3 Women Tell How Self-Reliance Is Born in Sink-or-Swim of Divorce

Is there life after divorce?

Louise sure didn’t think so. When her husband left her after five children and more than 30 years together, she was convinced that her life was over.

Louise, now 57 and living in San Clemente, said she saw her marriage as more than a relationship between two people. It was her career, her identity, the center of her world. She was a wife, she was a mother; beyond that she had no definition of herself.

“I had basically made this man my god,” she said. “All my self-esteem was based on being Mrs. Him.”

Sue, 56, of Laguna Beach had worked at several outside jobs during her 23 years of marriage, “but I didn’t have a career.” Instead, she focused her attention on bringing up her two children. After they left home, she realized for the first time that “there was nothing left of the marriage.”

Desley’s husband couldn’t make up his mind. “He moved out three times before we got a divorce,” said Desley, 50, of Laguna Niguel. Meanwhile, she kept the tumultuous household going, taking on nearly total responsibility for their three sons and putting herself at the bottom of the priority list.

Last week, we heard the stories of estranged and former wives of celebrities who are now trying to help other divorced and separated women through two groups: Divorce Anonymous, modeled after the 12-step formula of Alcoholics Anonymous, and L.A.D.I.E.S., which stands for Life After Divorce Is Eventually Sane.

This week, Family Life readers who have been through marital breakups insist that their own lives are better after divorce than ever before--but not without some painful steps in between.

“I spent four years in total depression,” Louise said. “I had such a need for approval; that was the devastating part. The object of the whole relationship was for me to make him happy. But later I realized that there was no way I can make anybody else happy until I was happy myself.

“I finally had to take a grip. One morning I found myself standing at the kitchen counter, looking through the yellow pages for a place to commit myself. That was the turning point.”

Instead, Louise called a psychologist, spent six months in therapy before she ran out of money and followed up with reading, other research and “a lot of alone time.”

“I realized I wasn’t a whole person; I was so dependent. But I learned that unless I chose to become an independent person, there was not a possibility of my functioning as an interdependent person in any other relationship. I had to learn to take responsibility for myself.”

One important change, Louise said, was moving out of the house she had lived in with her husband and their children, now adults. “I had to make that physical move, because I was still functioning as though he was in my life. When I moved, I was telling myself, ‘Now it’s your turn to start your life.’ ”

As she recovered, Louise said, she told herself other things as well. “I had to look in the mirror and say, ‘I love you, sweetheart.’ ”

Louise hadn’t worked outside the home during her marriage; now she’s on her second (and better-paying) job.

There is no man in Louise’s life now, and that’s fine with her. “It’s not a need, not like there’s something missing in my life. Someday, maybe I’ll get involved again.

“I’m so happy I didn’t go into a relationship right after he left. I would still have attracted the same type of personality, and I would never have come this far,” she said.

Sue left her husband 14 years ago. “The day I left was the first time in my life I had ever spent 24 hours alone. We grew up together, we were married for 23 years. But when the kids left home, there was nothing left of the marriage.

“I thought I would leave for a little while, get my act together and go back. We tried counseling, but after a month he wouldn’t go and I continued.

“I just had this overwhelming feeling that now it was time to pay attention to me. Some of my friends and family thought I was crazy. But I only paid attention to the people who understood what I was going through.

“I’ve learned now that nobody knows how to take care of me better than I do. I hadn’t known that before. I just knew that the people who were supposed to be able to do things for me weren’t. It was like nobody really heard me, ever. That was a lonely feeling.

“But I was never lonely for a minute after I left. Once I was alone, the loneliness went away.”

Sue believes it was easier to leave her husband than it would have been to be left. “I didn’t have to deal with the rejection,” she said. “I felt that years before I left. Someone who is left has to deal with day-to-day living and the rejection.”

Sue is living with a man now, “and we’re very much in love. But I couldn’t have done this without that transition period in between. When I got divorced it was like there was a hole in me, and the tendency is to want to fill that hole with another man. But my instincts were telling me that it wasn’t a man, it was something else--a part of me that had never existed. I had to give it time to grow.”

Desley remembers the night her husband came home and announced that “he had to have a sports car by Sunday night or he couldn’t live with himself. It was a drastic mid-life crisis.

“He fell in love with his secretary, and he kept moving out and back in, waiting for her to leave her husband. Finally she did, and he married her two days after the final decree.

“When he left the last time, it just about destroyed me. But I didn’t realize how bad things had been until he left. Now I can honestly say that the best thing he ever did for me is walk out the door.”

She was awarded lifetime alimony as well as child support for her three sons, the youngest of whom is mentally retarded. Desley also got a job and learned to live on her own.

“I bought a condo, I negotiated the deal myself, went through the process of getting a loan,” she said. “I bought a car--that was worse--I spent the whole weekend wheeling and dealing. But I got what I wanted. I had never done anything like that in my life. My husband always handled those things.”

Now, after six years alone, Desley said her life is “contented and peaceful. I have time to myself, I go dancing every weekend, either with a date or my lady friends.”

Readers

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Are You Unfaithful?

You looked into each other’s eyes once and promised there would never be anyone else. But that seems so long ago now, especially during the stolen moments you spend breaking that vow. Controversial sex researcher Shere Hite reported that most husbands and wives have strayed at some point. Last month, advice columnist Abigail Van Buren--and thousands of her readers--insisted that adulterers are in the minority.

What about you? If you’ve had an extramarital affair, tell us how and why it came about and what happened afterward. Did your marriage survive? Would you do it again? What advice do you have for those who haven’t yet strayed or for those who are considering it?

Or maybe you’re on the other side of the issue, the wife or husband who has been betrayed. Did you suspect? How did you feel when you found out? Have you forgiven your spouse? Or is yours an “open” marriage, in which adultery is acceptable?

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