I’m in my early 70s and have been married to one man for over half a century. However, we’ve lived apart for four years now, and I like it very much. My husband was a bad-tempered man, and it was a relief to move out. My problem is that I seem frozen and unable to move on to a divorce.
My husband has improved his behaviour over the past four years, loves me, and we do have grandchildren and a rich history together. However, I don’t love him any more. Recently I met a man who would like to become more involved with me. I’d love to have an affair with him, but I know I don’t want to marry him or move in together. He lives hundreds of miles away. But what fun it would be to have him as a boyfriend! He is kind and I enjoy his company.
My question is: why do I find it impossible to get a divorce? This situation is eating me up and the stress is affecting my health. I am an introspective person but I don’t understand myself in the situation at all.
Eleanor says: What admirable clarity you have – you say you don’t understand yourself, but I hear a great deal of insight and firm preference: “I don’t love him any more”, “it was a relief to move out”, “what fun it would be to have a boyfriend!”
To the extent that there’s any mystery here, it seems to be the mystery of what happens between feeling and action – you could know what you feel, but not what to do. Already, though, you’re ahead of the game by having this much insight into your own emotional landscape – many people never do!
I’ll throw some things against the wall and together we can see what sticks.
Is the reason for stalling perhaps that a full-on divorce feels hostile, and you’ve found an OK equilibrium in merely being separated? I think a lot of people halt their split-up at “separated” because divorce itself feels acrimonious – something people do when they hate each other, rather than because they want slightly different lives. Of course, divorce doesn’t need to be hostile – you can see it as simply making the world reflect how things actually are. To be married to someone is to have legally fused assets; if you no longer want to be fused to them in any other way, it isn’t hostility so much as accuracy that might drive you to change.
Or is it perhaps instead that you don’t feel entitled to press your wishes any further? Perhaps – especially if he was cantankerous during your marriage – it took a reasonably large expenditure of “conflict coins” to get to where you are right now – simply to terminate the romantic element of the relationship and move out. Perhaps it feels like continuing to press for this last legal formality takes a bit of temerity?
I don’t know the answer, because only you can – but the good news is we don’t always need to understand exactly why we’re getting in our way in order to stop.
It would be one thing if you didn’t want a divorce – plenty of people find it’s just too financially bothersome to sift through, and feel they can save the good parts of the relationship without the legal headache. But you sound ready for the next chapter, whether it’s more closeness with this prospective boyfriend or just living alone in the quiet joy and solitude of caring for yourself and only yourself.
I think when we talk to others about our lives we should pay attention to what we say. What you’ve said here, to me, in this tiniest little passage, is very clear – you’ve said you’re relieved your marriage (in essence) is over, and that you feel bright and energised about the future. You spent a very long time in this marriage – you don’t owe it any more than you already gave.
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