And yet, I don't particularly relish leading off with my marital status all the time - who would, really? - which is why for the last while on this blog, I've focused strictly on other aspects of my life experience.
I even have one or two readers and Facebook friends who only ever seem to comment whenever I talk about divorce. I appreciate the words of sympathy and support, I really do, but I'm light years past where I was this past winter. I know it's not the intention, but the commentary has this almost condescending "That's it, Jody, way to go!" feel, like what you say to a six year old when he finally goes a week without wetting the bed.
The other part was that up until last month, I was heavily involved in online dating.
That's a tricky endeavour when you're divorced because the medium sends the wrong message to would-be companions. You can meet someone in person, see what they're really like, interact with them, fall in love, and maybe a few weeks into it learn about their previous marriage. And if there's clear charisma between you, if neither of you have any particular religious or personal issues with it, you'll move past it. Or, you'll end the relationship, but at least you had those weeks of experience.
But when all you have to go on is what the person's written on a dating profile, you look for any red flag. And that's when you walk into the Catch 22 of divorcee online dating disclosure.
If you don't disclose your marital status, the person may find out later and determine you're a lying scumbag or "not over your ex". If you do disclose your martial status, the person may determine that they appreciate your honesty,but that they're looking for someone with a little less baggage and that you're "not over your ex".
You can thus understand why I abandoned online dating in favour of the harder, much more satisfying route of meeting actual girls in the real world.
So....yeah, talking about divorce for me is touchy, but not for the conventional reasons you might think.
Nevertheless, every now and then, I come across something that lights up my synapses and motivates me to put fingers to keyboard and make divorce the front and centre of my attention. Here's one such instance.
Doing Divorce Differently
The Huffington Post recently created an entire section to Divorce. In the words of founder Arianna Huffington:
"I've always thought that, as a country, we do a lousy job of addressing how we can do divorce differently -- and better."
Articles I'd like to suggest include the following, which closely parallel what I've written on the subject:
- Why Divorcees Make The Best Dates and The Case for the Starter Marriage by Sascha Rothchild, author of How To Get Divorced By 30.
- The Scarlet "D", by Joel Dovev, Comedian
- The Stigma of Divorce, by Jennifer Cullen, Blogger
Friends and neighbours, I strongly suggest you read these articles. Especially considering how little my own writings on the subject have been able to convince some of you that my approach to this experience has been beneficial.
That really bugs me, by the way. By the reactions and input I've observed from a few particular individuals, I've been made to feel that they think I've somehow been permanently compromised by the experience. That I have no perspective whatsoever on what's happening to me, that everything I say is just part of the transition phase.
And because I dared to defy some of the established conventions of divorce - forgiving and building a new friendship with my ex, choosing not to become Barney Stinson, pursuing reconstruction instead of self-destruction, deciding to express my feelings rather than addling them in booze and drugs and false machismo - some people have declared - and I ain't namin' names or anything - "See? Jody's not better! He needs to man up! He's not following the rules!". (Well, sentiments to that effect, anyway).
Anyway, venting complete.
Throwing Out the Standard Rulebook
I didn't follow the rules of divorce because, right from the beginning, I had no rulebook to follow for this experience. My parents are still together: for much of my reality, divorce was something that happened to other people. Hence, no rulebook.
When colleagues started citing at me from the Standard Rulebook for Divorce, I looked at the consequences - litigation fees, months of hostility, self righteous chest-beating in and out of court over who was more in the wrong, who's going to hell; substance abuse, porn addiction, stress, general recrimination - and decided, "nope, not for me". I needed to be able to at least feel neutral waking up each morning in the new alternate reality I was suddenly living in. I couldn't do that if I was waking up just to fight the same skirmish each and every day, over and over again. Divorce as a war of attrition didn't appeal to me.
As it happens, making this up as I go along has been the most optimal approach I could have taken, and while I'm not as bubbly about my divorce as Sascha Rothchild is about hers, I definitely prefer this to the Standard Rulebook for Divorce that has lawyers and counsellors reaping millions from people's suffering.
The Huffington Post has really done well to open up this topic to enlightened discussion past the expected orthodoxy of divorce as an exclusively negative experience. North American society has had decades to trace and re-trace the "Scarlet 'D'" onto the page, and I don't presume to be able to white it out with a single stroke.
But I will continue to try. And now I can provide citations that prove to the hardest skeptics that I'm not alone in that pursuit.
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