A friend of mine at work told me that she and her husband have separated. It was one of those weird moments when you stand back and sort of want to place the blame on someone but aren’t sure who it should be. The girl in me immediately thinks – what has he done, that rat bastard! And then the adult in me knows that he’s always seemed to be a really nice guy, as I had known him professionally. How do I reconcile that person with the rat bastard that he must be! Girls always blame the boy for the break-up, unless they themselves want the boy and then the girl is undoubtedly a slut. It’s always been true, and it will most likely always be true.
My own parents are divorced – more than once (though only my father legally). So divorce is no stranger to me. It’s not like I don’t think it can happen. But, none of my friends have been divorced or separated. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, what friends do you have in the first place. And that’s true enough, my best friends in the world aren’t married. But the other friends that I have, who are my age, that are married, are still married (although one girl is probably still taking drugs to stay with her husband). It’s weird. In my mind, as I sit here writing this, divorce is little more to me than breaking up with your boyfriend in high school or college. Give him back his class ring, divide your stuff and go on. Having never had a boyfriend or intimate relationship with anyone before my husband, I have no experience with the emotional trauma of breaking up with someone. It is true that I was a glorious fag hag for some 10 years and that relationship really faded into nothingness after a traumatic 6 month period. But, in all fairness, I can’t really count that as a break up – because I knew from the beginning that it was really a doomed relationship. So, it was more an issue of me coming to terms with my own idiocy than it was a break up. And a fag hag who doesn’t kiss ass and is ½ in love with her fag is really no good as a fag hag, so I had to find a new gig.
I have had some friends who have had marital problems. And it’s a really difficult conversation to have. It’s not difficult to say, “Oh my God! He’s an ass! You deserve better.” But in high school or college, such comments can easily be followed by “you should dump him, there are better men out there.” You can’t say that when you are talking to a mother of two who has been married for 15 years. It’s not so easy to cut those ties. So, now, I really try to avoid those types of conversations in total. I got nothing to say and no experience, so no one needs to hear what I have to say.
But back to the point, hearing that a marriage may end, really makes you step back and examine your own. How do you know that your own marriage won’t crumble away into nothingness. Do you wake up one morning and go, “O.k., I’m done. I want something else, but not with you.” Is it gradual, is it quick, is sad, devastating. Do I really want to know?
