What Divorce Really Feels Like
An honest look at what it's really like when a marriage ends...for good.
It's refreshing to read an article on divorce that offers a raw glimpse of what a man or woman may be going through when the decision is made to call it quits.
With piercing honesty, Sandra Tsing Loh writes in The Atlantic about the dissolution of her marriage. She tells us what it's like when two people, who once stood beside each another eager to start the rest of their lives together, are left wondering, "Now what?"
We highly suggest you carve out 20 minutes today to read this article in its entirety. Loh's complex sentiments poke through the lines. In spots she is apologizing, she is explaining, she is feeling sad. She brings up two points that hit really home with us:
1) All relationships take work. This theme comes up again and again, no matter if you are single and dating or have been married for 12-plus years. The difficulty is that opinions on the subject vary wildly. There's a school that says: love should come naturally. And if it doesn't, perhaps we're forcing nothing into being something amorous that it's just not meant to be.
The flip side, or school on the other end of the block, says that all healthy, solid relationships require work (you know, the 'plants need water and sunlight to grow and thrive' theory). And if you're not willing to put in the work, well then, you can kiss your strong relationship (and its ability to withstand obstacles) good-bye. We admit that on this very point we remain undecided.
2) No hating, being disappointed in, or scorning the divorced. Loh, 47, writes that just because her marriage isn't going to work out this does not mean that she or her ex-husband do not believe in the institution of marriage. You can sense, shining through, the sentiments of a woman who does not want to be judged or feel like she is letting anyone down because she is getting divorced. Read: Divorce 101
She sat through the marriage counseling; she and her husband (who early-on she mentions travels 20 weeks a year) reared the kids; she gave it her best. This is a reminder to all that rarely does anyone plan to or want to get divorced. Sometimes though—despite all those good and hopeful, fiery and romantic intentions—things fall apart, love fades away. Divorce happens. Loh reminds us that it's not a quick-fix, easy road.
Readers, what's your take: Should relationships come naturally or does a good one require work?
Discussion
Divorce feels like your long time partner reached in your chest and broke your heart. Its painful and scarey especially the older you get. What about seeing the other with somone new. You tend to doubt yourself whose fault was it cause it take two to Tango.Then grown kids not wanting to take sides but they always tend to. You start looking for that lost love,touch,truth and all the feeling you have.for that person your dreams accomplishments ups and down. Its hard to move on because you know how you still feel love for her after all you spent a lot of work together raising the kid ands, working toward your.dreams and combined friends both have.
Where are you going to live so that your far enough away to give her space to find someone else. How do you get over the things you did for her like placing cofee on her vanity while she showered just as a small memento of your love. AS you see I still have a lot of things to work on cause I miss her very much. I probably always will.
Having read the article now, I'm not very sympathetic to the author. She didn't seem sad so much as defiantly unwilling to work at her relationship. She has to work and raise kids, why should she have to make time for hubby? Rather than wondering if they should have done anything differently, Tsing Loh wants to claim that believing in marriage is the problem. Her ideal solution seems to be stay married for the sake of the kids, but let women have an affair on the side.
Tsing Loh goes with the old nobody can stay married for life, romantic love fades argument. Then she starts quoting pop "love scientist" Helen Fisher. Fisher's early work on how long love lasts looked at a bunch of developed societies. She found a peak in the divorce rates four years into the marriages. A simple conclusion might be that it takes that long for married couples to develop problems and try to work them out in our modern world. Plus couples who've been married longer might have children or shared property that hold them together.
Fisher, however, jumped to the idea that this is a universal trait in all societies - it just plain isn't since she didn't have any data on less developed nations. Then, inexplicably she jumped further to the idea that this is a natural phenomenon related to how long women need men's support while they breastfed children in prehistoric societies - again, we have no idea how long relationships lasted in those societies or whether mothers could do without men after four years, etc. As far as I can see, her theory that love is only meant to last four years and after that kids don't need their dads gained currency because it fit with the culture of the times. People were getting divorced and they wanted to believe that it wasn't that bad.
The real data is in, though. Romantic love can last for years.
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/Modern+Medicine+Now/Romanti...
Ironically, Fisher seems to have been somehow involved in the study that disproved her earlier theories, although she is not an author of the paper.
Love comes naturally, but if you want to live with someone, you're going to have to spend some time fighting and working things out. I'm definitely on the side of work to make any relationship last.
The other thing a romantic relationship needs is time. It's not such a big deal in the beginning when you just want to spend all your time together, but the further along you go, the more likely you are to take each other for granted. You have to make an effort to spend time together so that your feelings stay alive.
Life isn't always easy, either, and sometimes you have to give more than you're getting and not think in terms of contracts. It's not that you have to work exactly, but you may have to do things you don't naturally want to.
The other thing I have found is that we Americans tend to think of romance in terms of the first rush of feelings. That's wonderful and important and you shouldn't get married without it. But romance is also knowing that someone knows all your faults and loves you anyway. It's seeing your partner paint the house to make you happy. It's just enjoying being together. It's having years of shared memories.
Thank you - your posts articulated some of the things that I just couldn't get out!
Love is a feeling. It fluctuates. It's commitment that's important to get through the valleys and return to the peaks, and I think that work is necessary for that. My limited impression based on her article was that her relationship got tough and she wanted to leave. If that's been her attitude, then she should have taken her own advice and never gotten married. I have way more thoughts about this than I can articulate right now.
