How COVID-19 Makes Me Grateful to My Ex-wife
Two lessons from a failed marriage are helping me thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many years ago I was married to an alcoholic addict. I struggled for nine years before I realized that it was time to split. The divorce was amicable as there wasn’t a lot of drama left at that point. That all took place while we were still trying to make the marriage work. Along the way I learned two key skills that I am finding particularly useful right now, acceptance and detachment.
First, a little background. For a long time I was in denial about how my ex’s drinking was affecting me. That’s a common strategy for those of us involved with alcoholics or addicts. If we pretend it’s not there maybe it will go away. Unfortunately it just gets worse until the pain is so bad we have to admit there is a problem.
The next step in my struggle was trying to control her behaviour. I tried hiding her alcohol and doling out small amounts. I tried drinking with her so that we at least had something we could do together. I tried arguing with her. I read books on alcoholism and addiction looking for clues as to how to solve her problem. I tried to get her to admit that she had a problem. None of that worked except to give me bad hangovers, something she never got.
Eventually I went to an Al-Anon meeting to find out how to control her drinking. They tried to tell me that I couldn’t control her, all I could control was myself. I left in frustration and didn’t go back to another Al-Anon meeting for nearly a year. By that point I was ready to get over my denial and admit I wasn’t going to be able to control her addictions.
I started going to Al-Anon meetings regularly to learn what they could teach me. I joined Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA) to deal with some of my personal relationship issues. I saw counsellors that eventually helped me to realize that my marriage was over.
I’ve heard people jokingly refer to their first marriage as a learner marriage. For me this was true. Without the struggle of dealing with my alcoholic addict, there are a number of life lessons I might have avoided learning that are coming in handy now. The two most useful are acceptance and detachment.
1. Acceptance– One of the hardest things for me was getting over my denial and accepting that I was married to an alcoholic addict, that I had no control over her behaviour, and that I never would. It was what it was and all I could do was accept that that was the position I was in and move on from there.
The parallels with the pandemic are obvious. I must accept that, along with the rest of world, I am in the middle of this pandemic, though a lot of people are still in denial. I must accept that I have no control over how the pandemic will manifest, though a lot of people believe they are in control. Finally, I must accept that there is nothing I can do to change what is going on in the world, though there are some smart people that are trying and I hope they are successful.
2. Detachment– Once I learned to accept that I had no control over my alcoholic addict marriage, I had to learn to detach from my frustration, anger, bitterness, and self-pity. The longer I held onto those feelings, the more depressed I got. Once I detached from those and focused on the things that I did have some control over, especially gratitude for all the many good things in my life, my depression eased.
Again with the pandemic, I have had to detach from many favourite pastimes: leisurely restaurant dinners, movie theatres, university classes, gatherings of friends… the list goes on. Instead I am focusing on that which makes me grateful: my lovely forever wife, my good health, being retired when so many are losing their jobs, my basic introvert nature that makes isolating easier, and living in a time where the internet allows me to connect with people that have shared interests without the risk of infecting one another.
Without my messy first marriage that forced me to learn acceptance and detachment, skills I needed to manage my controlling nature, I would likely be finding this pandemic much more difficult. And for that, regardless how difficult the process was at the time, I am extremely grateful to my ex-wife.
My closing advice to those who have read this far is focus on that for which you are grateful and let go of the rest.
