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Authors: Jen Kirkman
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you’re done. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be best friends with me. I wanted to start seeing other people during our separation. He said that he didn’t, but I was free to. Then we decided to just stop talking about the future because we weren’t in each other’s future. We did take a moment to toast that this was the one decision we made as a couple that took zero input from our families and that for this little ritual we were about to undertake, we didn’t have to hire a justice of the peace, wear uncomfortable clothes, or invite dozens of our least close relatives.
For once, something in this marriage—the divorce—was just about the two of us.
The feeling we had was anxious relief, like the relatives of someone who is dying on a morphine drip and then suddenly springs back to life for a couple of days. Even though you know they’re dead in forty-eight hours, you’re grateful they’re alert just one more time.
Luckily, my separation coincided with an already planned week off from my writing job, because the first week alone in my apartment (Matt had opted to move out and find somewhere new to start over), all I could do was sit in bed. I couldn’t fathom calling everyone I know and explaining that there was nothing really to explain. It was over. I sent out a mass e-mail to all of my friends and said, “Please don’t ask if there’s anything that you can do because I don’t know what I want anyone to do. I know that I’m in bed. And I’ll be here and if you can think of anything that I need, can you just please come over?”
In those moments I saw who my friends were (and weren’t). Most people didn’t get back to me right away. Some still asked, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Whereas my friend Janie e-mailed me to tell me that I just had to get an Apple TV—and she came over and installed it for me. I never would have thought to ask anyone but a husband to do something like that for me. What an awful feminist I am. My friends Tami and Tara, newlyweds themselves, called me and told me to come over. They said I didn’t have to get out of my pajamas but I had to get out of bed. I went to their condo and we drank wine. And—just like I had said to Tami when she came out of the closet after insisting she wasn’t gay—Tami said to me, “I was waiting for you to admit that this particular marriage wasn’t who you are.” My friend Sharon bought me a vibrator and left it in a shopping bag on my doorstep with a note that said, “Your new boyfriend for a while.” (Yes, it was brand new. No, girls don’t share those things.)
A TO-DO AND TO-DON’T LIST FOR THE NEWLY DIVORCED
1. When breaking the news of your split to your friends, even if you’re closer with the man in a heterosexual married couple, do not tell him first about the divorce. It will seem like you’re hitting on him when he goes home and tells his wife that he just had lunch with his newly divorced friend who is a woman. Tell his wife first. This way nobody thinks you’re out to steal her man and she gets to tell her husband, which is a form of guilt-free gossip. You’ve given a married couple something fun to do for one night.
2. You don’t have to talk to your ex-mother-in-law. You don’t have to have a good-bye with her. You don’t have to prove that you’re not a bad person. She’s going to think you are anyway. She probably already did.
3. Enjoy your insomnia. You don’t need as much sleep when divorcing. It’s like being elderly for a week.
4. Lay off the coffee. You may not know it but you’re acting manic. No, seriously, you are. You say it’s happiness but it’s a temporary form of mania. Enjoy the weight loss.
5. Don’t think this weight loss will last forever. When you feel better your body will stop burning calories. And that’s when you’ll be ready to start dating. So, keep that wedding-registry waffle maker in the closet for now.
6. It’s okay to throw away everything from the
For once, something in this marriage—the divorce—was just about the two of us.
The feeling we had was anxious relief, like the relatives of someone who is dying on a morphine drip and then suddenly springs back to life for a couple of days. Even though you know they’re dead in forty-eight hours, you’re grateful they’re alert just one more time.
Luckily, my separation coincided with an already planned week off from my writing job, because the first week alone in my apartment (Matt had opted to move out and find somewhere new to start over), all I could do was sit in bed. I couldn’t fathom calling everyone I know and explaining that there was nothing really to explain. It was over. I sent out a mass e-mail to all of my friends and said, “Please don’t ask if there’s anything that you can do because I don’t know what I want anyone to do. I know that I’m in bed. And I’ll be here and if you can think of anything that I need, can you just please come over?”
In those moments I saw who my friends were (and weren’t). Most people didn’t get back to me right away. Some still asked, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Whereas my friend Janie e-mailed me to tell me that I just had to get an Apple TV—and she came over and installed it for me. I never would have thought to ask anyone but a husband to do something like that for me. What an awful feminist I am. My friends Tami and Tara, newlyweds themselves, called me and told me to come over. They said I didn’t have to get out of my pajamas but I had to get out of bed. I went to their condo and we drank wine. And—just like I had said to Tami when she came out of the closet after insisting she wasn’t gay—Tami said to me, “I was waiting for you to admit that this particular marriage wasn’t who you are.” My friend Sharon bought me a vibrator and left it in a shopping bag on my doorstep with a note that said, “Your new boyfriend for a while.” (Yes, it was brand new. No, girls don’t share those things.)
A TO-DO AND TO-DON’T LIST FOR THE NEWLY DIVORCED
1. When breaking the news of your split to your friends, even if you’re closer with the man in a heterosexual married couple, do not tell him first about the divorce. It will seem like you’re hitting on him when he goes home and tells his wife that he just had lunch with his newly divorced friend who is a woman. Tell his wife first. This way nobody thinks you’re out to steal her man and she gets to tell her husband, which is a form of guilt-free gossip. You’ve given a married couple something fun to do for one night.
2. You don’t have to talk to your ex-mother-in-law. You don’t have to have a good-bye with her. You don’t have to prove that you’re not a bad person. She’s going to think you are anyway. She probably already did.
3. Enjoy your insomnia. You don’t need as much sleep when divorcing. It’s like being elderly for a week.
4. Lay off the coffee. You may not know it but you’re acting manic. No, seriously, you are. You say it’s happiness but it’s a temporary form of mania. Enjoy the weight loss.
5. Don’t think this weight loss will last forever. When you feel better your body will stop burning calories. And that’s when you’ll be ready to start dating. So, keep that wedding-registry waffle maker in the closet for now.
6. It’s okay to throw away everything from the
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