I am so glad I found this

Guest — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:37:41 -0400

I am so glad I found this article!! I am "separated" from my husband, for almost a year now. Separated doesn't exactly fit, because we still share the house, as "roommates" and for 5 mnths after 'spilling the beans' about his need for divorce, he continued to stay in touch/see the 'other woman' while still living w/me. And people, well, just him mainly, were making me feel like I ought to have shaken this off and moved on by now. But how can one 'move on' when you are still there?! Honestly, I don't know how people do it! If one of us left, they'd have to pay the bills on their new place, PLUS 1/2 the bills at the old 'homestead' until the divorce was finalized, a long time off. Neither one of us could afford to do that, so here we are. And while he was "dialed out" (his expression) of our marriage before he even told me about it, we were together for 1/3 of my life, and I just needed to feel like I wasn't a freak b/c I hadn't been able to get on w/it by now. Sheesh!

How To Share Your Divorce News

Maureen Wild — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:00:00 -0500

Five years ago, one of my best friends got divorced. Her husband met another woman and left her and their two small boys. Heartbroken and alone, she and her kids moved in with my family while she tried to get her bearings. Oh, did I mention the jerk who left her was my brother?

Until then, I had never seen divorce up close and personal. Most of the people I knew were in seemingly healthy marriages. When my sister-in-law moved in, I honestly imagined that home-cooked meals, some pretty new clothes, a bedroom makeover in feminine florals and oodles of babysitting would get her right back up on her feet. After all, “she’d be better off without him after what he did to her.” She was smart, young and pretty. Why was she moping around? “Shake it off.” I thought. “Get over it and move on.”

But for months, she couldn’t eat, sleep or digest what was happening to her. Not only had she lost her husband, she had lost her home, her role as a stay-at-home mom and her confidence.

As the months passed, I grew impatient with her. I wanted her to face life with more courage. When she took a job with a local school district and moved into a new condo with my nephews, I thought, “Wow, it’s been almost a year. I hope she snaps out of this soon.” But now that I’m divorced, I finally understand how wrong I’d been all along.

Here are some of the stupid things I said, and things that people have said to me that serve no purpose to the newly broken-hearted:

1. “Get over it and move on!” I shamefully admit that I said this to people who were in the “first trimester” of the divorce process. As I’ve since learned, it takes time to adjust to divorce. “Getting over it” is a lot easier said than done. Divorce is not the common cold, the symptoms don’t clear up in a week or two.

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I am so glad I found this

How To Share Your Divorce News