FEB 2025 - After Divorce

After living in a community for years, where my husband and I spent many evenings attending and hosting dinners and celebrations, I finally persuaded him to agree to a divorce. It took a few months before he left, but during that time we continued to be invited to various gatherings, still perceived as a couple. We chose not to talk about our impending separation. 

Once everyone in the community knew I was divorced, husbands started coming over, offering to help fix this or attend to that—always accompanied by hugs. I didn’t respond or accept offers of various kinds of help although the continued pressure from some husbands was unnerving. The ease/entitlement with which they approached me was shocking. Although I tried not to show it, I couldn’t look at the wives without thinking about their husbands’ unwanted attention.

Although I invited couples for dinner, invitations were mostly refused. I realized that since the divorce, no one was asking me to come for dinner or attend activities as they had when I had a husband. Suddenly I was perceived as a threat to peoples’ marriages even though I had no interest in anyone’s husband, much less breaking up a marriage. It was a hard, lonely time. 

I took to inviting my son’s friends for special activities like baking cookies, making puppets and creating a puppet show. Occasionally they stayed for dinner. He was welcomed at the Sunday pickup softball games and continued to be invited to his friends’ houses even though their parents didn’t invite me.

Now, not only was I divorced and a single mother, I was an outcast, in exile from a community to which I had once belonged, for no reason other than I was no longer part of a couple. I focused on work and writing and directing a play as part of finishing an MA in theatre, but nothing eased the anger I felt toward people I thought were my friends.

When I started dating a much younger man, so-called friends voiced their disapproval. As time went by, and we continued to be together, obviously a couple, their negative comments eased, but there were no invitations. He suggested we invite people for dinner to celebrate New Year’s Eve. I resisted. He insisted. I gave in. Much to my surprise, most of the people we invited said they’d come.  

The afternoon of the dinner I had a migraine—as bad as the worst I’d had. He said it was in my head. Of course it was in my head. Where else would it be?  I took twice the recommended dosage of ibuprofen and lay down, covering my forehead and neck with ice-wrapped cloths. As I lay on my bed, I thought about how my social life depended on being part of a couple. I could feel my anger rising. I wished we weren’t hosting people who so recently scorned me. Not a good way to ease a migraine. I remembered all the times I’d felt like an outsider, not good enough. I was tired of trying to please others by being who I wasn’t. I did what I could to let go of my expectations, my anger, feeling bad about myself. 

Miraculously, the migraine, which sometimes lasted hours or days, eased. I was able to do the necessary food preparations as my “other half” arranged the dining room and set the table. When our guests arrived, we welcomed them—him with a genuine smile. Me with a smile that did not quite reach my eyes.

The evening was a success: people seemed to have a good time—chatting, laughing, enjoying the food. Some days later we were invited to dinner. Gradually the invitations came as they had before my divorce. We went, but I knew if I were once again single, the invitations would cease. 

What is your experience being part of a community?

---

FEBRUARY 2025 MONTHLY STORIES