It is now more than ten years since I got divorced. Before too long I will have been unmarried, and holding the status of divorcee, for the same length of time I was once married. Soon, my children will have known me longer as the guy they sometimes visit than the dad who used to live with them.
It is an unwanted anniversary – no man grows up wanting his marriage not to work out and to be distanced from his children – but also a slow burn of realisation and reflection. Despite what your happily married friends might think, divorce doesn’t happen in a hot few months of screaming rows, lawyers, house moves and a decree nisi. It’s a challenging series of emotions and lifestyle changes; a rueful self-examination that continues to evolve with each passing year.
There is sadness, anger, resentment and regret but also valuable lessons in survival, self-reliance, resilience and personal growth. Over time a man learns the necessity, decency and dignity of mutual forgiveness, how to set boundaries, re-evaluate, cultivate independence and foster self-care.
Well, that’s what books on the subject, as well as endless essays, podcasts and relationship experts, tell you.
My experience? As the twice-divorced Rod Stewart once sang, ‘I wish that I knew what I know now…’ Perhaps knowing the impact and extent of a marital break-up, understanding its effect on one’s children, bank account and mental health would have been useful. Being furnished with the judgment and maturity to behave rationally, considerately and unselfishly during its long and drawn-out process might have been good, too.
Mainly, I discovered that men like me really SUCK at this divorce thing.
One hates to generalise, but I really do think the wives – organised, forward looking, pragmatic, undiminishable, financially savvy and boundary setting – are just better equipped to handle it.
Simon Mills says divorce ‘is like a death with the added value of a personal attack’
From the first small signs of marriage trouble, they will establish a loyal and attentive sisterhood circle that watches out for them, listens to their problems, takes their phone calls and gets them out of the house. They will negotiate civilised terms to engender and maintain father-children relations. In time, they will glow up, work out, move on. Maybe enjoy a toy boy or two…
The men? It’s more a toys-out-of-the-pram scenario. Even several years down the line, my divorce can still make me feel uncomfortable, inconsequential… a failure.
This kind of thinking, this darkness and despair, I found, was normal. US medical research has backed up the notion of divorce hitting men harder than women – divorced men being prone to deeper depressions, more likely to drink excessively and take drugs. Suicides among unmarried men are 39 per cent higher than married men. I never felt suicidal, but I did learn to enjoy my wine. And, eventually, the luxury of a big king-sized bed all to myself. Back in the outside world? Not so good.
How does a man handle a chance encounter with his former spouse after ten years of divorce, for example? For me, it has always been the very opposite of a Hollywood ‘meet cute’. (A ‘meet awks’, maybe?) Like some neurotic character from a Woody Allen film, or a nerdy teen, humiliated at the school prom, I always clammed up. Went in on myself.
If possible, I will discreetly exit the venue when spying her across the room at a party. If I know in advance she’ll be attending something, I tend to avoid it altogether. This is, I admit, stupid, ridiculously immature behaviour.
So, why do it? I tell myself it is better this way – but the truth is, I don’t enjoy the cloying discomfort. I want to spare her (and myself) from the stilted conversation that seems to have deleted a once intimate 20-year relationship from our collective hard-drives. I can’t deal with the unnerving strangeness of not knowing anything of someone I once knew so well. Sadly, those feelings of bitterness and resentment might not really change much for the rest of your respective lives.
The big question for long-haul divorcees is, should one stay in touch with the ex? Once the kids no longer require scheduled care and accompaniment, you might (very occasionally) communicate with your ex by phone and text message – mainly for the sake of politeness, not the kids.
You may also go months, years even, without any contact at all. Which is why when you do see each other again it’s difficult. For the true grown-ups, friendliness and civility is the key – exes are good at this. Me? I need to learn to relax and let go. Here’s what else this long-haul ex-husband has learnt…
Your male friends will be no help
Simon says friends soon grow tired of your divorce’s dreary and overrunning pity party
After a while – and I’m talking just a few weeks here – any friends that you still have will have grown tired of your divorce’s dreary and overrunning pity party. When a few years have passed, no one will ever mention it again (except on the occasion when they will take gleeful pleasure in casually informing you exactly which of your former friends your former wife is now dating).
Should you talk to people about it? You could try, but here’s a truth: your divorce is boring. Really, really boring. To everyone around you. To your family, your children, your colleagues, to any women you might be lucky enough to meet.
In those first few months, you might get stood a pint or two, a punch on the arm and an occasional, ‘You OK, mate?’ After a couple of months, they’ll presume your split is done and dusted and you can get back to your carousing self again.
This is not a Joey and Chandler set-up. Divorce tends to socially isolate men. Your phone doesn’t ring and you will be ridiculously hurt when you learn of a party you are not invited to (but she is).
Trying to rescue it is pointless
The biggest mistake we made, during our big mistake of a marriage, was trying to half-heartedly rescue it. Like many couples who agree to split, we strung out the final episode like scriptwriters trying to squeeze another series of a waning soap opera.
Somehow, we carried on living under the same roof, tensions mounting and tempers fraying, but putting on a brave face for the children. They weren’t fooled, of course.
I think by the end, they were happy for us to break up. I now look back on that period as a terrible waste of time. As soon as it became clear that we were over, I/we should have been sensible and cut ties much sooner. Time goes fast when you are 50 and accelerates with each passing year. You need to get back out there, looking for love again.
Divorce is expensive
When things finally came to a logistically civilised, personally messy head, it was agreed that, while I’d have unlimited access to the kids, it was time for me to move out. And pay out. Ex and I decided on a six-figure settlement that would require me to arrange a remortgage, just at the time I was trying to get an actual mortgage on a new place.
Which, with her looking after the children and school fees to consider, seemed fair. I went along with the deal, not realising that it would take me 12 years to pay the money back and get myself financially steady again.
Post-divorce dating?
It’s tempting to be in a hurry after a break-up – an unspoken race, Ex versus Ex, as to who can find the hottest new partner first. Once you have accepted the marriage is over, it might seem exciting to throw yourself headlong back into the pool, social-media profile blazing, showing the world that you still have ‘it’.
For men that might mean a performative interlude with someone young and unsuitable. This probably won’t last. Certainly, in the post-divorce period, the clock is ticking and you will feel the need to make up for lost years – but take it easy. Get it right this time.
Divorce makes you a better man
Learn from your mistakes. Become better than that last version of yourself – the one that your ex-wife wanted out of the house. A divorce coach once advised me to ‘listen to my conscience’ and ‘adopt a clear communication policy’ that would ‘respect my own needs’ on equal terms with the needs of any dates I might get and any subsequent relationships I might form.
Your kids will break your heart
My ex and I tried to be even more civilised when it came to parental ‘access’, agreeing on a non-legally binding 50/50 split. As teenagers, our daughters could decide for themselves, we figured, when, how and with whom they wanted to spend their time. But after factoring in the logistics of their busy school and social life, my work and, not least, my party-pooping bleakness, the parental split was roughly, heartbreakingly… 95/5.
Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Azhy Robertson in Marriage Story, Netflix’s weepy drama in which a lawyer says getting divorced when kids are involved, is ‘like a death without a body’
In my more reasonable moments, I understood and acknowledged this. Grudgingly, tearfully, I accepted that it was much more fun, more stable, comfortable and familiar for the girls to be at home with their mum than sharing the bed in my little flat, with me snoring on an inflatable mattress next to them.
As the divorce progressed, I grieved because I couldn’t be my children’s confidant or comfort; because I simply wasn’t there with them. I missed out on moments of crisis and joy. My help and advice, my love (and anger) were just not in the room any more.
In helpless, desperate increments, I became distant and peripheral, a father by appointment only. I was still the girls’ ‘parent’; just not their dad. When your kids begin to spend more time with their mother and her new partner, irrational emotions of injustice, envy and abandonment will gnaw away at you. You try to be an adult and a good dad and hope they will come back to you. (They will.)
Eventually, you’ll learn not to miss her
In Netflix’s weepy movie Marriage Story, Adam Driver’s avuncular lawyer warns his hapless client that, for a man, getting divorced when kids are involved, is ‘one of the hardest things to do…’ He cheerfully adds, ‘It’s like a death without a body.’
This may sound overly theatrical, but it is true (especially when your ex is Scarlett Johansson). Divorce is like a death with the added value of a very personal attack. You experience the emotional blowtorch of a bereavement, back-drafted by a devastating slight on your character. You are alone, unloved, beginning various stages of separation grief that will probably last for the rest of your life.
Yes, eventually you will learn not to miss her. You will move on and, if you are lucky, may find love again. But you will always miss… it.
