Mediate Michigan

I am not convinced that we ever recover from being divorced, those of us who are.

We get on with our lives, but we continue to feel guilty or betrayed, conflicted or wishful or all of the above – a slew of emotions we seldom think about and speak of even less.

Divorce changes us, if for no reason other than it is irrefutable, in-your-face evidence that we have failed at something – however it happened and as convinced as we might be that it was for the best.

As Sarah Hampson observes in her intelligent, thoughtful and finely written meditation on midlife after divorce, it invites us to take a hard look at who we are.

“Divorce forces a rethinking of the myths, the expectations, that brought us to the crisis point,” she writes in Happily Ever After Marriage (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, $32). “It clears the mind of ideas we once had about how our lives should be lived. We see how willingly we failed ourselves by trying to fulfill the fantasy.”

via Divorce changes us, but living happily ever after is still a possibility.