My Divorce One Year Later: Life Lessons Learned In Surviving My First Year

One year ago, I had just docked from a rainy tour of Lake Mascoma on a friend’s speedboat during a business trip to New Hampshire.  Sheltering it from the elements, I left my phone in my friend’s house.  Like all of us who are away from our phones for more than a few minutes, as soon as I reentered the house I picked up my phone and started thumbing through the messages. There it was.  The message I had been expecting for several weeks.  Out on the lake among the New England summer foliage and in a rare moment of tranquility at that time, I had forgotten.  I had forgotten all about my pending divorce and the finality of the judge’s signature that loomed large.   The two word message from my attorney was all I needed to know, “All done.”  Shell-shocked, I sat there for a moment to catch my bearings.  I looked up at my friend and gave the epitaph to my marriage, “I’m single.”

It was only a year ago that this “all done” seemed to not just describe my marriage, but my life’s hopes and aspirations.  Yet, here I am, 365 days later.  I made it.  A full school year has transpired.  My kids and I are a year older.  We have been through every holiday and season.  I’ve experience love again and heartache again. I have been hurt and heeled – both literally and emotionally.  And it has been a journey like I never would have expected. As I reflect now on one of the most momentous - and unexpected - years of my life, I am reflecting on what I have seen and experienced.  So I thought I’d jot down and share my life lessons learned on how to survive a first year of divorce.

Have Hope - It Gets Better

I remember sitting in the bathtub on Father’s Day, a few weeks before I received the “all done” message. I felt like a gutted fish; limp, lifeless, and hollow.  The feeling of loss and gloom was acutely overpowering. I didn’t have the strength or will to go on or move forward.  I was done.  But hearing the clatter of my children in the kitchen cleaning up the Father’s Day breakfast they made for me, I took a long drawn in breath and muttered to myself, “Give it a year. You can make it a year.” It seemed daunting, it seemed forever. This was a year that I did not want to face. Through this all immersive cloud of disappointment and despair, those next steps often seemed more like steps into just more darkness.

Still I took that first step out of the tub and found not darkness, but hope.  There placed on my pillow was a Father’s Day letter from my oldest son.  I read it.  It was full of everything a father wants to hear to know he is loved and is needed and to give him the strength to carry on.  That was my start.  Day by day, moment by moment; life became lighter and lighter.  Hope found root.  I am happy.  This proclamation seemed so unobtainable back then.  It may seem distant in those dark early moments, yet trust that the light does come.  

Don’t Hate

Hate and anger are two close bedfellows of divorce.  Divorce entails betrayal, pain, rejection and the cleaving in two of a family, a life, and a hope.  Someone is at fault!  Someone did this!  I must hate someone.  But hate is a choice and choose not to do it.  Divorce is like a wound and you decide how to treat it.  Do you want to treat it with antiseptic or rub dirt in it?  Hate is dirt.  It does not heal you.  And hate spreads to those around you, your children, your friends, your family, your job, your new love interests.   The sooner you let go of hate, the sooner people will see you as you and not as some wounded animal ready to lash out at anyone and everyone that comes near you.

Don’t Make Any Sudden Moves

I have a saying when I ride a mountain bike or drive an ATV, go fast in the straightaways, but take the turns slow. Going fast in the straightaways is exhilarating; the rush of wind in your hair, the excitement and celebration of life in that moment. The turns, however, can be rather dangerous. A change in direction is not the time for speed; this is the time for control and caution.  This has also become my philosophy as a newly minted single father. Enjoy the excitement of life when things are steady, but go slow and be cautious with any sudden and new life decisions.

I have met a not insubstantial number of young two time divorcees who took the corners a little too fast and only realized the error once life got out of control again.  For many of us, marriage was beautiful and natural and it feels right to gravitate back in that direction.  There is even this spot in the back of our minds that tells us that because we are divorced we are broken and need to be fixed.  And fixing requires getting married again.  Even if true, don’t rush to fix this side of yourself.  Take your time.  Fix it right, don’t fix it fast.

You Are Not You – Yet

When you drag yourself through a divorce, the beaten and bruised person who first emerges is not the real you.  Trust me, it’s not.  Perhaps you were trying to change yourself in a last ditch effort to bond with your now former spouse.  Maybe you withdrew yourself to hide this personal pain from the public.  Or you might have forced yourself into becoming aggressive to finally find the strength to stand up and reject years of abuse and betrayal.  Whatever the case, you are most likely only a shadow of the real you.  I remembered on my first few dates how often someone commented on how “well adjusted” I was already.  Yet as I look back now and see how much I have recovered my former self, no matter how “well adjusted” I seemed, I still was not me.  Recognize this and recover.  Find again the life that you love and give yourself time.  You will look back and wonder how that shell of a person was ever living in your body.

You Will Make It – If Only A Day At A Time

Having walked down this dark path, I can say “You will make it.”  No, I have not fully “fixed” myself.  But I can say that I have made it.  That burden is gone – mostly.  It will never fully heal, but those kinds of scars offer healthy reminders to our future selves.  But “making it” is not even as hard as you might think.  And as I think back on this year, perhaps I found my life and lesson already encapsulated in lyrics written more than 30 years ago in one of my favorite songs.  “Who am I?  I looked death in the face last night, I saw him in a mirror.  And he simply smiled, he told me not to worry, he told me just to take my time.  We close our eyes and the world has turned around again.  We close our eyes and dream and another year has come and gone.”  Just make it through this day and before you know it, a year has come and gone.  “All done,” but never finished.