Does Divorce Equal Failure?
What’s hard about divorce is that society has essentially made two, basic, one-size-fits-all concepts the ultimate “goals” in life:
Get Married
Have Children
The good thing is that more and more, those ideas are being shattered by younger generations who have different views on what an ideal adult life looks like. Some want a career before even thinking about marriage. Some don’t want kids at all. Some might be in a comfortable and happy domestic partnership for life but not feel the need to enter into a marriage contract. But I imagine that most of you reading this fall in the general category of the ones who sought the perfect spouse, the white picket fence and the handful of little babes running around the perfectly maintained lawn. Ok, so maybe we didn’t all want that Leave it to Beaver life….but most of us had a goal in our twenties of finding a spouse and settling down and having kids by 30. Am I right? I know that was MY goal.
So what do we and everyone else immediately think when all of that ends and suddenly that house has to be sold, we are in our thirties, forties, or maybe even fifties and single again, and our children have to split their time between different households?
Failure.
We put so much stress on ourselves, worrying that everyone is going to see us as failures for giving up or not trying hard enough. Often the older generations are the ones who see it as such, because this is all they know. Our grandmothers and even some of our mothers entered adulthood with the sole purpose of becoming a housewife and mother. So to be anything different, to them, is a fail. But how many of your grandmothers were genuinely happy? How about all of the ones who cooked, cleaned and catered to their husbands who were assholes that treated them like crap? The husbands went out and worked and, in turn, had this sort of free pass to do things like drink excessively, cheat on their wives, and even smack them around in front of the kids….and the wives could do nothing…..because a) they couldn’t survive on their own without their husbands and b) divorce was unheard of and a big no-no.
Yet here we are, letting these same women call us failures for wanting out, wanting more, and wanting to find true happiness. We are letting outsiders, and society in general, define us without ever having lived within the four walls that we shared daily with our spouse.
I say this to people all the time:
“No one gets to decide what’s best for your marriage if they didn’t live inside your home, sleep in your bed, and be part of it”
Most of us don’t tell everyone ALL that goes on. We tend to sugar coat everything in all aspects of our lives and only share the good. We might share the bad and the ugly with a select few, but most people don’t get the real, raw, uncut version. They get the edited one. And why do we do this? Well we, as humans, need our egos stroked constantly. And we are constantly seeking approval from others, especially if we’re holding on to any childhood trauma (but that’s another topic…and one to discuss with your therapist). Sharing anything other than success stories and praise-worthy moments with others makes us look like…you guessed it…failures.
But why should it be that way? Why do we see divorce as the ultimate failure? Everything in this life is based on perception. If we perceive marriage as the ultimate life goal, we will perceive divorce as the ultimate failure. So it’s simple. Change your perception.
Yes, marriage is a huge component of each of our lives. But is it what defines us? Is it who we are? Is it ALL that we are? Correct me if I’m wrong but we are defined by SO much more than whether or not we are someone’s spouse. So stop letting whether you stay married or not determine what kind of person you are. Stop letting divorce or the possibility of divorce determine whether you succeed or fail in life. Just stop.