Lessons In Being Single After Divorce

Lessons In Being Single After Divorce

There are silver linings in every cloud

(I wrote the following blog two months after my Ex-husband left me for one of my best friends. While my life looks amazingly different nearly four years later, I hope many of you can relate, or perhaps find comfort in this article.)

It’s been almost two months since I’ve become single; although, technically I’m not single. Legally, I’m still married. Emotionally, physically and in every other way, I’m divorced. The day my ex left was the day my marriage ended.

I never had the opportunity to actually be single before. I met my ex in high school when I was 15. Aside from a 12 month break up, we had been together until I was 35.

Since becoming single, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned so many life lessons, that I feel like I’ve lived two years, and not two months.

Time has crawled by with its daily pokes and prods, loneliness, fear, anger, resentment, and yes, even joys.

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn when I became single was the fact that the people I trusted with my secrets, hopes, and dreams would use them against me. Those I thought were my true friends betrayed me and somehow have justified it to themselves, and to God, in order to follow their own selfish desires, instead of what is right.

I have always known that the average person was judgmental. I have learned since becoming single that some of the most judgmental people I know are my married friends and family. I guess I can understand this; they don’t know this loneliness, or have forgotten what it feels like. It’s easy to judge  a woman, your friend, your sister, the simple consolation of finding oneself in the arms of a stranger, when you yourself lay next to your spouse every night. I know I used to; now I just long for the warmth of someone to help pass the empty stretches of aloneness that now fill my life.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned is that God doesn’t always answer prayers. People might argue and say He answers them, it’s just that answer is no. But sometimes I think God is just too busy, and he knows my fears and worries should be handled by me. I’ve learned that sometimes God is just too swamped to listen, and sometimes I’m just so beaten down by life that I don’t have the energy to talk to Him about it.

I have learned that I am a passionate person. I fall easy and hard; therefore, I have to guard my heart well. Except that I love with my whole being, whether I love emotionally or physically. A passionate heart is not a guarded heart; it is a heart that is broken without difficulty, and often.

I’ve learned I will have my heart broken frequently.

Being single has taught me how to hate in a new way. It has created a sense of territory that would make a feral dog’s hair stand up. What’s mine is mine; take it and look out. I have to fight now for everything now: my children, money, love, respect…and I will fight for these things because they are rightfully mine. I have earned them.

Having the person who you thought loved you most in the world walk out on you, teaches you a new level of compassion. You are faced sometimes, because of mistakes you’ve made, with decisions you never thought you would face. This brings a new perspective to the world around you. This fresh outlook shows you a brand new world, one that you by no means thought you’d live in, but one you are suddenly standing in the middle of.

I know now just how much I hate to be lied to. I’m a big girl, and I can take the truth. I’d rather have the pain of the truth, than the pain of the lie, which will be found out eventually. So don’t lie to me. It does us both a great disservice.

I have learned that being a single parent is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I have a whole new respect for those who have been doing it for years. The fear, frustration, and love that one puts into being a single parent are astronomical in size.

That’s another issue I’m learning about now that I’m single. Commitment. Guys are still just as afraid of that as they were when I was only 19. And to be a divorced woman with two kids…those two simple facts can send a poor guy running so fast it’s almost comical. If it weren’t so sad, that is. It’s the rare guy that can swallow the fear that has risen to his throat and stick around for a second date when he finds out the woman he is sitting across from is a divorced mother. It’s hilarious, really.

I’ve learned there are silver linings in every cloud: Like the fifteen pounds I’ve lost, sleeping in the middle of the bed, having free weekends to relax, or party, whichever I choose, not having to stress about someone else’s happiness, not having to wonder or question if I’m good enough – and being reminded ,that no, I am not, and to not worry about how someone else is “feeling” all the time. Those things are blessings.

I’m not done learning lessons, of that I’m sure. I’m still terrified to the degree it is almost paralyzing. Every day, though, I wake up, and I get myself out of bed for another day of uncertainty. People say, “Everything will be fine.” What they don’t say is that somehow I have to make it fine. I have to find the will to find the way to make my life work out in a manner I never planned. I can’t predict the future.

Before my ex left me, I lived for the next day. I couldn’t live in the present; maybe I was too unhappy in my life that I wanted something better. Uncertain of what the future holds, I don’t live in it the way I used to. The present is where my mind frame is at. I’ve learned something very valuable about myself these past two months: I’m content to be, just be, in the present.