How Not to React to Divorce
My spouse wanted a divorce. I did not take it well.
When he asked me for a divorce, I thought that if I didn’t say anything, maybe he would forget that he asked and things could maybe go back to normal. Not that normal for us was anything good or healthy. We fought constantly. It had gotten to the point where I would throw and break things during our fights. I shouldn’t have been surprised by him asking. But I was.
Something in my head snapped when he handed me that large manila envelope. Maybe I thought he was bluffing? “WE LOVE EACH OTHER! Why are you doing this??” I cried. He kept his composure. This just made me more angry. “You never cared about me. Obviously this marriage meant nothing to you. Well buckle up. I’m going to make your life miserable.” Nothing. No reaction. And I exploded.
In hindsight, him not moving out right away gave me a false sense of hope. Unfortunately, I didn’t use this time to try and work things out. In fact, I went in the complete opposite direction.
We moved through our house like two strangers. He, avoiding me with silence. Me, sabotaging his day however I could
I started off doing small, annoying things. He’d make a pot of coffee and I would walk in the kitchen and pour it down the drain. I’d leave the TV in the living room on loudly and hide the remote. I was like a petulant child. I’d like to say it stopped there. But it did not.
I didn’t get the reaction I was looking for, so I decided to go deeper. I would call his office phone 20 times a day. I started ordering things online – I didn’t even look to see what they were. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars of things, delivered to the house. The boxes would pile up at the front door. I didn’t move them, I wanted him to see them. I don’t know what I thought it would accomplish.
We moved through our house like two strangers. He, avoiding me with silence. Me, sabotaging his day however I could. I threw his car keys in the trash. I loudly criticized him to our children, who still lived at home. I broke his favorite mug – the one our son made him in preschool. I poured water on his laptop when he wasn’t looking, enough to break it. I have to hand it to him, he never reacted.
I didn’t know it then, but he had retained a lawyer who he had been keeping abreast of my behavior. I’m certain that his lack of response to me was at their recommendation.
The papers came on a Tuesday morning. I had been served. At that point, I hadn’t done anything productive to prepare for this divorce. I was so angry that all I cared about was making him unhappy. A friend who was a lawyer offered to help. At our first meeting she asked me about what I wanted. I stated, “I don’t want the divorce.” She looked at me. “Are you saying that you’ll be contesting this divorce?”
She went on to explain what a contested divorce would mean. Long, drawn-out and expensive. At the end of the day, the divorce would still happen. I sighed. “Well he probably won’t want to make up with me after the way I’ve been acting.” A smile played on my lips, thinking about how miserable I had made him. That’s when reality set in. She said in no uncertain terms, “I don’t know what you’re doing in that house, but you need to stop now. Anything you’re doing he can bring up in court. Stop. Now.”
In hindsight, I wish I had gone to see her weeks earlier. When we went to court, there it all was. The text messages, the harrassing, the records of my calling him over and over at work. The receipts from online shopping. I sat there, unbelievably embarrassed. Not just at my own behavior, but at the fact that my ex-husband had NOT reacted. I sat there, like an admonished child, listening to the judge tell me I was no longer allowed to text him. That our finances needed to be separated. Listening to her ask my ex-husband if he felt safe, and if he didn’t, he should feel empowered to call the police. From that point forward, we could communicate about our children and that was it. If I had just acted like a grownup from the start, maybe things would have gone differently.
I can’t undo my behavior. And unfortunately, I can’t even try to make up for it. But maybe one day I’ll be able to explain to him what happened to me. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to understand it myself.