This is a story that illustrates some of the points of a Holistic Divorce.
Frosty winds chill me to the bone as I scurry through a rapidly darkening November evening towards a meeting virtually every one of my friends has warned me is a huge mistake.
Clutching my flapping coat, I arrive, I rush through the doorway, a full half hour early, at Le Rendezvous — a picturesque French Bistro tucked neatly into Chicago’s famed Old Town Historical District. Inside, it’s cozy, candlelit and fragrant with aromas of garlic roasted meats and fresh baked sweets. A pleasant hum of conversation mingles with subdued background jazz, punctuated by an occasional burst of laughter or “popping” wine bottle cork. Pleased with our choice of venue, I request a seat with “some privacy” and am led to a secluded window table with a panoramic view of the frozen street.
Snow flakes, illuminated by street lights resembling antique gas lamps, swirl in dizzying patterns as a glass of rich, sweet, Old Vine Cabernet is set before me. I sip while observing a cab pull up and deposit its female passenger onto the frozen sidewalk. Her dark, fringed shawl and ankle length black skirt hang stiff against the wind as her narrow, angular frame cuts, knifelike, through the whorls of dancing snowflakes. My back stiffens as she moves, momentarily, beyond my line of vision. Then, suddenly, she is here — standing beside me.
“Judith,” I say. And to my surprise, I impulsively rise to embrace her.
Why am I here, I wonder, remembering how my friends cautioned against this meeting? What can you possibly say to the women who destroyed your life-long marriage, and almost caused you to loose custody of your child?” They asked this, sternly like parents of a teenager who has violated curfew, pity in their eyes.
How can I explain? My reasons are many. First, most pressing and practical, I need a legal document signed by Judith releasing me from all liability for libel, slander, invasion of privacy and/or “any other cause of action” she might have against me in connection with a manuscript I am seeking to publish — an autobiographical account of my divorce in which she features prominently. Amazingly, she has agreed to give this to me — manuscript sight unseen. Why? Guilt? Indifference? A genuine desire to rekindle a “friendship” that was damaged when she seduced (or allowed herself to be seduced by) my, then, husband? (“How crazy is that,” I hear friends, who genuinely love me, asking.) Or is she, possibly, only now, beginning to understand and appreciate the magnitude what has occurred and maybe, just maybe, like me, the need for resolution?
Conventional wisdom, today, tells us divorcing parties must be released, upon request, without retribution for (or resolution of issues relating to) “fault,” or marital misconduct. “Move on with your life,” is the mantra of judges, lawyers, mediators, family therapists and others who ply their trade in and around our divorce and family law courts. Parties are not encouraged to work through or resolve whatever issues are causing them to part ways. (“If they could do that,” some argue, “why would they need a divorce?” This is a point of view which fails to acknowledge how relationships can change even while love remains) Aside from joint parenting requirements, little, if any, interest is directed to future relationships between divorcing parties. While this works for young people who, perhaps, never truly connected, for mature couples with a lifetime of shared goals, children, extended families and assets, I don’t see how, realistically, it can.
Personally, I have sworn not to simply turn my back on my entire life to date – walking away as though everything up to this point has been a huge mistake. Instead, I have chosen to see my divorce experience through fully (like I would an illness, filing for bankruptcy, or any other challenging life experience). I seek genuine resolution and healing for all concerned. In this, I am at odds with a family law system that neither expects nor encourages such a goal. For me, however, it is the only way. My meeting with “the other woman,” Judith, several years subsequent to my finalized divorce, is a part of a this process.
She sits, poised awkwardly on the edge of her seat, waiting for me to set the tone and pace. “The steamed muscles are great here,” I offer noncommittally. “And so is their bistro salad.”
“I have some reservations about this whole release thing…” she begins timidly. Here it goes, I think. She’s dragged me down here on a pretext and now she’s going to back down on her word just like she did before at the last supper we shared back before my divorce when I knew something bad was happening and confided in her that Kevin seemed to take more interest in her than in me and that I feared my marriage was in trouble.
“Maybe he will divorce me and marry you,” I had said – not entirely jokingly.
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Bit it did…the divorce part, anyway…though Kevin and she never married or even moved in together. So now I’m not sure now how it will all end. Apparently neither is she. Arrogance and smugness she projected during our divorce proceeding are noticeably absent now. Perhaps she has begun to understand that Kevin is not, never has been, easy.
“Without your release, no publisher will consider my manuscript,” I say in a tight voice.
“Here, take it,” she says suddenly – shoving a paper across the table at me.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
Just that quickly, my feelings for this woman – who at one point I might have murdered without flinching – shift. She is scared, I see, and not without good cause. I am now free to write anything I want about her and she has no legal recourse. She has made herself vulnerable to me – like I was to her when I welcomed her into my home as a friend, never dreaming she would participate in a deconstruction and reconfiguration of my family. That takes a certain amount of guts and spunk. For some odd reason, I feel my old liking for her seeping through cracks in my carefully constructed wall of anger. I silently curse an undergraduate degree in anthropology that sometimes causes me to view my life from the vantage point of a participant-observer (analyzing things rather than just experiencing them).
“Watch your step,” I hear my friends admonishing me. “She burned you once, why not again?” It does occur to me to wonder what it is she hopes to gain from me and from this meeting. Then our food comes and, surprisingly, I have a robust appetite. She mostly pushes her food around on her plate; but that was her style even before the divorce.
We eat. We drink. We talk – mostly about “safe” topics. Then she tells me about loosing her job and how she sometimes feels embarrassed bumping into former co-workers. I remember how envious I was of her job during my divorce. As I fought to retain whatever shreds of my former life of affluence and security I could, she was safely ensconced in a Loop skyscraper office with security tighter than a prison on lockdown. Now she’s down here in the cold street with the rest of us. To my surprise, I feel compassion rather than pleasure at her loss. I wonder if this meeting, too, is embarrassing for her. I see how all of us, her, me and my ex-spouse are all growing older and having to fight harder to retain a place in the clamor of competition that is life.
Conversation turns to how everyone is doing – especially our respective daughters, who were childhood best friends before the divorce. Now they never speak. What must that be like for them? As for Kevin, we both agree he has been better. His health has suffered since the divorce and he doesn’t seem particularly happy. In my mind I can still hear him telling me how we had had to get divorced because living with me made him so miserable he would rather be dead. I remember how utterly worthless that remark made me feel. But, again oddly, I am concerned rather than pleased that our divorce was not the panacea Kevin had hoped.
In fact, as I sit here, I try to determine who came out ahead and who came out behind in all that has transpired. I know this: During the divorce, the pain was so great I did not think I could survive. As I fought for my custody of my daughter and sought to retain some semblance of financial security, I never lost sight of my love for Kevin. I told everyone who would listen that I would fight to the end for what was mine but that I also would fight to preserve my friendship with this man who had been my constant companion throughout my life.
Fortunately, in the end, we were able to share custody of our daughter and develop our friendship along new lines. (Change, yes. Buddhist philosophy will tell you that nothing is static, everything is changing. A key to happiness is to embrace change and flow with it accepting new configurations.) I did this during my divorce and I was comfortable in my new persona. In fact I had to admit that my divorce gave me learning and growth opportunities I could never have experienced within marriage. I know myself better, love myself more and have greater confidence in my abilities than ever before. I believe I am happy. As I sit observing Judy, I realize that whatever anger I felt towards her before has evaporated. I simply do not feel it anymore although I am not unmindful of events upon which precipitated my former anger was based and still feel somewhat guarded in my reemerging draw towards her.
We depart, sucked from the pungent warmth by a wicked blast what has now become the season’s first blizzard. Once again, I hug her, as we part company. I do not yet know that our reconnection, like our separation, will take time to develop. There will be school events where, instead of pointedly avoiding one another as we did during my divorce, we will laugh together at a table shared with Kevin – who will be run ragged refreshing drinks for the both of us. When Kevin slacks on his work-outs, Judy and I will jointly present him with a health club membership for his birthday. Finally, on Christmas, about one year after our meeting, my home-made Christmas card will feature a picture of myself, Kevin and our daughter taken on the occasion of her graduation from grammar school. It’s the first Christmas card picture including Kevin since our divorce. Ironically, it was taken by Judith (whose daughter was, of course, graduating that same day). Both my ex-husband and I forgot our cameras. So, ironically, it was lucky Judith was there with her camera. Otherwise, we might not have even have had a family graduation photo.