Divorce

Time is short today so I’m posting an entry from my writing journal from last year about a friends divorce.

Tom’s Divorce

When he came to the door he looked distracted. Not in a scatterbrained, daydreaming way, but in a deep concentration, as if his subconscious was desperately trying to make some sense out of everything that had happened and was happening in his life.

What first struck me was his appearance. He was the same man I knew and had seen just one month earlier, but his ever present smile was replaced with thin, tight lips. The eyes that usually squinted and displayed crow’s feet from laughter were now open and wetted with reality. The most startling difference was the deep lines running across his forehead, as if some sculptor had slipped with his chisel while working on a statue and ruined it. I was amazed how much emotional upheaval and stress a divorce could cause in such a short period of time.

I had received his phone call earlier that day, just after returning home from grocery shopping. We began the conversation pretty much the way small talk does with the obligatory “Hi, how are you? Long time no see” script. When my turn came for asking those questions, the answers became complicated. He told me he was leaving his wife; there was a long pause. That they were getting a divorce; there was a longer pause. He wanted to know if we could go out, get drunk and talk.

Later that day we met. The bar we chose was loud and crowded, but it was handy. I’d known him and his wife for more than two years and still couldn’t believe this all happened in a month’s time. He started his story as soon as the beer arrived.

The downslide had started several months earlier. He decided to leave a reasonably secure job with no future other than a paycheck for another job at a higher risk, with advancement potential and future money. It was a sales rep job that would have produced hefty commissions given time and patience. In order to make ends meet his wife took a job. This was the first job she held since she was single. When his money began to whither and hers became more important, her priorities changed. She now wanted a career; he was stifling her; she wanted control over all her money and refused to pay bills. She maxed out all the credit cards, hid them and items she had purchased for herself. Then he learned about the affair.

Little bits and pieces of information began to slip from the mouths of his children about mommy’s new friend. His four-year-old son was even able to show daddy where the friend lived.

As the story progressed with more sordid details, I kept wondering what kind of pain he was feeling. How does it feel to be totally betrayed? What words of comfort could I give that wouldn’t sound grossly inadequate? He was looking for answers. I had none. He was looking for help. I couldn’t offer any. There we sat, two pathetic individuals in a bar, one wide eyed with pain and frustration, the other wide eyed with astonishment.

Marriage was supposed to be sacred. A spouse was someone who made life that much more bearable. Someone you could emotionally and physically grow old with. For him marriage had now become a demon that held him in a headlock and was preparing to throw him in a pit from which he could not escape; the pit of emotional turmoil, of bankruptcy and whatever else he could not yet know because of lack of experience.

When I dropped him off it was two in the morning. He didn’t want to go back, but he went anyway. He opened the door to find a babysitter in the living room and his wife out again for the evening.

I went home, hugged my wife and kissed my children.