I want to begin this post by sharing part of Louis CK’s film “Hilarious” with you:
louis-ck-divorce.mp3
For those of you who can’t listen, here’s the transcript:
Let me tell you something. And this is important because some day one of your friends is gonna get divorced. It’s gonna happen. And they’re gonna tell you, don’t go “Oh I’m sorry!” that’s a stupid thing to say. It really is. First of all, you’re making them feel bad for being really happy, which isn’t fair. And second, let me explain something to you. Divorce is always good news. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce. It’s really that simple. That’s never happened – THAT would be sad. If two people were married and they were really happy and they just had a great thing, and then they got divorced, that would be really sad. But that has happened zero times. Literally zero. Ray Charles has killed more jews than happy marriages have ended in divorce. So if your friend got divorced, it means things were bad and now they’re – I mean, they’re better. They’re not good. Life is shit wall to wall. But they’re better, so you should be happy.
I thought of this when I read a piece in the New York Times yesterday, “The Divorce Delusion.” As the title suggests, it’s a curmudgeonly deriding of popular culture’s recent wave of what the author deems “Happy Divorce” propaganda. In reading the piece it’s clear that, in contrast to some recent cultural representations, the author’s parents had a very UNhappy divorce, and that her interpretation of these television shows and movies is filtered through the lens of someone deeply wounded by that childhood experience – and fair enough, more power to her for getting those feelings out in a way that didn’t involve bodily harm or injury to herself or others. I’ll let you read the whole piece, but this section does a good job of condensing the thrust of her position:
“Kramer vs. Kramer” would most likely get panned today as a depressing Debbie Downer of a film. But watching it again as an adult left me with a satisfying sense that I endured something profoundly sad and emerged with a new feeling of resiliency. Like Ted Kramer’s mixing up a batch of French toast through a clenched smile, sometimes the urge to reshape a tragedy into a story of hope just undermines the hope therein. We don’t need to reimagine every disaster as a tale of heroism. We don’t need to turn every funeral into a celebration. A divorce is not a birthday party or a high-school reunion or a three-day restorative spa getaway. Just as there is a time to meditate, a time to live your best life, a time to be “fierce,” there is also a time to weep openly, a time to regret everything and a time to eat big doughnuts in bed. We all have a right to our own bad choices — and a right to feel bad about them too. As Lord Byron wrote, “Sorrow is knowledge.” So for God’s sake, let’s stop rushing to get to the good part.
There’s a lot of presumption and supposition here that I’d like to address from the other side of things. From the side of an adult who has just recently gone through this experience herself.
To begin, no one is ever “happy” to get divorced, and no one gets through it without a great deal of suffering and pain – regardless of how much of that they show or don’t show to others. But the enormity of that sort of pain isn’t really suitable material for sitcoms like the ones the author wags her finger at throughout her article for turning “a funeral into a celebration.” Sitcoms are comedic exaggerations of reality, with the emphasis on comedic. The reality of divorce, for most people, is probably something in between the dour weepfest of “Kramer vs. Kramer” and the flip vapidity of “Happily Divorced.” Reality is complicated and individual – experiences are often not simply sad or happy, but processed as a very personal amalgam of those emotions and others. But, for the most part, popular culture doesn’t – can’t – represent that reality. So instead of striving for realism, it strives to make us both cry AND laugh about the terrible, crushing truths of adult life by diluting that emotional complexity to its most broadly accessible representation. Neither is really adequate to describe what it’s like to have a marriage fail, that’s true. But we need to cry. And we need to laugh. And both aspects of that experience are valid and healing and, moreover, needed.
When J and I split, I spent four months in deep mourning. Every day I took care of my daughter, worked, cooked meals and did laundry. I did what I had to. And then, every night after I put my daughter to bed, I went downstairs, sat on the sofa in what was once our living room, and cried. Cried. And cried. And cried. Every night. For four months. That is what divorce is.
But it’s also something else, something more aligned with the Louis CK bit above – something that the author of the New York Times article clearly doesn’t want to process. It IS a relief, and it IS a good thing. Because what he said in that clip is true: no good marriages end in divorce, only the bad ones. No one would put themselves through the pain of divorce unless they were, indeed, so unhappy and so miserable that there was truly no other option – particularly if children are involved. People don’t get divorced lightly or on a whim. They get divorced after years of pain, therapy, distance, emotional deadness, disconnection, hurt, depression, anger and sorrow. They get divorced because their marriage is, and likely has been for some time, mostly oppressive discord and sadness. And to think otherwise is ludicrous. For myself, after years of personal unhappiness, what tipped things was that I finally reached a point where I believed my daughter would be happier if J and I were apart than if we stayed together – something I now know to be true. No one – and I mean NO ONE – jaunts off into divorce to “find themselves” or to be “fierce.” People make that final, horrible decision after years of soul-crushing sadness and wrenching contemplation of its consequences, so that they don’t end up slitting their own wrists, or taking several handfuls of pills one particularly dark night.
There is enough sorrow in divorce. More than enough. None of us needs someone else to tell us how we should behave, how much mourning is appropriate, how happy or unhappy we should pretend to be, and for how long, for the sake of appearances and other people’s sense of decorum. That pain – the pain of a marriage ending – belongs solely to those who have endured it, and anyone else’s judgments or presumptions are meaningless in the face of that. How much pain is enough, how much suffering is enough, how much regret, how much weeping, and for how long? No one but the people in that specific situation have the right to say. No one rushes “to the good part” – that’s insulting and a gross, demeaning oversimplification. Everyone experiences loss in their own way, on their own timeline.
And unlike the author, I believe that yes, we SHOULD cheer for those who do get past the pain of divorce and find happiness, because the pain is so great, so consuming. It IS a triumph for someone to come out of such a dark place and reconstruct their life, and be happy – find love again, find purpose and meaning and hope again. To be joyful for that isn’t diminishing the pain of divorce, it isn’t reimagining disaster as heroism. It’s recognizing and appreciating the larger human truth that life DOES, thank god, go on, and that no matter what terrible losses and hurts each of us endures in our lifetime we can survive, and yes, be happy again. We can. And there’s nothing to be ashamed of in that.
When J and I split, I spent four months in mourning. But after four months of crying, the sadness was unbearable. I needed to look outward and toward the future again, toward life, and stop looking back, stop tearing myself apart over something that was dead, or I knew I wouldn’t survive it. And so, I did. Was four months long enough? Was four months an appropriate amount of time? Should I have worn black, wailed, and “eaten big donuts in bed” for another month, or three months, or twelve, to appropriately honor that loss, to “earn” the right to be happy again? No one has the right to say. No one but me. And fuck anyone else who thinks they have that right.
