Not in MY world...

I never joined a “support group” when my husband and I divorced (not my choice, but really it doesn’t matter). I wanted to, and talked to a group leader about it, but in the end, just didn’t feel comfortable talking about my feelings with a group of strangers. I mean, I could have used it….but I just couldn’t do it. I’ve really never joined a support group for any other thing that support groups have been set up for, though God knows I probably could have benefited from many, starting at my teens. (Think it should be mandatory these days!) However, I have no trouble discussing this particular marriage-ending problem with friends, old or new, because when you know someone who’s shared your pain, it doesn’t seem to matter and also seems to be very helpful.

Discussing this with others who had been similarly been betrayed, well, it just seemed natural. I knew them and they knew me so it was easy to talk, bitch and cry about it while also making pacts to get over it sooner than later. Funny, I can still talk about it with friends who’ve been through similar circumstances, yet the pain isn’t the whole of it now…just the sharing of how we DID get over it and many of those “you gotta laugh or you’ll cry” type of moments that seem to be just right despite past hurts.

Sure, we still like to re-juice the juicy details, comparing notes as to how we felt, how we coped and how we DID survive, and of course, how jerky our men were even while acknowledging our own contributing parts. But there is a still a background pain going on. There isn’t resentment or bitterness, but just an “I can’t believe he did this to me,” before the mutual “I can’t believe I got over this!” Which for many women, has been brutal and life-saving at the same time.

I’ve found it’s always been pretty tough to talk about how you’ve been betrayed, especially with good friends in happy marriages or relationships….it’s like they can’t imagine their own marriages breaking up like that, not in a million years (never thinking that that was how YOU felt too). Nobody really likes to be near someone in a failed relationship, even if it wasn’t their fault. But on the other hand, a broken marriage DOES have two parties, and surely only one can’t be at fault.

When you’re on the receiving end though, and are a woman, there does seem to be an  internal judgment or two…if she was nicer, thinner, prettier, less bitchy, more understanding, less assertive, more passive, more attentive, blah blah blah, not to mention the “poor guy, he’s all alone syndrome.”  I cop to having made the same judgments, ensconced as I was in my “happy” marriage.

Just as when people lose their kids (we all judge THAT) or when others lose their jobs (well, we know they really didn’t work THAT hard) or when the non-drinker gets picked up for a DWI (for sure, they must have been hiding a drinking problem).  Honest here – I have experienced my own share of mental “tisk tisk’s” toward other peoples’ problems even if I never verbalized them. Funny, how many people just won’t admit that.

It really is so easy to judge the circumstances of others, and I am a big internal instigator. But it’s still weirdly nice to discuss your own life’s setbacks with others who have been there, done that be it a lost job, a drugged-out binge or a wayward spouse. Because they really DO understand, and it doesn’t matter how long it’s been or what the reason. It’s just a bit of comfort to know that you aren’t alone, that there is someone who has  probably had it worse than you’ve had.

It’s so easy to judge someone whose home you haven’t lived in or doors you never had the misfortune to live behind…yet it should come naturally to try to understand the life of someone who has lived in a similar house.

We who suffer CAN better understand what goes on behind closed doors because we’ve been the ones on the other side which nobody wants to see. It doesn’t mean that it’s contagious or that our circumstances will rub off. If it weren’t for this type of mutual misery, communication and triumph, I think it would be a very sad world.

Thankfully, however, this country gives a lot to charity in dollars and many more people give of themselves. Yet when it hits too close to home, people tend to run away, while giving their time to animal causes, donating blood, organizing food drives or leading  summer foliage tours because it’s safer than talking about things that they might experience.