Living with Memories After a Gray Divorce
Living with Memories After a Gray Divorce
When we are going through the drama of a divorce, there’s so much to think about we often don’t allow ourselves the time or the energy it takes to fully process the memories we have about our marriage story. We may be relieved having finally made the decision to separate, but we may also feel overwhelmed by grief about our current loss as well as a rising tide of fear over the prospect of living in an unknown future.
Some people are so “over it” in the moment of separation, they don’t take the time to really remember what their marriage was like. Naturally, there are so many details and logistics to take care of, there is often no time left in the day to ponder the aspects of the marriage we just left. Early on, the immediate task before us is to just get through one moment after another, tackling each chore as we try to move forward, and marking off items on our “to do” list as we go. Eventually however, the pace of those initial months that follow the decision to divorce slow down, and we are often left with too many quiet moments filled with memories of the past and questions about what went wrong.
For many, it is these moments after the frenzy of activity is over that the time to really remember what happened manifests. After going through the initial stages of my own Gray Divorce, I found that I needed to accurately account for both the good and the bad aspects of the 42-year relationship I had left. At times, I too felt a sense of relief that I had finally made the decision to change my life, but I also began to feel a rising flood of memories that came rushing in. I’d been stuck in the morass of the problems in the relationship for so long, I’d forgotten there was good stuff too. It was those good memories that threatened to scuttle the raft on which I had floated away. The bad memories had empowered me with righteous anger, but these encroaching good memories made me wonder if I’d made a horrible mistake.
Yes, there was a certain freshness about my new life. I loved my new home, and I felt a sense of liberation from a lifetime of constraining thoughts. But there was loneliness too, and the enormity of my decision began to set in. Despite all the problems we had experienced, I missed my husband and the feeling of security that being a married/partnered person had given me all those years. My safety net was gone, and happy memories of how we had started out filled my brain. I remembered us as younger people, filled with enthusiasm for one project after another, excited about our children, building a life together, planning for our future. I went through more than a few moments, usually at about 3:00 am, kicking myself for leaving, feeling fatalistic about what might come next, and doubting that I had the strength of will or enough “kick in the can” left to start again.
Somewhere along the way during those first few months of quiet solitude it dawned on me that I had to remember all of it, the good and the bad. Just because things had gone off the rails at some point didn’t mean it had never been good. I had to allow myself to recollect my marriage in its entirety, as a whole package. I had to find a way to synthesize all of it into the complete and unabridged accounting that it was. Just because I wasn’t still inside my marriage didn’t mean that it had become a two-dimensional thing. My marriage story was rich with joy, laughter, fun and pleasure AS WELL AS tears, silence, anger and resentment. I hadn’t wasted my life pouring unending energy into a lifeless box. There had been many reasons for staying all those years, many that no one besides me may ever understand or appreciate. But somewhere along the way, I gave myself permission to grieve the injuries while celebrating the accomplishments, and that act of self-love cleared my way forward for reinvention.
The truth was I had learned a lot from that long relationship. It had taught me much about the world, the nature of love, the importance of trust, and ultimately how to be resilient. As my mother used to say, I had learned how to practice “sticktoitiveness.” It had not destroyed the person I am. Instead, it had helped me to learn about my strengths and weaknesses, clarify my values and appreciate the imperfect woman I am today. Inside the marital framework, I came to realize my own humanity and learned to accept and forgive myself and other people.
As I read what I just wrote, I sounds like I did all that self-discovery alone. I did not. To process my divorce properly, I needed the objectivity of professionals as well as the empathy of those who shared similar experiences. Whether you need outside help or not, I urge you to fully engage with your marital memories. “An accurate and rigorous recording of what happened will allow you to identify what you want to excise from your life as well as the colorful elements you want to infuse into your future” (Whitlock, 2021).