 35 years before we divorced. I often tell people we were “puppies”
together, because honestly, it felt like my whole life was with him! We weath-
ered many transitions together including college, careers, had babies, raised
babies, buried parents, experienced job losses, gains, promotions, teenagers,
buying houses, and moving. We also experienced (each in our separate ways)
marital stresses, emotional ups and downs, anger, pain, and loneliness within
the marriage. I wanted to stay married until the kids all graduated high school.
I wanted that stability. Looking back, I’m not sure that was wise, but why look
back? Every decision has to be the right one, because you can never go back.
Along with the divorce, there was the selling of the family home and
most of the furnishings. Simultaneously, my college age children were
busy with their own lives and settled into their own apartments in states
800-plus miles away. During this time, I also put Ty, our family dog, down
and experienced menopause. This tested my mettle and my ability to find
new ground beneath my feet when all I had known as comfort and habit had
evaporated.
Now that I was a “single” woman, I had to learn what that meant. I had
never really been a single woman. I met Ned a month after graduating from
high school and started dating him shortly afterwards. As a young woman,
I never really dated. But, now, before I could find out how to be a single
woman, I needed to find out how to put one foot in front of the other. In a
sense, the entire world I knew was different. I had to learn, and it took time,
that the explosive loss of my prior life was actually the freeing and beginning
of all that could come. Cognitively, I knew this, but my heart was heavy with
loss and I had a very difficult time acknowledging the joy that could fill the
emptiness.
There is a poem by Jelaluddin Rumi, “The Guest House,” that speaks to
this loss and gain so beautifully, reminding us that everything that comes to
us is an invitation to learn and to have faith that all is sacred and right. In the
poem, the author observes that even “a crowd of sorrows” can bring one to a
place of being open to “new delight.” The reader of the poem is urged to “Be
grateful for whatever comes” and this is an admonition I took to heart.
While going through the divorce, I was fairly strong. Ned still lived in
the house, at least part-time when he wasn’t travelling and it was a comfort to
have him there. He slept in his own room, but we shared meals together. At the
time, I thought it was a graceful and peacefully slow transition to the lives we
would soon lead separately and I appreciated having him close. We weren’t
fighting. We were negotiating change and learning to be friends. But, after
the divorce, we couldn’t sell the house and so the clean ending became a bit
fuzzy. He got an apartment in North Carolina while I continued to live in New
Hampshire. I met a great guy, who turned out to be an angel in my life and also
unfortunately a transition relationship that happened before I could emotion-
ally sustain a long-term, permanent relationship. When Ned found out I had
a boyfriend, he lost perspective and the friendship we were developing. He
became rigid, angry, and obstinate. I was amazed and confused because we
had been negotiating the end of our marriage fairly peacefully until that point.