Dear Heartbroken Me, I Need You To Hear This.
Divorce does not mean you're unlovable.
Dear Me with a Broken Heart,
I know that you dreamed of a happy ending. I know that you fought like hell.
You gave 100% of your heart and soul, and in the end that wasn’t enough.
Turns out, no matter how hard you try, how deeply you love, or badly you want it to work—you will always be only one half of the equation.
100% of 50% is still only 50%.
Math sucks like that, sometimes.
You can’t force somebody to love you.
And even if you could force someone to love you, why the heck would you do that?
The people who are meant to love you in life would never require such convincing.
Divorce does not mean that you are unlovable.
It simply means HE doesn’t love you.
Because you ARE loved….
Just not by him.
And that doesn’t make you alone.
Hell, if that’s what it means to be alone, then you’ve been alone for a while, now. There’s nothing as lonely as being rejected inside your own marriage. You survived that. You’re going to survive this.
So what is it…really…that has you afraid?
The pain? That you might feel this way again?
That’s not it. That’s not what scares you.
It’s something deeper than that.
You’re afraid that the pieces of you that were soft and lovable are gone and irretrievably so.
You’re not afraid that love has gone, because you’ve lost that before.
You’re not afraid of being alone, because the truth is you never have been.
You’re afraid, not that he’s gone, or that we are gone…
But that you are.
And you have been for a while.
It breaks your heart to look back and realize how happy you were with so little. How you celebrated crumbs and called it a feast. How entirely satisfied you were with rejection.
That’s not his fault. That sits solely with you.
And that’s the most terrifying part. The realizing.
You were more than willing to burn yourself at the stake for a love that didn’t exist.
And that gets down to the heart of things, doesn’t it?
It explains why you feel so lost.
The most heartbreaking thing in all of this is NOT that he stopped loving me.
It’s that I did.
I stopped loving me.
And that’s what we have to heal first.
Oh mama, do I hear this. When my husband, love of my life, other half of my heart, started making good money, he was apparently entitled to have an affair with his secretary. We divorce, he marries her, they have a child, they divorce. He tries to come back to me, I’m too hurt, he eventually marries another woman.
But this one is lovely. He died in January 2022 and she and I have spoken a few times since then. When he was on his deathbed in hospital, our daughter brought me to see him and we kissed goodbye. He mumbled “Always … my heart”. His wife and our daughter were in the hallway. We all get together now for family dinners and enjoy each other’s company.
But during the many years after our divorce, I found solace in bottles. I had zero love for myself and barely managed to mother our daughters.
I’m currently celebrating almost 20 glorious months of sobriety and have rediscovered myself. A number of people have told me that I glow. Nice to hear, when it’s not because I’m flushed with alcohol.
No matter what happens, we’re still in there, in all our shining glory. And the world needs us, with all our remembered pain and hard-won wisdom. ONWARDS IN STRENGTH!
OK MK,
I'm going to give you some unsolicited advice, because as many here in the comments can claim - I've been there. The reason I'm serving up this bowl of advice, is no one ever tells the divorcee this, until they've made several missteps and gotten themselves in another mess or strayed off into self pity/world hating hell.
Since you're obviously an intelligent and savvy person, the concepts will be easy and obvious, but having them said by another, is key. It validates, what you already know and gives you agency to forge ahead, out of the grief and heal.
1) You've already figure this one out - applause to you - You are 50% of the equation. People don't like to hear this, because they themselves can't possibly be partly responsible for the pain they feel - it's has to be that SOB's or Bi*ch's fault, that my world came crashing down and was ruined. Sorry, but with VERY few exceptions and I mean VERY few, we bear 50% of the responsibility. I won't go into the details of how that equation breaks down - it's enough that you get it.
2) You must detox from this emotional and mental insult AND understand that when you do, there is no regaining the person you were, before the marriage. That person is gone and should be. That person made choices to enter and then stay in the situation, that has led you here. The person you will be after the detox is new, a clean slate, yes with scars of wisdom, but ready to meet the world unencumbered, by learned and adopted dysfunction. That last part is what most fail to achieve and so live cycles of misery.
Part of this detox is understanding that for the entirety of your marriage, your perspective was colored by filters, that became more dysfunctional as time went on. They could have been self delusion, anger, retaliation, self doubt, hatred, misery, avoidance, etc. You, by default of survival, came to view not just your relationship, but the world around you, through these filters - whether you know it or not. Like a dog that cowers at a raised hand, you learned to relate to the world based on these filters...and the distortion they impose.
A simple, easy, but abstract example of this is the porn addict, who see's the world through many sexualized filters. Anything and everything has a sexual connotation or potential to them. When the filters are removed, the world can be seen as it is, without the all encompassing sexualization. I've spoken to many men, who've done years of work to overcome their addiction (and it's filters) and they reported their view of the world and people around them drastically changed. They felt they were free to interact, without the hinderance of the addictive and destructive filtering.
If you've ever heard the phrase "the devil you know is better, than the devil you don't", then you've heard the reason many repeat bad relationships and find themselves in the same situations, with the same types of partners and fighting the same fight...over and over again.
We are comfortable in the chaos we know, even if we hate it. Humans always return to what is comfortable and known, and so the cycle repeats.
If you can learn to see the world, unencumbered by the familiar and safe, but destructive filters, then you're on your way to the new you.
3) You cannot do this work, while in a relationship. I know there are many who'll disagree and that's fine, there's more than one way to skin a cat. However, the work you need to do, requires your attention and efforts to be focused on YOU. Unsurprisingly, when we are in relationships or even friendships (with someone who could be a potential interests) we tend to focus on the other person and the new connection, rather than do the hard work and focus on ourselves - as you well know, it's called avoidance.
Thus, the critical work is set aside for an outing or event, it's de-railed by focusing on the other persons problems. Or in the worst cases, in our want for soothing and affection (we all want that - especially when hurt) we fall into an unwise romantic connection, we take ourselves back to square one and have to start all over again, when this new connection starts to disintegrate.
So take the time to be alone, sit with the sadness, loneliness and loss. Grieve the death of the former you, the promising partner you thought you had, the life you imagined, the time and effort lost, but do it alone - emotionally.
For all these reasons, it goes without saying - AVOID REBOUND/HOOK UP RELATIONSHIPS.
4) Now that you are "cleansed and detoxed" figure out who you are...it's a new you. Many find they are lost, at this point. When they married, they stopped being the developing, evolving singular person and became that ever coveted (my sarcasm) half of a whole. When kids hit the scene they became something different again. Their aspirations, wants, needs and desires, no longer were those of the pre-married person, but that of the other half or parent.
The individual you are today, is none of those things and is not the pre-married person either. This is a new you and MUST be defined BY YOU, otherwise you will look for that definition, meaning, purpose and importance in someone else, on their terms and with their dysfunctions and the cycle begins again.
5) Once you know who you now are, what you want for yourself, your future and most importantly you've healed the wounds from the last relationship, you can start looking again.
Now, by this time, you should have figured out all those red flags you missed from the last relationship - not just in the other person, but in yourself, as well. There were multitudes of them, that you intentionally or unintentionally ignored. You have to figure those out and the reasons behind why you missed them, before you try and navigate those relationship waters, again.
Doing so will help you set boundaries and bottom lines, both for yourself and for those who you interact with. Without those, it will be difficult to chose/find a partner that compliments you, verses completes you.
Please, for your sake and that of a potential "good fit", please be as close to completed (emotionally) as possible, before getting into another relationship. Many problems arise (as you well know) when we look to others to complete us...they can't and should not. It is our responsibility alone, to make ourselves happy, fulfilled, strong, wise and content. We do a disservice to others, when we make THEM, responsible for those things, in us.
6) Trust your gut and communicate.
You know what you know, so listen when you speak internally. Recognize the red flags when they wave, but avoid trying to see them, when they aren't there. Like wise, listen to what the other person is saying. people will often tell you what they are thinking or what they believe. The guy that says "I don't deserve you" probably does not. The woman that says "you're too good for me" is probably giving you a warning. Of course that's not the case always, but more times than not, it is.
Ok, that's it. By no means is that a complete or all encompassing litany, but it is the bones of what I've offered others, in your situation.
You have my empathy, for the time you are in now, but know that, it will pass and the life that awaits you on the other side of this dark journey, is amazing, if you only choose to do the work.
Best wishes and prayers for peace and strength.
CTD