Divorce-aversary


 Today is my divorce-aversary – a full year since Matt and I walked into the courthouse separately and without speaking dissolved our marriage.  To celebrate, we are going to Charlotte this weekend to watch our favorite comedian, Taylor Tomlinson. We can learn a lot from comedians in how they take difficult life challenges and use humor to transform pain. For me, anger has been the most difficult challenge to overcome in divorce, and probably my ego if I’m honest. Matt’s unhealthy coping left me feeling like I was not enough and my thoughts led me to believe that perhaps he found what he was looking for in another woman. This still hurts me deeply when I think of time my children and Matt spent with someone else…but I’ve decided that I must do something to transform this trauma into post-traumatic growth and joy – because quite frankly, life is hard enough without feeling angry all the time. I’ve told Matt that I’m going to take a lesson from our favorite comedian and start to view this past year in the context of comedy. This is not to make light of divorce or minimize how profoundly it affected us and our children but to forgive resentments and highlight the necessity of viewing our past struggles and shortcomings as just that – something to laugh at and understand as flaws in younger versions of ourselves. Too often I see patients hold onto guilt and shame for past choices. I think the best thing we can do is forgive ourselves, lighten the load of guilt by finding humor in our past immaturity, and commit to doing better.

              Yes, my divorce-aversary is today and my ex-husband had a girlfriend for the last year, and Yes – I had more than a few boyfriends. But here we are today choosing one another when we are free and clear as divorced individuals to walk away forever. Yes, my ex-husband took his girlfriend on vacation to where he married me. That was enough to send me into a psychological spiral months ago, but now I see it as somewhat humorous…I mean, I’m pretty sure if I was dating a guy and he tried to take me on vacation to where he married his ex-wife – I’d select a different destination…and I’d maybe rethink whether or not he was actually over said wife. Maybe with a little time, some humor, a lot of therapy, and forgiveness we can rebuild the cracks in our foundation. Marriage is not easy, and maybe what’s important is how we cope with and re-frame adversity in life…and the miracle of how love overcomes even our deepest pains and strongest resentments. I love you, Matt. Happy Divorce-aversary!

Cheers to not taking ourselves too seriously 😊

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