Divorce is a weird experience. 

For one thing, it can mean different things to different people. 

For some it feels like defeat; for others, freedom. For some, it is a time of heartbreak and devastation; for others, a time of celebration and rebirth. It can be amicable and even unremarkable; or, it can be acrimonious and dramatic. 

Sometimes, divorce is many things to a person—either all at once, or day-by-day. What I mean by that is that for some people, they can feel both negative and positive feelings toward their divorce simultaneously. And for some people, how they feel varies from day to day, week to week, month to month, etc; sometimes they feel positively about it, and sometimes they feel negatively. 

The thing about divorce is that nobody plans for it to happen. (The word “nobody” here is used hyperbolically; I’m sure there are some people out there who marry with the intention of divorcing, for a variety of reasons either unhinged or calculated, or perhaps both). 

Nobody gets married and vows to be with a person for life, while knowing in the back of their mind that they’re lying. For most people, marriage is sacred. It is something they only want to do one time with one person. Divorce is something that happens to those who don’t think things through, act on impulse, choose poorly, or are careless with others. It’s something that deserves sympathy, that people look at and think, “okay, how can I avoid doing that? I don’t want to be that person.”

But the truth is that divorce is, well… complicated. It isn’t good or bad; it is both and neither. 

For me, getting divorced is something I never in a million years thought I would do. Like, ever. It’s also something that I am continuing to process, over two years after separating from my ex, and after getting remarried. Being married again kind of feels like starting to read a new book before you finish the one you were reading before… but you were kind of over it, and this new book is pretty great, so it’s okay? And yet, the nagging feeling of knowing you didn’t finish reading that book is always there. (Or is that just me?)

Long story short, I haven’t finished processing my divorce even though I’m married to someone else now. Which is weird, but also kind of makes sense. I was with my ex-husband for 13 years, and married for ten. That is a long relationship to change so dramatically, and processing that is bound to take some time. For all I know, I’ll be processing it for the rest of my life. I mean, I hope not, but still. 

When I think about my divorce, I realize that there’s a difference for me in how it happened versus why it happened. If someone were to ask me why I got divorced, I would have to choose which version to give them. 

How it happened is that we became polyamorous, and through that I realized that my feelings for him were platonic. I fell in love with someone else, and my ex was not able to accept that person into our lives as fully or as quickly as I wanted him to. Even though we’d both agreed to be polyamorous, in practice it was a very exciting experience for me but a very unpleasant experience for him. Losing my romantic interest was painful for him (I think I can safely assume), while for me it was painful to be separated from my new love. These factors caused conflict between us and led to both of us pulling away from the relationship. It came to the point where we couldn’t find happiness while staying married. 

How it happened makes me look like the “bad guy,” and that perception has messed me up a lot emotionally. Because I know that I didn’t do anything wrong, but from a simplified perspective, it would seem that I left my husband for somebody else. It looks like I threw away my marriage for something new and exciting. That voice in my head tells me that I’m the villain. 

This is why I feel the need to frequently emphasize that I could have and would have stayed with my ex, if only he had been able to support my new relationship. Perhaps that doesn’t make sense to people who aren’t polyamorous, but it is what it is. I would have done the same for him. In fact, I was his biggest cheerleader in dating! I truly wanted him to find a person who could give him what I could not, so that we could stay married and both be happy and fulfilled. 

Why it happened is different, I’m beginning to realize.

As I mentioned, while I was falling in love he was going through emotional upheaval. I was changing and discovering a life of my own apart from him. Because I was changing, he needed to change too. In the end, we were two very different people who could have stayed married if we’d wanted to, but the reality is that we didn’t want to. 

I find it annoying that it sounds like a cliché that “we both changed” and “we grew apart.” Because it’s not just as simple as that. But at the same time, it kind of is. 

We are different people now. Throughout the 13 years we were a couple, we obviously changed a lot as well. I always believed we could change together, and that’s what we did for all of those years. But when everything was falling apart, we both were changing in ways that specifically and by necessity pulled us away from each other. We were becoming our own people, finally. And if I’m honest, all of me changed like midnight. The people we became didn’t make sense as a couple, and so we walked away. 

When we decided to divorce, it was extremely… uneventful. It was a calm, cool, and collected kind of conversation. No anger, so hurt feelings (at least that were expressed), certainly no yelling. We even had one last cuddle. 

Looking back at that always makes me sad. What we lost was something big, and amazing, and rare. All of a sudden, we realized it was already gone and we were holding onto nothing. But at the time, I wasn’t sad. How could I be sad? The people who had that amazing marriage no longer existed. I wasn’t her. So, I had nothing to mourn. 

After the processing I have done thus far, I have found reasons to mourn. I mourn for that person who I used to be, who had that amazing love story, who felt safe and secure and settled. I mourn for all the love we unraveled; we still care deeply for each other, but obviously the type of love has changed. I mourn for how easy it was to spend time together, how much I enjoyed being around him, and how I never got tired of being with him. I lost my best friend, not just my husband. 

It may sound superficial, but I also mourn for the life I gave away. We had built our dream house together, and I loved that house. I loved our neighborhood and our city. I loved the kids’ school, and I loved the rhythm of our lives. Leaving the place I loved, that felt like home, was hard for me. I had to mourn for that as well, and still do. 

It’s strange to think that people can change so much, that they can be the same person and yet not. It’s hard to know how to be around them. When you’re with a person who you have known for so long and been through so much with, and they start to become someone that you don’t recognize, it is extremely disconcerting. You miss that person, but how can you say that when they’re right there in front of you? It’s hard to process. 

Getting divorced when I thought I was above that was humbling. Now, being married again, I have to balance my cynicism with optimism. It would be naïve to say that it is impossible I would ever get divorced again—even though that is how I feel! I guess the difference now, and one of the biggest lessons I learned, was that I have the power to choose what happens in my marriage. 

Of course, I only have control over myself, which is only half of the equation. But the point is that I have the power. It isn’t fate, it’s a choice. I know that I chose to divorce my ex. I know that I could have chosen differently. I know that I do not want to choose that ever again. I also know that I might change my mind about that someday and feel tempted to leave—but even if that happens, I can still choose to stay. If my marriage is as sacred to me as I say it is, then I will choose that even on the days I feel differently. And I am determined to prove that it is.

I’m very lucky with how things have turned out. My ex-husband and now-husband get along really well, and I have a good relationship with my ex as well. There is no animosity. On my husband’s side of things, everything is harmonious with his ex-wife as well. The four of us make up a sort of co-parenting chain, and it feels nice. Our blended family has blended smoothly, and I am happy with that. 

So, the aftermath hasn’t been so bad, on the surface. Emotionally, though? That’s a different story. It just goes to show that nobody goes through divorce completely unscathed. We bear the scars, whether we like it or not.