by Sunny | Mar 22, 2021 | Divorce, Hope, Letting Go
I feel lucky to have been married.
It was a sunny and humid day. I was meeting up with a friend and one of her friends was pet-sitting at a house nearby.
“Let’s go hang out with her there, and relax in the pool,” my friend suggested.
“Sure. I won’t swim, but I’m down for hanging out,” I replied.
And as it goes when women get together, the topic inevitably heads towards men and relationships.
My friend’s friend was filling us in in her dating woes, and the two of them were having a fun time in the pool reading texts from one guy, while I was sitting on a lounge chair in the shade, listening to them.
After a while, the friend turned to me and asked me my current dating stories.
“I’m divorced,” I said, “and not currently in a relationship.”
Her eyebrows raised.
“Whoa, ok. So you actually went through the whole marriage schbang already. You’re way ahead of us. You don’t need to get married again if you don’t want to.”
I don’t remember what I said to make her come to this conclusion, but she was right.
I DON’T have the need, or the urge, to marry again. Because I’ve already done all that once.
Marriage is like a rite of passage. Mostly everyone thinks about it in some form or another, waiting for the day it comes his or her turn. Maybe women more than men.
The location, colors, number of bridesmaids and groomsmen, WHO’S going to be the bridesmaids and groomsmen, who to invite, what decorations, what kind of flowers/entertainment, chicken or fish… all that jazz.
I already went through all of that.
And frankly, given the two status choices at my age, to be divorced or not having been married before, I feel lucky to be the former.
Because those who have never been married, and who want to be, seem to have this intense yearning, especially as the years go by.
The longing, the desperation, the uncertainty of will it ever happen, all those emotions just swirling around.
That’s why all these reality shows about finding love are such a hit. Indian Matchmaking. Temptation Island. Bachelor/Bachelorette. 90 Day Fiance/Before the 90 Days/Pillow Talk/Whatever-Else-Spinoff.
It’s entertaining but also tugs at our heartstrings as well. Who doesn’t want happy endings for those people searching for love? Because they aren’t paid actors. They are regular people just like us, who go through ups and downs, and at the end of the day, we just want them to be together and happy so it gives us a bit of hope that we will eventually find our own too.
Because I’ve already went through the rite of passage, even though it’s no longer, I feel so much freer. There’s less pressure from myself to get hitched, and a lot easier to buck societal convention and think about what I truly want.
Do I even want to get married? Or have kids? Or live according to widely accepted principles?
And honestly speaking, it seems the status of divorce is slightly higher than the single-never-been-married status.
It’s bullshit thinking, but as one gets up there in age, society puts them in categories. If you happen to be someone who’s supposed to be married but not, and you’ve never been, society deems you as something inferior.
Being married at a certain point somehow makes you more capable and smarter. Maybe because it seems like someone actually found you worthwhile to marry, and so the thinking is you can’t be that bad of a person. And because of that, you should be smarter, more capable and responsible, able to make better decisions, etc. The halo effect.
My ex-husband used to say his clients and boss take him more seriously when they see a ring on his finger. I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it now.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of hardship and stigma for a divorced woman too, especially a divorced woman at a certain age, who’s not remarried or partnered up, and with no kids. My thoughts and opinions are second-guessed; people think they can encroach on my agency and say I should do this or feel that based on my status.
It used to bother me what conventional society thought, and that’s one of the things that made me stay in the relationship far longer than I should have. But now, I’ve learned to thicken up my skin and internalized that sooner or later, everyone dies. Even the judgmental ones. And when I’m on my deathbed, I don’t want to look back and wonder what my life could have been if I was brave enough to follow my heart.
Bucking norms was a really hard lesson to learn, and going through it without much support was extremely tough. But, I’m proud of my resilience, and I’m proud of finding my dignity more and more through loving who I am instead of relying on external validation.
In choosing between divorced or never been married, I feel lucky to be divorced.
by Sunny | Feb 16, 2021 | Culture, Divorce, Shame, Uncategorized
In early 2015, I was divorced from my husband.
It was clean, in terms of assets. It was a short marriage and relationship, so we didn’t amass too much, and we didn’t have kids. He didn’t want to contest anything, which I much appreciated. I can’t even imagine having to fight and drag this out in court, while my life seemingly ended.
Truthfully, though, this marriage should have ended long ago, maybe not even have happened. Escalating commitments and a strong desire for this not to be a failure was what kept me going. I was afraid, afraid that if it did not last, I would experience something again that played a huge role in my life growing up. It shaped most my decisions, and even the anticipation of it kept me on path, however wrong.
That something was shame, and I’m all too familiar it.
When I was 7 or 8, my parents separated. We were the first family I knew that had divorced parents, much less the first Asian family.
It was a tumultuous time; I didn’t know what it would mean for us as a family anymore. None of the adults talked to my older brother and I to try to make any sense of it for us. It was probably thought that it was best not to involve the kids, as we may not understand anyway. But I remember the feeling of someone talking about you behind your back. The hushed tones and quieting up when you come into a room. That feeling.
And, I acutely remember instructions from my aunt. She was the only person who ever mentioned my parents’ divorce to us, just so we would know what to say, or not say.
“Don’t tell anyone your parents are divorced, or they will make fun of you. They will make fun of you that you’re from a broken family. If anyone asked where your mom is, just say she went on vacation.”
Laughable now, but that was the beginning of the long road of internalizing shame.
She could have never known that, while trying to protect us and upholding her values, she set off a decades-long, deep-seated feeling of inferiority and not belonging within me. After that, I hoped to God no one would ever ask me about my parents, because then I’d have to lie. It didn’t feel good to lie. So a few times, I told the truth.
The reactions, especially from other Asians, confirmed my aunt’s truth. They didn’t make fun, but they were shocked. Then, always the awkward silence, and the look of pity. And that didn’t feel good either.
I kept that shame with me wherever I went. I never learned the skills to fight it, as Asians do not believe in mental health disorders or getting therapy. You just dealt by not thinking about it, by numbing, hoping the passage of time would heal all wounds. Seeing my dad today, I venture to say it’s largely true. He’s no longer bitter, but it took him a long time to get there, and during that process, he unloaded an unhealthy amount of baggage on me. It was too much for a barely-tween to handle.
In 2010, I met my ex-husband. Red flags and gut feelings surfaced, but I just dismissed them, not wanting to rock the boat. More arguments would inevitably lead to the divorce discussion, and that was a topic best kept at bay.
And so I soldiered on… longer, harder than I ever have before, until I physically and mentally just couldn’t anymore. I remembered looking at myself in the mirror, and thinking that I was just a shell of who I used to be. I no longer was that vibrant, laughing, silly girl. It was in that moment, that I decided the pain of staying was far greater than the pain of leaving. And so I left. But I knew the real battle was about to begin.
In my mind, I had already begun prepping myself for when I was to face my family. I consoled myself, telling myself that in a couple of years, when the dust settled, no one would even remember and blink an eye. No one would see you as a failure and an embarrassment. More importantly, no one would die from your dishonor, from your family sustaining yet another divorce, from you being over 25 and now unmarried, which solidly classified you as a leftover woman in Chinese culture. A divorced leftover woman. Basically used goods.
It was easier said than done.
I was living overseas with him, and did not tell my immediate family I was back stateside, for good, until about a month in. I couldn’t. No matter how logically I thought about it, there was no way to override that emotional imprint that shame left when I was a kid.
Not only that, people carried the shame for me. My mother, not wanting her coworkers to see me with her, lest they ask questions. My family not talking to me about it, or talking to me about anything. Awkward silences.
That is shame at its best: silencer, isolater, inferior complex.
I decided this time around the shame outcome was going to be different. I am older, and have much more resources available. The next few years, I took my time to really unpack it. I no longer want shame to tag along wherever I went. I wanted to finally live my life for me, hold my head up high and know that a broken marriage should not, and does not, define me. I wanted to break the cycle and not give it the power it clearly does not deserve. The journey was tough and intense, but needed to happen.
I won.
Today, shame is no longer my shadow. This past Thanksgiving, my aunt… the same aunt who long ago unwittingly set my path of shame in motion, also the person I love and respect the most in this world… spoke about my divorce to me in hushed tones along with some hurtful words. She did not mean to hurt. She was actually being very loving, loving in the only way she knew how. Because I’ve since let go of shame presiding, I was able to take what she said in stride, which was meant for my best, and no longer feel the burden to carry.
The divorced status brought me down, but also set me free.
*Sunny is a Medium writer who writes about persona growth and spirituality. You can read more of her stories here on the Turning Point.
