Wedding Bell Blues

Royal Wedding tea bags

The first few years after my divorce I could not attend a wedding without crying and feeling cynical at the same time. There I was, in my early fifties, after the dissolution of a 26-year marriage and 32-year friendship, watching a young couple pledging "'Till death do us part." Hah! I would think. Wait until reality sets in.

People with worse marriages than mine were still married. At the time he left, my husband was looking for something new and different. His sister had just married her third husband, and his brother his third wife. I was married for life, but he was looking for ways to extend the excitement in our marriage. He wanted to re-experience the fresh, tender feelings that his siblings and their new spouses were exhibiting. At first he lost weight, bought a motorcycle, purchased a van for his bikes and drove it cross country, took a sabbatical in New Zealand, etc. But nothing would stop the progress of his aging, including his graying wife.And so he started to look at me with jaundiced eyes, until nothing I did was right.

With that experience in mind, I would watch a marriage ceremony with a cynicism that, had the young couple known of my doubts, they would never have invited me.

Time has a strange way of healing. The process is slow and uneven. Although this vestige of bitterness stayed with me for a long time, I knew I had changed when I became caught up in the Wills and Kate Royal Wedding hoopla. I won't be watching the ceremony live, for I will be working. But my cynicism has largely gone. I hope this young couple will find a lifetime of wedded bliss in their gilded fish bowl. Heaven only knows how, but QE2 and Prince Phillip managed to do so.

Divorce Talk With Men of My Acquaintance, Part One

I encountered two men in their late thirties this week, my insurance agent and a former coworker. Both are going through a divorce. Being men, they said little, keeping a stiff upper lip. Still, I commiserated with them, telling them I understood they were not going through an easy time. Hearing my sympathetic comment, my insurance agent opened up. He'd been married 10 years and had two children. He would have tried to make things work, he said, but his wife was done. She didn't want to continue the marriage. He shared joint custody of the kids and he lived for them. At this stage of his separation, all he could think of was them.

My former coworker had been married for only two years. I could tell from his demeanor that he was the one who left. He was embarrassed about his public failure and hadn't told many people. Despite his decision to leave, I imagine it was still a difficult one. Breaking up is never easy, especially after one has declared to the world, "'Till death us do part."

This news about my former coworker resulted in a conversation with my boss, a man who has been divorced for over 35 years. His one and only marriage lasted only a few months. "Unlike other peoples' responses," he said, "I congratulated him and told him I thought he was brave for leaving an impossible situation and for not attempting to fix something that couldn't be fixed."

Good point, I reluctantly thought, recalling all the pain I felt when my husband told me he was leaving. Then my boss continued, saying how he couldn't understand how marriage truly worked. How anyone could worry about another human's welfare in addition to their own. (Obviously he doesn't have children.) It was tough enough, he said, worrying about losing your own job or being able to pay taxes. Having to worry about a spouse as well doubled the pressure. He had no idea why anyone would want to put their faith and trust in another, open a joint checking account, or purchase joint property, etc. He loved living on his own.

"Living the selfish life," I added, "Doing what I want, when I want, and how I want it."

"Precisely," he said, perking up. "It's very satisfying." He then went on to say how it always irked him that society celebrated successful couples. "How about the single individual successfully living alone? Why aren't they rewarded with praise?"

Indeed, why not? I thought, knowing my boss shirked all parties and get-togethers, and spent most of his free time watching baseball with his two dogs and cats. I have no pat answers to this strange discussion. I was simply happy to get as much from this man as I did. In fact, from now on, quite a few of my posts will center around other middle-aged people's thoughts about divorce, marriage, and the single life. So stay tuned. Meanwhile, here are two links for a man going through divorce. No matter what sex you are, the process is tough.

• Divorce: A Man's Survival Guide

• Here's an old interview by Bill Ritter, but current in thought and feeling. Men After Divorce/Walkaway Wives

Part II of this post will describe a conversation with another divorced man. Like Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady, he needs no women to make him happy.

Post Divorce Romance Cynic

Before my divorce I read romance novels. I even wrote a few and had signed a contract with a New York agent. She peddled my manuscript to editors who said sweetly that for a first effort the novel was fine, but that I should keep trying. As I completed proofreading my second book my husband left. He said he didn't want me to blame him for not finishing the edits, so he thought he'd wait and drop the D-bomb after I was done.

Wasn't that sweet of him?

That was the end of my budding career as a romance novelist. Back in those days I read a ton of romance novels, and I still have about 200-300 to dispose of. A girlfriend of mine is reading them as fast as she can, and each time she finishes a batch, I dump another couple of grocery bags filled with bodice rippers and chick lit at her doorstep.

I cannot stomach reading them any more. In fact, when I attended a wedding shortly after my divorce, it took all my willpower not to snort out loud and say, "Huh! How long will this marriage last?"
Why have I become so cynical? Because even though I believed in love ever after and in romance; even though my husband plied me with gifts and frequent romantic surprises; and even though we would walk in public holding hands, and sit on the couch in our den and smooch, and talk and laugh every time we went out to dinner, rarely getting bored of each others' thoughts, ideas, and conversation, my so called prince left.

As he dragged half of the furniture out of our house, he told me he would miss our conversations and cozy trips together, "But not much else, Vic."

That's when I turned from a hopeless romantic into a world class cynic. I did not smooch with my new beau. I didn't attempt to hold hands with hot date #3. And I no longer give surprise gifts or believe in any of the trappings of romance. I'm ready for a grown up relationship now - one of mutual respect, deep and loyal love, and promises that will be kept. I know I possess those qualities in spades, but the question is: "Will I ever trust a man enough to find out if he does?"

See more Ann Telnaes cartoons here.

Well, the situation could have been worse. We could have been living in the limbo of non divorce, and then I would have had to put up with his non interest.
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