When I Got Divorced I Thought My Life Was Over
I had no idea a divorce was coming for me. I was pretty oblivious to the train that was about to run me over.
At the time, you could classify me as emotionally stunted, which meant the emotional labor was all on my wife. I had no idea what that term even was until she explained it to me after saying that she “wasn’t happy” and it wasn’t going to work.
Looking back on it now, I get it. I wouldn’t want to have to go through what she did either.
This Beginning Was the End
I didn’t want to get married. Mainly because I didn’t want to end up divorced like my parents. But, I caved. More to the point, I remember saying “fuck it, why not.” We were young punks, trying to “stick it to the man”, but that is a whole other story.
The first couple years, we didn’t totally take it that serious. Again, we were married not for this deep and healthy love, but for spite, for kicks you could say. We were certainly best friends, and got along well, but this was more a marriage of convenience.
After a couple years, I told her I wanted to “take it more seriously.” And I think we did. For the most part.
This Is the End
Then, 20 years in, (20 years!!) she looked sad. I asked what was wrong, and she said “I’m not happy.”
“Okay, what can I do to make you happy?”
She shook her head ‘no’.
“Do you want to talk to someone?”
She shook her head ‘no’.
“Maybe we can both go and talk with someone?”
She shook her head ‘no’.
“Okay, I’ll go talk to someone. I’ll fix this.”
She didn’t really respond. And off I went to start my journey in therapy.
A month later, in a session, sitting in front of an extremely bored-looking psychology student, it hit me square in the chest: I didn’t want to be married to her!
I came home that night and told her, and that’s when it really hit me. I was about to become a divorced, almost-50 year old single dad.
“Who in the fuck would ever want to be with me?!”
I thought I was going to die. I thought my life was over, and I would be alone for the rest of it, however long that would be. Hopefully not long.
Then It Got Worse
Pandemic hit about a month after she moved out. Locked in my house, with nothing but my thoughts, my son (50/50, every other week), and a growing collection of plants, I started to really regret a lot of my life choices.
Then about 6 months later my aunt died unexpectedly. She was very single, and for a very long time. My world crumbled in on me, and I truly wanted to not wake up.
The next morning, I woke up in a haze, and found myself opening marketing emails on my phone that I rarely opened, still very much in bed with no intention of getting out.
In one of those emails from Valet magazine was an article by Cory Ohlendorf called “I Tried an Online Men’s Group”. As I read it, I literally felt this giant wall fall to pieces inside of me. I had never thought about joining a group, let alone an online one (it was mid-pandemic after-all), and most certainly a mens group—hell fucking no! Hard pass. Five minutes later I was sitting up in my bed and starting to apply to the mens group the article talked about.
It Was the First Scariest Thing I Ever Did
Let’s be clear to set the stage:
- I was getting divorced, which had me thinking I was going to die. Literally.
- It was early in the pandemic, and that also had me thinking I was possibly going to die.
- And now I was going to sit in front of a bunch of random men around the world and spill my guts?! It’s something gnarly to sit in front of an attractive student and say absolutely feral shit about your life and marriage, but guys?! No fucking way.
Yet, here I was, logging onto Zoom the next Monday night, and staring at about 20 dudes I did not know. Shoot me now.
I was literally shaking so bad during that call that I thought I was going to puke. I had about 5 mins to tell my story, and I think I took 20. Bawling my eyes out and fighting back vomiting, I managed to make it through the 90 minutes.
Up to that point, I had never been so scared in my whole life. And I’ve been shot at in war. I was almost killed by my dad’s hands. I almost fell off countless roofs. I even grew up in a legit haunted house. That Zoom call was scarier than all of them combined.
So, I went the next week, and every week after that for a year and a half.
Then I Realized My Life Was Just Beginning: The Second Scariest Thing I Ever Experienced
After about a year, these guys—many of them now my best friends—had taught me that my life was just beginning. And that was the moment where I really started to get scared.
That makes no sense writing it out just now, but stick with me.
I was so scared for my new life because I had no idea what it would look like. I knew what I didn‘t want, but a brand new life completely designed by me?! A had this blank canvas set in front of me, and I was to start designing my new life, just the way I wanted it to be.
When you do a deep reset on your life, what they don’t tell you is the gravity of the task. If you have ever seen those videos of icebergs flipping over, it felt like that. I had no idea what was underneath, and it just kept coming, dark and unseen, with no idea of how big the task was.
For the next year and a half, I spent every waking moment designing my life. I dug down deep into the darkest and scariest corners of my insides. I worked in modalities of therapy that still have me shaking just thinking about them. I worked with 4 therapists, 3 personal coaches, 2 groups, and a shaman. The deeper I went with them, the harder it got. I saw things I will never be able to unsee.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
I’ve dug so many tunnels over the past 3 years. To be able to tell you that there is a much better life at the end of it is one of the proudest moments of my life. And I have done some pretty amazing things over the past four decades. But, this beats them all.
I almost died. I truly believe that. I felt so lost, so gone, so dead. And here I am today, sitting here typing this and able to tell you that I have NEVER felt so amazing in all my life. I am living the life I want, and in the areas where I want to improve, I have the tools to be able to do that.
I still go to therapy, and likely always will. It’s an amazing experience, and I strongly recommend it. I still have some things I want to work on, and challenges will always come up as I push myself harder and harder toward living a full and exciting life.
New Basements
I used to say “divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me”. But that is not true. It certainly set things in motion, but actually it was getting knocked down into new emotional basements—each one deeper than the previous—and then crawling out with help from my coach, my therapist, my friends in group. The moments where I was discovering the energy and skills to get out of that basement is the best thing that ever happend to me. Over and over.
I must have fallen into 20 or 30 basements. A couple I remember feeling like this was the end—they were deep and gnarly. But Sean, James, Ryan, Alex and so many others reached down and taught me how to climb out. I never revisited the same basement twice.
In Summary
Divorce can be the death of you as you know it. I did die, in a way, over and over. And very much reinvented myself to be the most authentic version of myself today. I know this all sounds daunting, and it is, but I am telling you that there is nothing you can’t do when you have the power of like-minded individuals around you.
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