What About The Little Things?

Jennifer Bailey — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:00:00 -0500

Many of us are very familiar with the questions and decisions that lead us to divorce. We consider all the major things like finances, custody, living arrangements, etc. But what about the little things?

Reading through the stories our bloggers have been kind enough to share, I've begun to recognize a common theme. It seems what most people mourn about their divorce are often not the big issues. After all, these are the reasons people divorce in the first place. It seems, rather, that the little things like falling asleep next to someone or having someone around to fix the car are the things people often miss most. In Scott's case, it was getting his hair cut.

Scott Smallwood wrote a piece about the aftermath of his divorce for the NY Times which got me thinking on this topic. He and his wife divorced after they'd both given up their church, a force that had been prevalent in their lives for 30 years. They didn't know how to deal with everyday issues when this framework had been removed, and didn't know to reconcile their new lives within the framework. And Scott had to find someone else to cut his hair.

It seems his wife had always been the one to do that for him, and it was a ritual he recalls with fondness. After going to the barber for the first time in 13 years, he began to reflect on why people get divorced. In what I consider to be a very profound moment, he speaks about how he and his wife viewed their relationship. "I saw our struggles as momentary dips on a long-term trend line that was climbing steadily upward toward an easy, comfortable, lifelong partnership. She saw those same good times as aberrations, brief rises on an otherwise falling line."

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What About The Little Things?