Editor’s Note: Erica Manfred, author of He’s History, You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After 40, is answering your questions about divorce — from how to deal with betrayal, to surviving the first year, to dating again, to finding a new career. Our “Divorce Doctor” looks forward to hearing from you. Leave your questions for Erica in the comments below or e-mail submit@wowOwow.com. For more advice from Erica, visit www.heshistory.com.

Sally R. asks:

“Imagine my thrill at the prospect of starting over in my 60s. I have been married for 42 years and I’m now dealing with a somewhat different situation. My husband left me almost two years ago, and when I finally got fed up with being in financial limbo, I filed for divorce late last year. He says he doesn’t want a divorce — but he won’t offer a single reason to not get one. He tells his lawyer that unless I rescind the petition, he won’t do anything to reconcile. Although I still love him, I no longer like him and don’t see him in my future. I have wanted us to go to counseling all along but now I think it would be a waste of time. At this point, I want him to “cut me loose,” so I can move on. But the prospect of trying to find someone to date is overwhelming. I miss having someone close to cook for and with, watch movies and travel. As much as I enjoy the company of women, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life only with them.”

Erica Answers: Sally, it sounds like you’re between a rock and a hard place. He’s the one who left, but he’s the one who doesn’t want a divorce. His threat about refusing to reconcile unless you rescind the petition sounds like financial manipulation. He’s made no attempt at reconciliation for the last two years – why do you think he’s serious about it now? I think you should go ahead with your petition. He’s the one who abandoned you, so you shouldn’t have any problems getting a divorce and, hopefully, a fair settlement.

Your second problem — missing couple activities like cooking for him and having a traveling companion — is a different issue. Once you put your marriage behind you, living alone will seem much less bleak. You will look around and start noticing new ways of reinventing your life. Until then you’ll be in limbo.

I can reassure you that even though you may not find another life mate, you will find men to date and even to love. Two years after divorce, 75 percent of over-55 divorcees have been in a serious relationship. Men are out there if you’re really interested in finding one. And what’s wrong with hanging out with girlfriends? I think it’s great fun.

Linda F. asks:
“How do you stop the bitterness and pain? It’s been five years and I am still lost and hurt. I was shocked one day by a call from the other woman (a convicted prostitute, with a drug addiction, criminal record and several aliases). Before this, everyone (including me) thought this was the perfect relationship. Now, I can’t deal. I don’t want him anymore, but I can’t look at anyone else. It’s really lonely. All of my couple friends have left me. Thankfully I have some strong girlfriends and a great family with two grown children. But it doesn’t help that I lost two good jobs in this terrible economy and now I can’t find work. Do you have any ideas, support or similar feelings?”

Erica Answers: Sounds like you could use a heart-to-heart with Silda Spitzer. Are you in therapy? I would start there. What helped me the most was self-reflection and figuring out my own role in my failed marriage. No, you’re not responsible for his betrayal or sleazy behavior, but there are always red flags that we ignore and denial that we use to protect ourselves.

Ironically, the more responsibility you take for the failure of your marriage, the better you will feel. Taking responsibility is empowering. You move from victim to active participant … which feels a whole lot better.

Another crucial piece is figuring out what happened. Who were you when you got married? Why did you marry this man? What changed over the years? What did you overlook to pretend you had a happy marriage? And, yes, you did overlook a lot. I guarantee it. The more you understand, the better you’ll feel. It helps to read books about divorce. Start with mine of course. I have a good list of other divorce books in my book. As far as looking at anyone else – after betrayal – it’s very hard to trust again. But is there a choice?

Love means taking a leap into the unknown. If you don’t do it, if you don’t risk your heart, you never get the rewards of intimacy. I wish I could help with the job situation, but I’m counting on President Obama to do that.

Have a question for me? I’d love to hear your questions and answer them in my column. Please ask me anything that relates to divorce, either before, during or after. I’m the girlfriend who’s been there, done that and wants to save you a lot of anguish … and a lot of cash. Keep in mind that I’m not a lawyer and can’t answer legal questions, but I’ve interviewed many lawyers and will tell you what I’ve learned if it’s relevant. I also may consult with lawyers and other experts on issues that come up a lot. OK, shoot … Leave your questions in the comment box below or e-mail submit@wowOwow.com (with “divorce doctor” in the subject line). For more information, visit www.heshistory.com or He’s History, You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After 40.

Note: Questions may be edited for length and clarity.

More Articles:

Ask the Divorce Doctor: When the Ex Isn’t Paying

Ask the Divorce Doctor: Why Did he Leave me After 30 Years?

LipStick on His Collar, Hatred in His Heart

Editor’s Note: Erica Manfred, author of He’s History, You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After 40, writes a weekly column at www.wowowow.com.

She answers reader questions about divorce, everything from how to deal with betrayal, to surviving the first year, to dating again, to finding a new career. If you have a question for the “Divorce Doctor,” e-mail submit@wowOwow.com. For more advice from Erica, visit www.heshistory.com.

Thebbs B. asks:

Is there anything I could do to legally force my ex to honor the divorce agreement he signed – without having to come up with a large sum of money for an attorney? I do not have enough money to hire an attorney to prove to a judge why I desperately need him to honor what should be a legally binding divorce decree. (The amount of money that he’s NOT sent to me over the years is approximately $66,000.)

Erica Answers: The answer to this question sucks, but in my state, New York, and in many other states there’s nothing you can do without an attorney – unless you represent yourself, which is certainly worth a try. A divorce is a civil action, and like any civil suit, you can’t collect without an attorney. Not paying child support is a different matter. You can go to jail for that, even though few parents actually do. Visit the court clerk and Legal Aid for help and try representing yourself. You may well be able to get an order to collect the money owed. What have you got to lose? There is probably something you could have done at the time of the divorce, though that’s very little comfort now. But other women could learn from your example: Ladies, if your husband is a sneaky sleazebag who’s unlikely to pay alimony or other monthly obligations to you, get as much as possible upfront in the initial settlement and don’t depend on monthly payments. They’re much too hard to collect.

Linda S. asks:

My partner and I separated last year right before my 50th birthday. Two of our three children (ages 22 and 17) live with me. I have a great support system with my friends; however, I am concerned about meeting new people. All of my friends are married or in long-term relationships. I also had to quit school to look for a job due to the recession. My concerns about meeting new people and finding a job are stressful … So is not knowing about the future. How do you deal with uncertainty and meeting new people?

Erica Answers: It’s really rough to face the world alone after being part of a couple for 20-odd years. If you’re referring to meeting people as in “people of the opposite sex,” don’t despair. You’re in a good age group — right in the middle of the baby boom. There are lots of men in their 50s and 60s looking for you. Put on your sexy jeans and test the waters with Internet dating. You won’t necessarily find Mr. Right No. 2 this way, but you will get some dating practice, which you probably need after being married for most of your adult life. As for finding a job, that’s more difficult. Did you finish school? If not, make that a priority even if you have to borrow to do it. In this job market, education is key. As for uncertainty, none of us really know what the future will hold. We pretend that we do but then death, divorce or another tragedy hits and life is up for grabs. If you see uncertainty as an adventure, an opportunity to reinvent your life rather than only a source of stress, meeting new people will become a welcome challenge.

L. A. asks:

How can I be a good friend to someone going through a divorce?  I have never been married, therefore, never divorced. I have a friend who went through a divorce a few years ago. She doesn’t seem to be over her ex-husband (who left her after two decades for her best friend). At times, she is so emotionally fragile I worry about her well-being. I don’t think she’d hurt herself but she may pursue a not-so-great relationship with someone for the companionship. She also is still attracted to the same type of man – self-absorbed and emotionally unavailable. I’ve pointed out mutual acquaintances that I think would make good partners, but she’s not really interested. I know I can’t force her to like someone, but she describes someone who appears to be very kind and caring as not her intellectual equal. I want to point out that the last “intellectual equal” she dated treated her terribly.

In short, how do I be the friend she needs? How do I know when to be a shoulder to cry on versus when to be a dose of reality? Or when to tell her that she needs to toughen up? Is this even my role? (She sees several therapists each week.)

Erica Answers: This has got to be one of the most frustrating questions there is. How do you help a friend who won’t help herself? Being walked out on after 20 years for your best friend would make anyone emotionally fragile. I think you need to walk a fine line between taking care of yourself and taking care of her. At this point the friend she probably needs is a fun friend, not a shoulder-to-cry-on friend. She has therapists for that. She needs a buddy to hang out with, go to movies and out to dinner with, have a good time with, to get her mind off her troubles. Reassure her that you care about her but try to avoid the heavy heart-to-heart talks. If she brings up the kind and caring guy who’s not her intellectual equal, feel free to point out that the last “intellectual equal” was a rat, and then drop the subject. Don’t try to talk her into seeing the world your way. Hopefully eventually she will recognize that we can’t change other people, only ourselves. It’s a hard lesson but it sure makes friendship (and life) a lot easier.

More Articles:

Ask the Divorce Doctor: Why Did he Leave me After 30 Years?

The Financial Impact of Divorce: There is More to it Than Splitting Marital Assets

Alimony…Should he Pay if he Trades in the Old Model After 30 or 40 Years of Marriage?

Editor’s Note: Erica Manfred, author of He’s History, You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After 40, writes a weekly column at www.wowowow.com.

She answers reader questions about divorce, everything from how to deal with betrayal, to surviving the first year, to dating again, to finding a new career. If you have a question for the “Divorce Doctor,” e-mail submit@wowOwow.com. For more advice from Erica, visit www.heshistory.com.

Jane W. asks:

Why did he leave? My husband just told me he wanted a divorce after 30 years of marriage. He said he didn’t love me anymore, he hadn’t loved me for years, he’d just stuck around until the kids were grown. I was stunned. I had no idea he didn’t love me. We never fought, we agreed about everything, we enjoyed raising our kids, we had fun together. I was looking forward to a wonderful retirement together. OK … so we weren’t exactly passionate, but after 30 years, isn’t that normal? I am mystified and devastated. How could this happen out of the clear-blue sky with no warning?

Erica Answers: Actually there was a warning — you never fought. I just interviewed Terri Orbuch, Ph.D., author of 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great, which is based on her study of 373 couples over 23 years. Predictably, 46% got divorced. According to Dr. Orbuch your question is very common. She says it’s a myth that good marriages don’t have conflict. A lack of conflict means you’re not dealing with things that matter. The key is how the couple deals with conflict. “In general you don’t want destructive conflict with yelling and interrupting and withdrawing, both destructive,” she says. “Happy couples learn how to fight fair.”

Of course that answer is no help now that it’s too late. Or is it? Will he go to counseling with you? A friend of mine is in your situation and her husband has agreed to counseling, where all the anger he’s been storing up for 25 years is coming out. It’s extremely painful for her but she’s hanging in there. Maybe they’ll get back together, but even if they don’t at least she’ll know why her marriage broke up. She won’t make the same mistakes again.

Linda S. asks:

Is there sex after divorce? I’m 58 and my husband of 25 years left me six months ago for a younger woman. I’ve been crying nonstop since he left, but recently stopped crying long enough to surf Internet dating sites. There are some attractive men out there. After years of disinterest in sex (with him), suddenly I’m on fire. Every time a man comes into my office, I start thinking about what he’d be like as a sex partner. Is this normal? Should I start dating so soon, even though I’m still angry and hurting? If I do, should I have sex? I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist

Erica Answers: I went through the same thing after my husband left, although it took a little longer. I was stunned at how those sexual feelings started flooding back after so many years of death below the waist. The danger of sexual experimentation before you’re really over your ex is getting hurt yet again. I fell madly in love nine months after my husband left, and when it didn’t work out, I was devastated. Yes, sex is an escape from the relentless pain of grieving — and it’s a real ego booster to find that men are attracted to you, that you’re still a sexual being. But you’re exquisitely vulnerable at this stage.

Don’t set yourself up for more suffering. We women aren’t great at sleeping around without emotional connection. I’d say go ahead and start dating, have sex if you can’t resist, but protect your heart — take it very slowly. And protect your body — practice safe sex.

Women who have been left for another woman describe the experience in extreme terms:  Stella, sixty-two, whose husband left her for someone else after thirty-three years of marriage was typical:  “ I cried every day for two months.  I still cry two years later.  And railed and screamed in the car and burned his suit in effigy in the backyard, every witchy, crazy, demented thing you can think of.

I drove by their house and hid in the bushes.  I could be at work, get overwhelmed and go into the mini gym and cry and walk on the treadmill as fast as I could until it passed.  I lost thirty pounds but gained ten back.  Jangled nerves, twitching eyes, hyper alert. So sad like you wouldn’t believe.  This is the guy I’d been with since age twenty-three, the only guy for more than half my life and all my adult life.  It was depressing that he was pulling away into alcoholism anyway but this was the coup de gras.”

Carol Taylor, fifty-two, who unknowingly moved her whole family to a different state because her husband had a girlfriend there, says, “I was blindsided, every emotion you can imagine.  Furious, sad, terrified, overwhelmed, guilty because I hadn’t been able to protect my children.

I don’t know why I didn’t see the warning signs, he moved because his girlfriend was in Florida.  The move really hurt the kids.  I cried for two years every day so loud you could hear me in the neighborhood.   I found Al-Anon, they got me through.  It’s a godsend and it’s free—you can go fifty times a week if you need to. “

Romantic rejection actually triggers changes in our brains according to anthropologist Helen Fisher, who has studied the chemistry of romantic love.  Her research was an eye opener for me.  It answered many questions about my own reactions to being cheated on, rejected, and will probably shine some light on yours.

In Cut Loose she describes how brain scans of rejected people suggest that they secrete excess dopamine and cortisol during the initial phase of being rejected.  That’s why rejected lovers get frantic and tend to relentlessly pursue the beloved.  They may also take humiliating measures to reconnect with him, anything from writing letters to storming into the other woman’s home to begging him to change his mind.

Paradoxically, along with the stress and the impulse to protest, abandoned lovers also feel renewed passion.  This has a biological basis.  Dopamine is the chemical in the brain that produces romantic love.  But when love is thwarted, dopamine-producing neurons in the brain’s reward system prolong their activities.  As the beloved slips away, the very chemical that contributes to feelings of romantic love becomes even more potent, creating protest and romantic passion, which impels the abandoned wife to go to extremes to get him back.

I certainly sprang into action as soon as my husband told me he was leaving and tried desperately to hang on to him.  All of a sudden, I felt intense love and attraction for him when previously I’d felt mostly indifference.

If you ever wondered, like I did, where the intense rage that we jilted wives experience comes from, brain chemistry goes a long way to explain it. .  It seems that love and hate/rage are connected in the brain.   The primary rage system is closely linked to centers in the prefrontal cortex that anticipate rewards.   The common response to unfulfilled expectations is known as ‘frustration-aggression.’

In short, when people and other animals begin to realize that an expected reward is in jeopardy, even unattainable, these centers in the prefrontal cortex trigger fury.   Both love and hate produce excessive energy, drive you to focus obsessively on the beloved and cause intense yearning.  They can exist simultaneously, which is why we vacillate wildly between love and hate when in the throes of being rejected.

“You can be terribly angry at a rejecting sweetheart,” says Fisher, “but still very much in love.”  This reaction explains why jilted lovers stalk and sometimes kill their exes, or even resort to suicide.  Men commit the majority of homicides while women may attempt suicide.

Luckily, many suicidal women fail to kill themselves because they’re probably making the attempt to manipulate the rejecting husband into returning.  However, many do succeed even if they didn’t really intend to die.  Even though our strongest drive is survival, the drive to love can triumph even over the will to live.

Eventually these feelings wane and you must deal with another form of torture, hopelessness and despair.  In a study of 114 men and women who had been rejected within the past eight weeks, some forty percent experienced ‘clinically measurable depression..  The expression, dying of a broken heart, is not just hyperbole.  People do actually die of a broken heart.

They expire from heart attacks or strokes caused by their depression.  These statistics probably come from a study of rejection in college students where most psychologists do their studies.  If clinical depression is that common after rejection when you’re just dating, imagine how severe it is after twenty years of marriage.  Fisher compares the process to the infant mammal when separated from its mother.  When you isolate a  puppy in the kitchen at first it protests.  Eventually, however, it curls up in a corner in a despondent heap.

It’s amazing so many of us survive, and actually bounce back to find a better life.  As severe as our response is to grief, for almost all of us the will to survive is stronger.  We’re programmed to forget and go on.  I often think of what it must have been like in earlier days when women lost so many children before age five.  Their grief was just as intense as ours would be at such a loss, but they got over it and bore more children or the human race wouldn’t have survived.  We have inherited this ability to grieve and go on.   The expression “time heals” is very accurate.

Of course, not all of us suffer equally.  How we react depends on many things, including our upbringing.  The same women who deal best with loneliness because they had secure attachments as children, have the self-esteem and resilience  to overcome a romantic setback relatively quickly.

Those of us who grew up in tense, loveless homes where we constantly had to deal with chaos or rejection, are often left with few defenses after being dumped.  Biology plays a part as well. We all know women with sunny dispositions, who always see the glass as half full.  They take everything, including being left for another woman, with more equanimity and bounce back more quickly.

Erica Manfred is the author of He’s History You’re Not, Surviving Divorce After 40.  She has written for Cosmopolitan, New York Times Magazine, Ms., Parenting, Women’s Day, and Bottom Line/Personal.  She currently runs a women’s divorce support group in her hometown of Woodstock, New York.

Divorced Women Online Social Network. The new social network for the divorced or divorcing woman. A safe place to ask advice, share war stories and connect with others who have “been there, done that.” JOIN NOW!

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Here are some wonderful insights and advice on living alone from Florence Falk, Ph.D., psychotherapist and author of On My Own; The Art of Being a Woman Alone

You were divorced and alone, how did you manage to get through the initial period of intense loneliness?

First you must distinguish aloneness from loneliness.  We live in a culture that works to diminish a woman’s sense of self.  We are still stuck with the archetype of spinster which resides in the collective unconscious.  It’s very different from the archetype of the bachelor.  A spinster is seen as a dried up, desiccated, a throw away figure, while the bachelor is seen as debonair and eligible.   Until women grow comfortable and can stretch out into themselves they carry a lot of shame.

It’s very important for women to also meet in communities and understand they’re not alone.  When I give talks I let women know I’m not an aberration because I enjoy living alone.

How did you turn aloneness into a positive?

Aloneness is a neutral state.  You need to take away the coloration—which is almost always negative. When I say aloneness, people hear it as loneliness as if they were interchangeable. The distinction matters.  Aloneness is part of the human condition.  One of the ways we get in touch with ourselves is to really enter aloneness—from there you find your way into solitude.    It is frightening at first, but it gets easier.

How do you reach that state?

Everyone has had the experience of peace walking on the beach, reading, taking yoga, when there’s a lot of silence around you with no distractions.    Our culture is endlessly fueling us to be distracted; it wants us to buy more, use the cell phone, stay temporarily occupied and temporarily satisfied.   You’re bucking that.

You need to figure out what you need in order to feel more comfortable and in connection with yourself.  Solitude is the other side of relationship.  The more you grow into yourself, the more connected you are, the more you’re able to be a good friend and lover.

Women are afraid they’re empty inside.   They come up against, fear and shame and guilt—what did I do wrong so this man left me?    After mourning and grieving the relationship, you need to move into meditation, into a more spiritual life, into doing what you’ve never done before.  If it feels scary, you may need to tiptoe into the experience of aloneness and solitude five minutes worth at a time.

Who has the most trouble with loneliness after divorce?

Women who don’t know how to be alone.  There are women who have never developed an inner life and who are believers in the myth that someone else will complete them.  Those women never look at themselves introspectively; they’re always looking outside themselves to be saved.  When we do that we’re diminishing our own value and asking someone else to do something for us only we can do.

How do you suggest women start learning the art of solitude?

Find and pay close attention to what it is that you find truly comforting outside of food and drink.  Practice yoga, or whatever calms you. Listen to music, take a walk, play with your dog.   Try sewing or knitting.

Do something creative, which is not just about art, it’s about how you’re living moment to moment.   A lot of women love to garden or cook.   Extend the definition of creativity
It can be the simplest thing.  One woman loved idea of going home, making a nice meal, setting the table and making it beautiful for herself.   She created it for herself.

Help other women who are less fortunate, who don’t have resources.  Let’s use our nurturing gifts to help other women.

Erica Manfred is the author of He’s History You’re Not, Surviving Divorce After 40.  She has written for Cosmopolitan, New York Times Magazine, Ms., Parenting, Women’s Day, and Bottom Line/Personal.  She currently runs a women’s divorce support group in her hometown of Woodstock, New York.

Divorced Women Online Social Network. The new social network for the divorced or divorcing woman. A safe place to ask advice, share war stories and connect with others who have “been there, done that.” JOIN NOW!

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Intimate connection = Soul Mate

The idea of soul mates wasn’t much in vogue when I was doing personals dating back in the 70s. Now it has become a cliché, and like all clichés has just about lost its meaning.

My ex-therapist Jim, who is one of the wisest people I’ve ever known, used D.H.Lawrence’s books for illustrations of what love was about. He described one of Lawrence’s couples as having a deep sexual connection that was always there and that was reflected in the way they touched each other, looked at each other, and presented themselves to the world as inseparable.

Lawrence thought sex was the root of our connectedness to a mate. Of course he was a male chauvinist pig, but he did have a couple of good ideas. Plus he chose a brilliant, feisty, highly independent woman as his mate, not a wilting lily, which gives him credibility in my book.

I do believe that there is such a thing as a soul connection, but it’s pretty mysterious because it’s different for each couple. The more levels on which two people connect, the deeper their union becomes. The soul level is the most mysterious, maybe it even has to do with knowing each other in past lives (call me flaky I don’t care). And there is a power balance that must be maintained or the whole thing falls apart.

What was missing from my marriage—and from most people’s failed marriages–is intimacy—another mystery. I thought we were intimate but I was mistaking common intellectual interests, values, sense of humor, and the same outlook on life for intimacy.

Jim described intimacy to me for an article I wrote over 20 years ago—long before I even met my ex husband. If I’d looked at it before I married him I might not be divorced today:

Intimacy has become a psychological buzzword. What exactly is this elusive quality called intimacy? Why is it so difficult to find? Why is our longing for it so mixed with fear?

For lovers intimacy means nothing more than good, direct communication in the context of a sexual relationship. This sounds almost simplistic but the problems in maintaining such communication can be formidable. Intimacy is possible only between two people who have a strongly felt and accurate sense of who they are—people who intuitively feel OK about themselves (this left out me and Ira)

Most of us are hiding something, and we are terrified of being found out. When we search for intimacy, we’re trying to have verified the part of ourselves that we like the best while ignoring and repudiating the part we secretly hate. But intimacy demands that, over time, all of a person be shared with all of another person. It’s not a question of saying everything but of not hiding anything.

This includes sharing our weakest, shakiest aspects—ways in which we don’t feel as good about ourselves as we’d like the world to think we do. Of course, sharing our insecurities with someone else means sharing them with ourselves. And many people find it enormously difficult to look at themselves squarely and face how scared they feel inside. Instead, most people keep trying to find verification of that false version of themselves.

The more narrowly and neurotically focused we are, and the more incomplete we feel, the more we mistakenly believe that intimacy is the answer to identity.

Substituting sex for intimacy

Sex and intimacy tend to get confused in our society where sex is often used as a cheap substitute for intimacy. Sex doesn’t take all that much time and effort, and it allows the partners to fantasize a sense of closeness that doesn’t really exist. In a love relationship sex can deepen what is there but can’t create what isn’t there.

You can have an active sex life without intimacy and you can have an intimate relationship without sex. Sex and intimacy are often not connected at all. Intimacy is possible between any two people who care about each other. What must be there is the willingness to reveal one’s true self, mutual trust and understanding, the sharing of feelings and experiences, the continuity of a relationship that has lasted over time.

For a nation used to working hard for rewards, it is ironic that we expect intimacy to materialize instantly and effortlessly. It takes both time and effort. Two people need months or even years to achieve clarity of communication, a sense of belonging, a sharing of events and time.

Intimacy takes a lot of practice before it becomes second nature. An analogy is watching an Olympic race. When you see the winning runner win, you get an instant sense of the runner’s exhilaration. If you identify with the runner, it’s almost as though you’ve won the race yourself. But you haven’t. She has. And in order to win she’s gone through a lot of changes and continuous self-discipline. There’s no avoiding the process to get the results in athletics. Like any other worthy endeavor, achieving true intimacy takes consistent hard work.

Erica Manfred is the author of He’s History You’re Not, Surviving Divorce After 40. She has written for Cosmopolitan, New York Times Magazine, Ms., Parenting, Women’s Day, and Bottom Line/Personal. She currently runs a women’s divorce support group in her hometown of Woodstock, New York.

Divorced Women Online Social Network. The new online community for the divorced or divorcing woman. Check us out!

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She says:

I’ve found women, especially therapists and other helping professionals,, have trouble forgiving themselves.  They constantly berate themselves with:   “I should have seen it, known it, realized it,”  followed by “I wasted (fill in the blank)  years.”

I tell them to set aside five minutes, set a time and really wallow in it.

Here’s the secret: Really beat yourself  up.  Usually people can only do that for less than three minutes.  By three and a half minutes you’re glancing at the timer.  I encourage women to stay with it because it’s so unpleasant.  When the time finally dings you’re  SO HAPPY!

I assure you these thoughts will creep back later.  But the good news is when they do, most women happily say,  “Honey I already beat myself up over that, I’m moving on.”  And more importantly, they act on that and do.

Gary Egeberg, the author of The Forgiveness Myth says:

“We believe the goal is to heal.  Forgiving him can be a way to heal but not the only way.”

•  Use alternative phrases such as “making a fresh start right where I am, moving on as I keep the focus on myself and my needs.”  Happiness is a product of two things, addressing the hurt and then moving on.

•  Return the focus to yourself.   Any day you’re obsessing about the divorce, or how he hurt or betrayed you, ask yourself: “how can I return focus to myself?”  Forgiveness implies it’s finished once and for all but it’s a long process.

•  Stop referring to him as your ex. That keeps the relationship alive.  Start calling him by his given name.   When you use “ex” language you’re going back to the marriage.  When you use his name he’s another human being you can detach from.   You need distance to heal and move on.

•  Avoid those little putdowns.  Initially they’re a way of dealing with grief, but at some point they help you stay stuck.   Make changes rather than just bitching.

•  Do what you naturally enjoy, reclaim your life rather than have a pity party.  Live your life the best you can and eventually you will heal.

Erica Manfred is the author of He’s History You’re Not, Surviving Divorce After 40.  She has written for Cosmopolitan, New York Times Magazine, Ms., Parenting, Women’s Day, and Bottom Line/Personal.  She currently runs a women’s divorce support group in her hometown of Woodstock, New York.

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My book, He’s History; You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After Forty, is a very candid account of my marriage and how it ended. An Amazon reader gave me a review which took issue with my telling the truth about my husband “without providing him a forum to defend himself” because she thought that would hurt my daughter. I wonder if she thought I should have given him a chapter in the book to tell his side of the story? 

Hey, if we were speaking I might have done that. As it is, I got to exercise the prerogative of the writer—I got to tell my side of the story without consulting him. Is this fair to my daughter? I think so, for the reasons I outline below. I’d love to find  out what you think?
The review was entitled: Dirty Laundry. She gave me one star (I think you have to give at least one star)
    
September 17, 2009

Ms. Manfred takes great care to write about keeping children out of the fray in the case of divorce. Good advice. It’s too bad she doesn’t heed her own counsel. She wrote a self-help book incorporating the story of her life. She wrote about her husband’s alleged adultery without providing him a forum to defend himself. All of this is memorialized for posterity for her child. Why would she want to hurt the one person she claims to care for the most? Ms. Manfred could have written this book without interjecting her own experiences, but then, she couldn’t have exacted revenge on the father of her child.

Here’s how I responded:

If I had written this book without injecting my own experience it would have been a different and much less helpful book. If you take a look at all the reviews they all mention that the inclusion of my experience gives the book the authenticity that makes it so valuable. In fact, I’ve heard from many readers that my book made them feel understood, that I could empathize what they were going through because I’d been there, done that, made the same mistakes they had made but managed to recover. There is no way I could have given readers that kind of reassurance without including my story.

As for my daughter, I wish I had such a book written by my mom about her marriage to my dad. What an incredible gift that would have been. As is, I know little of what she thought or felt during their unhappy marriage. Of course my daughter is free to talk to her father for his side of the story–but this book is part of my legacy to her and I believe it’s a valuable legacy. Who was it that said, “the truth shall set you free?” Knowing the truth can only give her insight into her past. By the way I changed her first name and we have different last names so her anonymity has been preserved.

Erica Manfred is the author of He’s History You’re Not, Surviving Divorce After 40.  She has written for Cosmopolitan, New York Times Magazine, Ms., Parenting, Women’s Day, and Bottom Line/Personal.  She currently runs a women’s divorce support group in her hometown of Woodstock, New York.

More Articles:

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 I have not only been the betrayed wife but the other woman.  I know how it feels to be in both positions.  No matter what they say, being the other woman was a hell of a lot easier.  Or maybe I was just younger then. 

 In college my boyfriend was married AND an alcoholic.  Why would I pick such a loser?   He was incredibly brilliant and dazzled me with his mind.  He was Puerto Rican and liked the way I looked, extra padding and all.  His wife, a boring housewife who didn’t “understand” him or appreciate his intelligence, lived in the boring Bronx with their daughter. 

I lived in glittering Manhattan with a roommate.  His wife wasn’t real to me–she was just an obstacle. Every once in a while he’d move in with me for a few days and I’d be thrilled.   The prospect of having him to myself was exhilarating.  

Eventually his drinking grew old and I stopped seeing him.   I found that I wasn’t attracted to alcoholics and never went out with another one, but married men retained their appeal.  They were older, more sophisticated, and definitely more appreciative.

 When I was 22, right out of college, I worked at the New York City Welfare Department, in a cavernous room filled with rows of wooden desks with linoleum tops.    Michael, a charismatic poet, sat at the next desk.   He was a tall, blond, intense but rather aloof fellow, a couple years older than me, who lived on the lower east side.   

He’d published a few small poetry collections and was well known in the small circle of lower east side artists and writers he hung out with. I was adrift in New York City with no idea what to do with my life but I worshipped the arts and artistic men in particular. To me he cut a powerfully romantic figure.

I’d never considered myself attractive because I’d struggled with my weight my entire life, but had recently lost the same 50 pounds that I’d gained and lost a number of times before, so felt I was at my height of sexual allure and wanted to test it out. It was the sixties and the welfare department was the temporary refuge for artistic types who needed to support themselves.

 I hated the job and spent my days flirting with Michael, practicing my newly acquired powers of attraction.  The only hindrance to our budding romance was his wife, an artist, and their child. His marital status just made him more attractive; seducing him was a notch in my ever-smaller belt.

   Michael and I fell madly in love and had a steamy affair.   I reveled in his adoration of me.  I tried desperately to talk him into leaving his wife, invoking the power of our love. I was a romantic to the core and never questioned that love should always triumph.  It never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with breaking up his marriage.

The women’s movement was in the future and in the meantime I was a child of the sixties who assumed marriage was a bourgeois invention that should be trashed along with the establishment.

 Michael resisted, deeply ambivalent about leaving his wife who he said he also loved, though not the way he loved me.   No mad passion there.   He felt she needed him and was reluctant to just dump her.  His solution was to take a trip across the country—alone—to think about it.
 
 For me it was out of sight, out of mind.  I fell madly in love with yet another romantic writer, an adorable fellow from Montana.  Larry and I took acid, declared our love, traveled cross-country, dropped more acid in Haight Ashbury during the Summer of Love, and then traveled through South America.  

After living together in Argentina for six months Larry grew tired of my hassling him to marry me, and shipped me back home.   I was devastated—for a while—I was mad about Larry and wanted to marry him.

 When I got back I called Michael to see if he wanted to take up where we’d left off.    Although he said he still loved me, the answer was a resounding no.  It seemed his wife, who was pregnant when we’d met, had found out about us and then committed suicide after the baby was born.  She was devastated by his infidelity, and was also undoubtedly stricken by post-partum depression as well, an unknown malady at the time.

 He now had two small children and felt too massively guilty to have anything to do with me again. I was shocked, horrified, but it never really occurred to me to feel guilty about his poor wife—or poor kids– my ethical development was sorely lacking I’m afraid. To my eternal shame I only felt sorry for myself.   No man, no place to live, no job.

 The wheel of karma turns.  Thirty-five years later I wound up a victim of the other woman.   I’m not superstitious enough to think the two were related, but the universe works in strange ways.   Yes, I suffered terribly from being dumped, but I recovered.   I may have contemplated suicide, but I’m just not the type. 

In the end I realized I was better off without him.  My suffering was garden variety.  The one who really suffered was my daughter, Dorothy, who, at age seven wound up in a psychiatric hospital diagnosed with a mood disorder.   She felt abandoned both by me, since I was too depressed to be there for her emotionally, and also by her father who left me for another woman.  

He had been her primary caretaker as well, so that compounded the injury.  She cried every night for a year, and then became progressively more angry, destructive, violent and even suicidal.   The poor kid—whose birth mom had been an addict–really didn’t have the inner emotional resources to deal with divorce.   She desperately needed to be held together, but instead was torn apart.

One day while I was visiting her in the hospital she said, “mommy, I wouldn’t be here if you and daddy hadn’t got divorced.”   My heart about stopped.    Her therapist at the hospital concurred, saying that there wasn’t a kid there who wasn’t a child of divorce, and since our divorce was particularly high-conflict, Dorothy had suffered terribly. 

The hospital shrink virtually ordered us to get along for our daughter’s sake.    I wish I could report that we’ve managed to do that, but we haven’t.  We’ve managed to reach an uneasy truce, which sometimes blows up into all out war.

 The ironies in my life never end, however. The wheel of karma turned again recently when Dorothy starting living with her father and stepmother because  I couldn’t handle her anymore. This woman now has to raise my daughter, and it isn’t an easy task, even though she’s better at it than I am. 

She stays calm while I get hysterical.   However, I know her dream was to have her own baby, her own husband and a cozy family life.  That’s gone to hell since Dorothy is a full time job.    When I don’t feel like killing her, I want to write her a thank you letter.
 
Erica Manfred is the author of He’s History You’re Not, Surviving Divorce After 40.  She has written for Cosmopolitan, New York Times Magazine, Ms., Parenting, Women’s Day, and Bottom Line/Personal.  She currently runs a women’s divorce support group in her hometown of Woodstock, New York.

More Articles:

Self-Loathing and The Cheater
POWER: A Scary Reason Why Some Exes Bow Out On Time With Their Kids
Simple-minded, piggish men aren’t born that way?

Last week I went for the second time this summer to a spiritual retreat in Lily Dale, New York.  Lily Dale is a rather unique spot.     It’s a tiny little village in western New York, near Buffalo, with small gingerbread Victorian and clapboard cottages all crowded together, most with luxuriant gardens.

Lily Dale is known as the “town that talks to the spirits” as it was called by Christine Wicker who wrote a book about it a few years ago.  It’s the home of the Spiritualist Church, a uniquely American spiritual movement that started in the 1800s.  The core belief of Spiritualism is that the dead are among and we can talk to them.   Seances, spirit photography, ectoplasm and other ghostly manifestations  became the rage all over the country at the time  and were a huge phenomena  on into the 1920s when the movement was discredited because phony mediums were ripping people off.

Despite the frauds and their controversial beliefs, spiritualists aren’t crackpots.    From the beginning they were admirably devoted to civil rights and individual freedom, supporters of women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery.   Non-denominational, with no fixed beliefs other than in life after death, they accept members from all religions, and are egalitarian, running the town as a cooperative.  Their two churches have no ministers. Lily Dale is set on the original one hundred acres bought by the Spiritualist Assembly back in the 1800s, so you can walk up and down all the streets in about an hour.

Lily Dale looks miniaturized, as though it’s inhabited by little people, though actually most of the residents are on the large side.   Mediums love to eat.   Vegetarianism hasn’t arrived at Lily Dale yet and neither has Pilates.     In order to buy a house in Lily Dale you have to be a member of the Spiritualist Church, and most houses have signs advertising readings.    There are twice daily “message services” at the “inspiration stump” in Leolyn Woods, a old growth forest with a pet cemetery and fairy houses built by children, where mediums give messages to people from their deceased relatives.   I went to a couple but found them pretty hokey.   Most of the messages were of the “you’re doing great, keep following the life path you’ve chosen” variety;  nothing juicy like, “yes, your wife is having an affair with your brother in law.”   None of the mediums ever called on me to give me a message, probably because they didn’t want to be bothered by my mother who would probably have said, “you can’t possibly believe in this stuff.”

I stayed at the Maplewood, a hotel that’s remained the same since the 1800’s.  You feel like you’ve gone back in time at the Maplewood.  It’s definitely not the Days Inn. The keys are metal, not plastic cards, the reservations are on a huge sheet of paper not on a computer, and there are no TVs or phones in the rooms.   The Maplewood has a huge front porch with rocking chairs all in a row, facing Cassadaga Lake.  On my first morning I walked outside in my bathrobe as soon as I woke up so my doggie, Shadow, could pee, and saw that all the rockers were occupied by Tibetan Buddhist monks in maroon robes.  They’d recently arrived from Dharmsala in India to make a Mandala, which unfortunately I had missed.    The other porch rockers were occupied by a variety of regular folks, from a big guy who looked like a trucker, to an elderly couple from New Jersey, to a systems analyst who was planning to analyze the mysterious photos taken by an Australian woman who had snapped pictures from the porch at night of dots of light in the trees that she blew up into ghostly images, some of which looked like floating orbs and others exactly like fairies.     Maybe it was because Lily Dale was in the middle of nowhere, but the pretentious holier than thou spiritual types I’d run into at other retreats were nowhere to be found. The visitors and residents alike seem perfectly normal, although they believe in ghosts, fairies and spirits.   I suspended my usual cynical disbelief to embrace Lily Dale since it immediately had a soothing effect on me.

I really loved being able to leave the privacy of my room to sit in the front parlor or on the porch with whoever happened to be hanging around.   After dinner I’d hang around with a variety of interesting folks.    As soon as I got home from Lily Dale I felt very depressed and isolated.  I realized how lonely I am at home, where I live alone, with no one to talk to on a regular basis.   I would love to live in a place like Lily Dale, where I could have my own space, but know that there would be friendly people around when I wanted to socialize, right outside my door.   I guess that’s what retirement communities offer, but without the charm and quirkiness of Lily Dale.    Divorce throws you into a life on your own, often a very lonely life if you’re older and your kids are gone—and you don’t have a job and work at home like I do.   There has to be a new way to live but I haven’t discovered it yet.  I’m going to start looking.   I’ll let you know what I find.

Erica Manfred

Other Articles:

Navigating & Moving On After Divorce: Tips For Women Over 40

The Man Of My Dreams Will Lie In Bed & Discuss A Good Book

Best Friends Forever?