Q. Dear Love Goddess: Okay, you told me yesterday why someone might act weird if I were to get married, but I’m in the middle of a divorce, and my friends are really acting weird. How come?
A. Dear Earth Girl:
Well, that’s easy. Everyone feels, on some irrational level, that she might get infected; that divorce, like swine flu, is virulent and contagious. She may know that you and your husband are getting divorced for reasons that have zero to do with her own marriage, but the feeling of contentiousness, of this act being the final “I’m not doing this anymore,” has floated across everyone’s mind at some point, in some argument or in some fantasy. So there you are, actually taking action, while your friends are happily married but filled with niggling “What if we got to that same place?” sensations. And so of course they act weird because of it.
And that’s only the beginning. What if they loved you as a couple, and depended on that foursome as an integral part of their emotional and social lives? What if they, for religious or other beliefs, don’t think you should get a divorce? What if they don’t agree with your reasoning? What if they worry that you’re going to be poor now, and that you will be a single mom with not enough money to send your kid to school? What if they want to stay friends with your husband and don’t know how to ask you if that’s okay? What if they want to negotiate the delicate balance of being on your side but not dissing your soon-to-be Ex? Then the subtleties get even worse: What if one friend thinks your sad ex husband, when he recovers, would be incredibly happy with this other friend of hers? What if she herself thinks he’d be great to date? What if their own parents divorced, and all they remember is the misery they themselves experienced? What if they suspect you two really love each other and that this is a huge mistake–but know it’s too late to convince you?
You see, I’ve only just begun. Splitting up splits friendships. It splits relationships with kids, at least for awhile. It splits all of our feelings about commitment and togetherness and fairness and betrayal….good grief, have some sympathy for your friends! The only unambivalent joy a friend can take in your divorce is if you have been saved from a life-threatening situation. Then your friends won’t act weird. (I hope.) But otherwise, there are too many issues that scare them, both old and new, both internal and right there, for friends to be able to act towards you just as they always have.
