The Glade 4.0

Well its official. I've been divorced for 1 year. Not really sad about that fact, other than it makes today a day for introspection.

I miss having someone in the house in the evenings. I miss having someone by my side. Being without my daughter for the summer makes it a little more real. Some days I still expect to have a conversation with her. I'm certainly not in love with her still. We had a very long goodbye---months, years really. I still miss some things about her. I suppose I always will. She's not the one I love and miss sharply. But the dull ache is there.

Do the ones we have loved ever fully leave our heart, no matter their past misdeeds, no matter how they hurt us, and the bad blood gone between?

I don't rightly know. I suspect the answer is no.


Most days I don't really think about her anymore, though perhaps in passing as I think about my daughter. On one hand I feel like I should be celebrating. I'm out of a dysfunctional marriage. I'm free of the various abuses heaped upon me. In the interim I've fallen in love, had my heart broken, felt joys, sorrows, pain, and transformation. I've grown as a person. None of that would have been possible in the world I was in. So I suppose in some respects I should be grateful.

And yet today, that dull ache flares up and makes itself known. I don't really miss who I was married to, but I do miss being married. At least in theory, it was comforting to have someone to provide for, who had my back, who had a set of common interests in our joint lives--be it house, or child, or car or just what to make for dinner.


I do feel like I should mark the day some how.

The anniversaries of painful events usually hurt. It fades with time.

Find something to do other than be alone and dwell on it. Being out in the world, even if its only a stupid silly movie and a tub of popcorn, well it helps.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Write her a letter but don't send it. Put down everything that has happened to you in the past year, every feeling she has caused you to experience whether positive or negative.

Then write your daughter a letter and do send that one.

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I left my ex in November of '98 and the divorce was final Valentines '01. I still get a little melancholy on our important dates, even though Eric was an *** and I wouldn't trade Shel for the world. I even wonder if the issues that took our marriage down could have been fixed, and I remember a lot of good times. I'm stuck between the feeling that it may not have been as bad as I thought at the time and the realization that I should never have tolerated that **** for a second. It was like the frog in the pot, you know?

So... happy un-niversary. Have a drink or a piece of cake and celebrate a milestone in your life. Remember what you liked about marriage and what you didn't like about the person you were married to. Think about what you've learned. Wish her well. Move on.

My X, who took me back to court several times to increase child support and tried to reduce my visitation several times since our divorce, died late last year at the age of 47 from lung cancer, never having smoked a day in her life. It was a painful and horrible way to die.

She spent YEARS trying to interfere with my relationship with my kids, refusing to let them go with me on my visitation weekends, etc, just hateful things that, in the end, just strengthened my resolve to continue seeing my kids every chance I got. In the 15 years after my divorce I never missed a support payment and missed only a handful of visits the few times when was too ill to have them visit. I never spoke ill of her to my kids and never complained about support payments, and when they brought it up told them that they were worth every dime of the $1000 a month I paid.

After the child support requirement ended several years ago and my kids were on their own, the issues between us evaporated and she took to calling me and asking for parenting tips. I was polite and never acted disagreeable, but I hated talking to her... but did so because my kids loved their mother and anything I did to her would be the same thing as doing it to my kids.

I honestly believe that my kids are better off without her. If I remembered the date of my divorce I'd celebrate by flushing a second time, or something similarly significant. If I were capable of hatred, she'd have been the only person I know that I'd have hated.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I think Divorce is one of those things in life where its very rarely 100% all bad. I think it's healthy to remember some good things along with the negative as long as one is realistic about the ultimate outcome.
Sounds like a healthy attitude to me, Riov and your emotions sound pretty normal I would bet.
You could start an annual tradition...I dunno what that might be, but I'm sure you'll think of something. Maybe go to a sports bar with a buddy and have a beer and shoot some pool or something?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I get where you're coming from. The evenings without my daughter, when it's just me and the pets, are very lonely.

I'm more sad because of the time wasted on that marriage. There were so many times he could have ended it, before we had a child and a house, and a decent amount of assets to fight over. (Not that I'd give up my daughter for the world! She's the only good that came out of that relationship.) We could have moved on when we were both still young.

Of course, I've got a damn good man now. So maybe things worked out the way they needed to. After the divorce, I can actually appreciate a good relationship.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?