Author Archives: thegreydivorcee

It Was A Wild and Windy Night

Sometimes, when it’s hard to look at your life straight on, it helps to consider moments in it as a story – or metaphor.

The week before my husband left me, we’d booked tickets for a ten-day music festival in Scotland. Six months later I went to that festival with a friend.

It was a wonderful, yet difficult, experience. My ex and I had seen Dougie MacLean – the main performer – just a year earlier, and although I loved the company of my friend, I couldn’t help thinking about my ex, and how he should be here with me. The fact that the festival happened during our first wedding anniversary apart made it all just a little more painful. But it was a great ten days – the music toe-tapping or soulful, but always inspiring.

The final concert was to be held in a large tent in the grounds of an upmarket hotel. As it was only a mile away, we decided to walk. Continue reading →

Letting Go and Moving Forward

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How many times have I heard those words from friends, even strangers or read them in so many different books and articles? I know everyone means well, but really, how does one “let go” of 37 years of marriage as if they were no more than an old pair of jeans that no longer fit?

For better or for worse, in sickness and in health. How on earth does one let that go? It happened. You can’t erase the past.

And “move forward?” Against the binding ties of so many years of life together? Impossible.

For a long time, it truly did seem impossible as I struggled through each day of fear and hurt and bewilderment, only to relive it all night after sleepless night.

It wasn’t until it was over, the divorce final, that I realized I truly was on my own. To be honest, I was terrified. For more than half my life, I had defined myself in terms of being part of a unit, one half of a marriage. And that was gone. Whatever had or hadn’t happened in the past–it was gone. There was no going back. No do-overs. Continue reading →

1,000 Days

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On Friday January 19^th, 2018, it will be 1,000 days since April 25^th, 2015, when my husband ended our marriage. A marriage that lasted 13,688 days – or thirty-seven years, five months and twenty-three days. (Not including how long we knew each other before then.)

1,000 days seems a good time to stop and take stock. Where am I at this point in my life? What have I come through? Where am I going?

I’ll be honest, the first four hundred days were sheer hell. About 150 days in, I can remember sitting in my rental apartment, wondering how much longer I could survive the emotional pain. I wasn’t sleeping, had no appetite, and the weight was dropping off me. How long until I started feeling normal again? I asked friends who’d been through something similar. They couldn’t – or wouldn’t – give me a time frame, but assured me I would get through it. My grief was so overwhelming I wasn’t sure I could cope with such uncertainty. But I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, and chose a place in the river if the pain became intolerable.

And yet… and yet… some amazing things happened to me in those 150 days. I discovered a strength I didn’t know I had. I found myself a lawyer and apartment, and my friends and family rallied around me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. It was spring, so I was able to walk in the fresh air every day and watch nature turn into summer. (The dramatic weight loss might not have been healthy, but it looked good!) Continue reading →

The Other Woman

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One sad fall-out from my husband’s affair – and subsequent remarriage – was having my eyes opened to the truth about women. As a nurse, my working life was spent mostly in the company of other women. Nurses are amazing. They are compassionate and there to assist both patients and fellow staff members in good times and bad. Of course you find the occasional unpleasant one here and there, but on the whole they are brilliant.

I could never understand when female friends talked about the bitchiness they experienced working in offices, or not trusting other women. And I felt very fortunate in comparison to the back-biting my husband described in his mostly male work environment. Continue reading →

Moving forward into the New Year.

Getting Through Christmas Morning when Divorced and Alone

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Gift photo

I can cover it up pretty well when talking to friends and family, but the truth is, Christmas without a partner definitely has its low points. It hurts to wake up alone on a day that is so fully loaded with family memories, children’s excited voices, stockings dumped on the foot of our bed, the dog in the midst of it all with her own Christmas treat from Santa.
Sounds like a made-for-TV movie, but it wasn’t a movie, it was our life, my life.

The children grew up, moved away and have their own families now, their own Christmas mornings and rituals. I miss those times, I can’t deny that, but if I close my eyes and listen… Continue reading →