After reading your newsletter before this post, I had a sneaking suspicion you were divorcing - you'd dropped a hint somewhere in it - and I'm sorry to say my suspicion was correct. Nevertheless, I'll reiterate the best response I received when I broke the news 11 years ago that I was divorcing after 25 years of marriage, "Congratulations, and my condolences," because both are appropriate. The grief of loss as well as the newfound freedom of rebirth are equally real.
Never did I want to be divorced - until after "trying everything" (counseling, bad reruns of the same dysfunctional dynamic with no change, sticking it out, etc.) I realized divorce was preferable to a future of the same empty shell of a relationship I was living in. As dreaded a process as I'd known divorce would be with property and child, plus being the first in my family, and as difficult as it did actually turn out to be, the pain of staying the same was far greater than the pain and fear of change.
So I, too, was one of the 70% of women who filed, and when I did in 2015, it was as if there were an epidemic of late-40-something women divorcing along with me. Yes, marital breaking points correlate greatly with particular life stages and ages (you're at the first inflection point; I was at the second). The fact that my ex would've somehow been able to tolerate a marriage on life support without pulling the plug just underscored what a walking cliché he was. I quickly learned that too many men enjoy enough upside to staying married that they will never be the ones to walk away. They just cheat, retreat, or check out instead of doing the honorable thing. They leave it to us women (who were probably the only ones ever really maintaining the relationship in the first place) to clean up the mess. It pisses me off to no end, and they're fucking cowards for emotionally lying to themselves and us.
So I jumped ship and embarked on a decade of adult freedom, growth, self-discovery, and romantic/sexual exploration that I will forever cherish. I got to live experiences most women (especially over 50) only fantasize about. I learned more about myself, family dynamics, attachment style, and relationship patterns than I could have possibly imagined. That chapter of my life was much needed and, frankly, priceless.
You're a lot younger than I was when I divorced, but make no mistake - it's a major identity shift at any age. With that comes crisis, but I say, even more so comes opportunity - the opportunity to get to know who you are and want to be. You have a lot more runway left than I did when my marriage expired. True, adult dating is its own adventure, but it's also one of the best relationship learning labs we have, not least of all for learning how to be in a healthy relationship with oneself. (BTW if you've never read the book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller bump it up to the top of your list).
Now at 60 I'm in my first long-term relationship since divorcing, and I can't conceive of ever legally marrying again. Because as great as a healthy partnership is, I don't think it needs marriage to become fully realized. And for me now, the juice of marriage isn't worth the squeeze. The upside isn't worth the price of the potential downside: divorce. I lived the idealized life, and the reality rarely lived up to the idealization. (Does it ever?) So go forth, and enjoy your hot divorcee summer to the max!!! I look forward to hearing about your adventures and fondly remembering my own (hee hee). Besides, just imagining all the amazing romance, love, sex, and relationship adventures ahead of you must get your creative juices flowing with ideas for many more books to come. Big hugs xoxo
Omigosh, thank you, Karen, for such a thoughtful reply! I was nodding along the whole way through. I'm very grateful for the older women in my life and for learning from their experiences. It's so reassuring to know I'm not alone and that I have a fabulous life ahead of me.
I'll definitely check out your book recommendation, since my next post will feature the ones that helped me through this process :)
I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of that 70% of women filing for divorce are ALSO devastated and blindsided by their partners' failure to honor their marriage commitments but are the ones filing because their male partners are just fine with the status quo benefiting them. Either way, you are so, so very not alone in this.
I also got divorced after ten years together, six of them married. It was awful. I literally felt like the ground had been ripped out from under me, for a month or so. It was a brutal divorce with the usual betrayals: lying, cheating, taking the vast majority of the money away from me. It really, really sucked. The last few months before he asked for the divorce, I felt so bewildered by the fact that I had such severe depression and loneliness...that made perfect sense once I realized he'd been cheating. He kept the apartment and the cats. And I had to narrate romance the entire time! So I deeply understand what you're going through.
The heartache will fade over time, but the grief is very real. Losing the future you thought you had, losing the partner you thought you had, losing the identity you thought you had, feels impossibly painful. But you are not alone, either. There are so, so many of us, either alongside you or waiting for you up ahead on the path. 🫂🫂🫂
I wish you a peaceful finish to your divorce and a glorious horizon of discovering your new life, dear Alyssa. ❤️❤️❤️
Wow, our stories are eerily similar! Thanks for sharing yours. I completely agree that many women who file are simply doing the paperwork their husbands refuse to do.
The first six months were rough, but I'm feeling much more stable now. I'm glad to hear there are better things ahead!
Thanks so much for your support, Emily. The bookish community is the best!
Thank you for this thoughtful post. Your words show what an honest and insightful writer you are.
I will also add this: Love comes (and can be expressed) in many forms. A full, complete life doesn’t have to look a certain way. There is no relationship police. That’s just society talking and women internalizing their misguided message.
As women, we are conditioned to be thankful to have been chosen— as if any other outcome is a failure. It is not. Possibly the greatest love stories involve women valuing themselves. That means respecting their own needs and not losing their sense of value. Once this happens, our hearts are overflow and we can channel great love and energy toward everyone!
(Yeah. A Pollyanna approach, maybe. But I do speak from experience. 😉)
As a 48 year old who went through the same thing, I know it’s hard. I feel your pain. I was married for 21 years but together a total of 28. I also thought I found my forever person. I still have my sad moments. It sometimes comes when I’m reading romance books. But I am out there trying to have the dating time of my life that I didn’t have when I was young. I fully support you and I hope we both get whatever HEA we deserve. Love to you!!!
Being forced off the life path you thought you were on can be completely destabilizing. But I love how clearly you name the freedom that can appear once you stop trying to earn back what someone else has already chosen to leave.
Alyssa, thank you for sharing this post with us! I've never been divorced, never even been married, so I can't entirely understand what you're going through, but could empathize in *some* ways with what you shared. It was refreshing to read something so vulnerable and hopeful in the face of all you've lost. I'm rooting for you girl. Go be a whimsical bitch 😘
Thank you! It's a good reminder that everybody is going through some kind of struggle, and it's much easier when you know you're not alone. Really appreciate the support!
Love, love, love this post. Not the bad news about a lost relationship, but all the good news and HOPE it gives. Have you ever read anything by Joe Clifford? JUNKIE LOVE, LAMENTATION, ALL WHO WANDER and more. You two should talk.
Alyssa my jaw dropped when I read the title of this post! I’m so sorry you’re navigating this painful season of life. Romance novels absolutely keep the hope alive. I’m struggling to keep that hope myself after recently going through a breakup. But I know the hope will bloom again in time. I know this is a mourning period but I hope this next chapter of life is full of new, fun, plot-filled adventures for you.
Thanks, Natalie! I definitely had a mourning period, but I'm in a really good place now. Keep holding on to that hope, and feel free to reach out whenever you need support!
This is not easy to share! Thank you for sharing and inspiring the others out there who might be going through something similar and are not able to talk about it out loud!
Divorce was hard when I went through it at 32 but my life has been exponentially more rich and fuller since with new community of friends, personal growth and learning what works and doesnt work for me with dating. I’m so excited for you as you close the chapter on your marriage and start a new chapter.
After reading your newsletter before this post, I had a sneaking suspicion you were divorcing - you'd dropped a hint somewhere in it - and I'm sorry to say my suspicion was correct. Nevertheless, I'll reiterate the best response I received when I broke the news 11 years ago that I was divorcing after 25 years of marriage, "Congratulations, and my condolences," because both are appropriate. The grief of loss as well as the newfound freedom of rebirth are equally real.
Never did I want to be divorced - until after "trying everything" (counseling, bad reruns of the same dysfunctional dynamic with no change, sticking it out, etc.) I realized divorce was preferable to a future of the same empty shell of a relationship I was living in. As dreaded a process as I'd known divorce would be with property and child, plus being the first in my family, and as difficult as it did actually turn out to be, the pain of staying the same was far greater than the pain and fear of change.
So I, too, was one of the 70% of women who filed, and when I did in 2015, it was as if there were an epidemic of late-40-something women divorcing along with me. Yes, marital breaking points correlate greatly with particular life stages and ages (you're at the first inflection point; I was at the second). The fact that my ex would've somehow been able to tolerate a marriage on life support without pulling the plug just underscored what a walking cliché he was. I quickly learned that too many men enjoy enough upside to staying married that they will never be the ones to walk away. They just cheat, retreat, or check out instead of doing the honorable thing. They leave it to us women (who were probably the only ones ever really maintaining the relationship in the first place) to clean up the mess. It pisses me off to no end, and they're fucking cowards for emotionally lying to themselves and us.
So I jumped ship and embarked on a decade of adult freedom, growth, self-discovery, and romantic/sexual exploration that I will forever cherish. I got to live experiences most women (especially over 50) only fantasize about. I learned more about myself, family dynamics, attachment style, and relationship patterns than I could have possibly imagined. That chapter of my life was much needed and, frankly, priceless.
You're a lot younger than I was when I divorced, but make no mistake - it's a major identity shift at any age. With that comes crisis, but I say, even more so comes opportunity - the opportunity to get to know who you are and want to be. You have a lot more runway left than I did when my marriage expired. True, adult dating is its own adventure, but it's also one of the best relationship learning labs we have, not least of all for learning how to be in a healthy relationship with oneself. (BTW if you've never read the book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller bump it up to the top of your list).
Now at 60 I'm in my first long-term relationship since divorcing, and I can't conceive of ever legally marrying again. Because as great as a healthy partnership is, I don't think it needs marriage to become fully realized. And for me now, the juice of marriage isn't worth the squeeze. The upside isn't worth the price of the potential downside: divorce. I lived the idealized life, and the reality rarely lived up to the idealization. (Does it ever?) So go forth, and enjoy your hot divorcee summer to the max!!! I look forward to hearing about your adventures and fondly remembering my own (hee hee). Besides, just imagining all the amazing romance, love, sex, and relationship adventures ahead of you must get your creative juices flowing with ideas for many more books to come. Big hugs xoxo
Omigosh, thank you, Karen, for such a thoughtful reply! I was nodding along the whole way through. I'm very grateful for the older women in my life and for learning from their experiences. It's so reassuring to know I'm not alone and that I have a fabulous life ahead of me.
I'll definitely check out your book recommendation, since my next post will feature the ones that helped me through this process :)
I promise you won't be disappointed; it's a game changer.
I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of that 70% of women filing for divorce are ALSO devastated and blindsided by their partners' failure to honor their marriage commitments but are the ones filing because their male partners are just fine with the status quo benefiting them. Either way, you are so, so very not alone in this.
I also got divorced after ten years together, six of them married. It was awful. I literally felt like the ground had been ripped out from under me, for a month or so. It was a brutal divorce with the usual betrayals: lying, cheating, taking the vast majority of the money away from me. It really, really sucked. The last few months before he asked for the divorce, I felt so bewildered by the fact that I had such severe depression and loneliness...that made perfect sense once I realized he'd been cheating. He kept the apartment and the cats. And I had to narrate romance the entire time! So I deeply understand what you're going through.
The heartache will fade over time, but the grief is very real. Losing the future you thought you had, losing the partner you thought you had, losing the identity you thought you had, feels impossibly painful. But you are not alone, either. There are so, so many of us, either alongside you or waiting for you up ahead on the path. 🫂🫂🫂
I wish you a peaceful finish to your divorce and a glorious horizon of discovering your new life, dear Alyssa. ❤️❤️❤️
Wow, our stories are eerily similar! Thanks for sharing yours. I completely agree that many women who file are simply doing the paperwork their husbands refuse to do.
The first six months were rough, but I'm feeling much more stable now. I'm glad to hear there are better things ahead!
Thanks so much for your support, Emily. The bookish community is the best!
Hugs for you, Alyssa!
You are brave and beautiful and you're going to find yourself exactly where you're meant to be.
I'm in the 70% and yet my divorce was like a death. It is never easy. Dating for plot and character development sounds so healthy. Good luck!
Thanks, Heather! There's always grief involved, but I'm glad to have so much support. I'd like to think I'm part of a very chic club now :)
Thank you for this thoughtful post. Your words show what an honest and insightful writer you are.
I will also add this: Love comes (and can be expressed) in many forms. A full, complete life doesn’t have to look a certain way. There is no relationship police. That’s just society talking and women internalizing their misguided message.
As women, we are conditioned to be thankful to have been chosen— as if any other outcome is a failure. It is not. Possibly the greatest love stories involve women valuing themselves. That means respecting their own needs and not losing their sense of value. Once this happens, our hearts are overflow and we can channel great love and energy toward everyone!
(Yeah. A Pollyanna approach, maybe. But I do speak from experience. 😉)
Good luck on your next chapter!
There's no relationship police, I like that! Very true. Thanks for the kind comment!
As a 48 year old who went through the same thing, I know it’s hard. I feel your pain. I was married for 21 years but together a total of 28. I also thought I found my forever person. I still have my sad moments. It sometimes comes when I’m reading romance books. But I am out there trying to have the dating time of my life that I didn’t have when I was young. I fully support you and I hope we both get whatever HEA we deserve. Love to you!!!
Right back at ya! Love can come at any age, so I'm wishing you all the sexy fun you desire. We're in this together!
Being forced off the life path you thought you were on can be completely destabilizing. But I love how clearly you name the freedom that can appear once you stop trying to earn back what someone else has already chosen to leave.
Exactly! What a level of peace when I stopped jumping through hoops and started living for myself.
Here for you, Alyssa. Thanks for sharing this important piece of your life story with us. And also, cheers to hot divorcée summer!! That photo is 🔥🔥🔥
Thanks, Taleen, for being with me on this journey!! I'm glad to have you as a friend :)
This is a terrific post. Thanks for sharing and being so honest. I can't wait to see what your new adventures inspire.
And all the new books I'm now motivated to write! ;) thanks, Sarena!
When life gives you lemons, write a book. Lord knows I've written some "fiction." Big hugs to you.
Alyssa, thank you for sharing this post with us! I've never been divorced, never even been married, so I can't entirely understand what you're going through, but could empathize in *some* ways with what you shared. It was refreshing to read something so vulnerable and hopeful in the face of all you've lost. I'm rooting for you girl. Go be a whimsical bitch 😘
Thank you! It's a good reminder that everybody is going through some kind of struggle, and it's much easier when you know you're not alone. Really appreciate the support!
Love, love, love this post. Not the bad news about a lost relationship, but all the good news and HOPE it gives. Have you ever read anything by Joe Clifford? JUNKIE LOVE, LAMENTATION, ALL WHO WANDER and more. You two should talk.
Thanks, Luanne! I have not, but thanks for the recommendation :)
Alyssa my jaw dropped when I read the title of this post! I’m so sorry you’re navigating this painful season of life. Romance novels absolutely keep the hope alive. I’m struggling to keep that hope myself after recently going through a breakup. But I know the hope will bloom again in time. I know this is a mourning period but I hope this next chapter of life is full of new, fun, plot-filled adventures for you.
Thanks, Natalie! I definitely had a mourning period, but I'm in a really good place now. Keep holding on to that hope, and feel free to reach out whenever you need support!
Alyssa!! Message me your address. I have something I’d like to send you ❤️
This is not easy to share! Thank you for sharing and inspiring the others out there who might be going through something similar and are not able to talk about it out loud!
It is super scary to put yourself out there, but if my post can help others, then it's worth it ❤️
Cheering you on in your hot divorcée summer! “Romance novels are hope” got me 🥹 After reading this I have a feeling you’ve so totally got this ❤️
That means a lot to me, thank you! I finally feel like I got this too :)
Divorce was hard when I went through it at 32 but my life has been exponentially more rich and fuller since with new community of friends, personal growth and learning what works and doesnt work for me with dating. I’m so excited for you as you close the chapter on your marriage and start a new chapter.
Here's to your hot divorce summer! I'm so excited to see what this next chapter brings AND to read whatever you write next.