The support you receive from lifeline friends is very important and can shorten the time it takes you to adjust to the crisis. Friends are more valuable to you than lovers right now. You can develop friends of both sexes without becoming romantically and sexually involved. Divorce is threatening to many married people, so your married friends may slip away from you.
Maria and I had lots of friends and family around all the time. Most weekends, we’d have a barbecue or go over to her sister’s place or take a picnic with two or three other couples. Since we split up, none of those people ever call me or drop by. How come married people don’t seem to want us around when we’re single?
—José
As we climb the mountain, notice the different ways people handle the problems of friendship. While going through the pain of separation, some people insist on walking alone. They tend to withdraw, and they feel uncomfortable being with anybody else. You will notice others who are continually clinging to each other, as though they cannot be alone for a single minute. Always walking arm in arm, they even plan ahead so that they have no part of the journey to walk by themselves. Note also how few people continue to have any communication with friends from the days of their love relationship.
It appears that we have to find new friends as we journey up the path. In this stage of our climb, finding friends seems to be a very difficult problem.
Did you ever, when you were married, look at your divorced friends with envy and wish you could be part of all of those interesting activities they were into? That you could go to the exciting events that your spouse was reluctant to go to? Well, now you are free! What do you think about the “glamorous” single life now? For most of us, especially when we first separate, the single life is not glamorous—in fact, it is downright lonely and scary.
It is lonely, in part, because we tend to lose the friends we had when we were married. There are four main reasons for this.
First, consider that, when you are ending a love relationship, you suddenly become a possible love partner for one of the people in a marriage. Thus, whereas you were formerly invited to parties and events as a couple because you were safe, now you are a single person and a threat. Suddenly, people look at you as eligible, and invitations to married friends’ events diminish accordingly.
When Bruce was first divorced, he was working side by side with a married woman. One day, three months after his separation, he walked by her desk and she said, “You’re sure a lot more sexy now that you are separated and getting a divorce!” He responded, “I don’t really believe I’ve changed very much, but you’re looking at me differently now. It makes me feel like an object rather than a person.” Though flattered by her interest, he was uncomfortable being cast as a potential threat to her marriage.
The second reason we tend to lose friends is that divorce can be very polarizing. Friends tend to support one partner or the other, rarely both. Thus, we tend to lose the friends who have sided with our former spouse.
The third reason is probably the most important: the fear that “If it can happen to you, it can happen to me.” Your divorce is very threatening to many marriages around you, so married friends slip away. Although you may feel rejected, it is actually their problem, a reflection on them rather than on you. It is likely true that the shakier your friends’ marriages, the quicker they will fall away from you. So instead of feeling rejected, understand that your divorce has caused them to feel insecure about their own marriages. They withdraw from the friendship because they fear divorce may be contagious.
There is a fourth aspect of friendship that is important to understand while you are going through divorce. Although cultural norms around marriage are changing somewhat, married people are still considered to be part of the mainstream, accepted, couples-oriented society that is the cornerstone of our way of life. Divorced people, however, become part of the singles culture—a part of our society that is less acceptable to many. This singles culture may not be evident until you become a single person yourself. To be pushed out of the mainstream couples culture into the singles culture is a difficult adjustment.
There are different standards, mores, and values in the singles culture. People live a little bit “looser,” a little bit freer, as if in a large fraternity or sorority. At a singles gathering, the words “I’m divorced” become a valuable conversation opener, rather than a turnoff. If, as is often the case, the other person is also divorced, you suddenly have something in common and you can start talking to each other. Because the standards and mores are different, formerly coupled people are not quite sure how to behave in the singles culture, and their first reaction can be somewhat of an emotional shock. You think, Somebody’s changed the rules, and I don’t know the new rules!
As you begin to work at rebuilding your friendships, you will find a three-stage process. In the first stage, you are so hurt, lonely, and depressed that you avoid friends unless it is very safe to be with them. The second stage begins when you can at last take the risk of reaching out to people, even when the fear of rejection looms large. The third stage is becoming comfortable with people, finding out that you are okay, and beginning to enjoy people without fear of being rejected.
Recently divorced people frequently ask: “How do I make friends after a divorce? Where can I find someone to date?” The problem is that many formerly married people are out looking desperately for another love relationship, instead of just enjoying the people around them. Your goal for now should be to get to know people; some of these new acquaintances may become special friends or even lovers. But be patient and go slowly. Start by expanding your “pool” of acquaintances. You can meet new people wherever you go—the grocery store; church; classes in computers, tennis, ceramics, cooking, language, or personal growth; community groups; volunteer activities; the library; work; or just out walking the dog. (And, yes, we know that online communities and interest groups offer venues for meeting new people, but we encourage you to connect in person when you can.)
As you do begin to explore ways to make new friends, you’ll find that when you are genuinely interested in the people with whom you come in contact, you send out “vibrations” that make people want to respond. But if you come across as lonely, desperate, and needy, people will not want to be around you.
The vibrations we’re talking about include your body movements, the way you walk, the tone of your voice, your eye contact, your style of dress, and all the subtle ways you show how you are feeling. Experienced people in the singles culture can often tell if you are single by your nonverbal signals. Note that even if you do not intend to do so, you are sending out some sort of signals. Are you inviting others to get to know you?
When you are ready to make friends and feel comfortable doing so, there are some specific steps you might want to take. For example, you can enroll in a Fisher divorce seminar to work on the rebuilding blocks with others. You can check with clergy people, your counselor or therapist, or local colleges or community centers to see if there’s a seminar near you, or some other type of support group you’d be interested in joining.
If you don’t find a group nearby, you may want to start your own with five to ten people who are interested in working through this book together. Meet in one another’s homes. Have a time for work and a time for play; spend some time in group discussion and some time just socializing. Share your common concerns and feelings. It may be advantageous for the group to consist of people who do not know one another, so you will not fall into old patterns of gossip. This kind of group can provide some of the most memorable and enjoyable evenings in your divorce process. There are literally hundreds of divorce recovery groups around the country (and in other countries as well) that meet weekly and use this book as a discussion guide (go to http://www.rebuilding.org to see if there’s one near you).
When trying to establish new friendships after a breakup, we now also have available to us the virtual variety. Let us offer a word of caution, however, in this age of instant electronic friendships. You will find hundreds—even thousands—of opportunities to connect with people online: chat rooms, interest groups, divorce and singles sites, and much, much more. The web is basically infinite. Online friendships can be seductive, but they may keep you from making connections close to home—and that’s where you really need them right now.
So go online for information, for sharing ideas, for broadening your horizons. Join online hobby or activity groups. Take part in chats on topics of interest to you. But don’t let an electronic screen be your primary source of friends. Face your fears and seek out friendships in the world around you. In the long run, they’re likely to be much more satisfying and much more likely to last.
We’ve all read and seen movies and TV shows about e-mail romances, and no doubt there are many that have actually worked out beyond the virtual world. But research shows that the chances are slim that a successful face-to-face relationship will result from an online connection, and the energy (and fantasy) you invest there is likely to detract from your real-world growth.
As for online dating, it’s become mainstream, of course. In fact, with a reputed total of more than 1,500 dating websites, it is now the most common way couples meet. However, the chances of connecting with someone you’d rather avoid are at least as great online as in a bar or at a singles party. The major sites do some background checking, but there are no assurances, much less guarantees, about the caliber of people you’d meet. So check out the online dating sites if that appeals to you, but take care. Consumers Digest examined online dating in 2013 and reported that “all of our experts recommend that consumers who use an online dating service proceed with caution. Awareness is the best defense.”
And speaking of dating…
There is one concept we feel so strongly about that we want to give it special emphasis:
We suggest you not get involved in another long-term, committed love relationship until you have emotionally worked through the ending of the past love relationship.
Getting involved too soon results in carrying emotional garbage from the past relationship into the next one. You would likely marry someone just like the one you left or someone just the opposite. Either way, the chances of the same problems occurring in the next relationship are great.
A healthy process of divorce is well described as “learning to be a single person.” Many people never learned to be independent individuals before they were married. They went directly from their parental home to the marital home. If you have not learned to be a single person, it is easy for you to hide in another relationship. Because your emotional needs are great when you are ending the love relationship, the comfort of another love relationship is appealing. Nevertheless, there is truth in the paradox that when you are ready to face life alone, then you are ready for marriage.
But you do need friends and relationships with potential love partners based upon friendship. If you can build open, trusting, honest relationships with good communication and opportunities for both people to experience personal growth, then you will probably work through the divorce process more rapidly.
Sometimes it is hard to tell whether a current relationship is limiting personal growth. The best criterion might be to ask, “Am I learning to be a single person?” If you feel you are losing your identity because of your love relationship, then you probably need to back off from it. (This is easier said than done in many instances. But we stress again how important it is to get yourself together first!)
We’ll have more to say about growing relationships in chapter 16.
Here is an exciting concept that you may learn for the first time: it is possible to develop a close, nonsexual, nonromantic friendship with a member of the opposite sex! This may be the way it happens for you: You tentatively make friends, but you are very cautious because of your fears of closeness and intimacy. The friendship becomes important, and you suddenly realize that you want very badly to maintain this friendship because it feels so good. You have a feeling down inside somewhere that if the quality of the friendship changes to a romantic, sexual one, it will become less meaningful, not so special anymore. Then you realize that you want to keep this friendship very much and will go to great lengths to invest emotionally so that it will continue to grow. Such a friendship brings a free and exhilarating feeling. It also destroys the myth about members of the opposite sex not being able to be just friends.
There’s an old wives’ tale about this kind of friendship destroying marriages, which you will now recognize as pretty phony logic. There are just as many kinds of friends as there are vegetables; and trying to make a tomato into a zucchini is difficult, if not impossible! You have learned something that will enrich your next marriage if you choose. To have friends of both sexes is one indication of a healthy relationship.
While you are working to develop new friendships, you may also be hearing a barrage of negative comments about marriage in the singles culture. There are people who rant and rave and shout from the hilltops that they will never get married again. They compile long lists of all the painful and negative aspects of marriage. And if there is someone who decides to remarry, they even send cards of sympathy to the couple! You need to realize that these people are as threatened by marriage as some people are threatened by divorce. Perhaps a bad marriage led to feelings that they could never have a happy marriage, so they project their unhappy biases about marriage onto others.
There are a lot of unhappy married people. But much of that is due to individual personalities. Some folks would be unhappy wherever they are; the marital situation may have little to do with it. A marriage, after all, can be no happier than the two individuals in it.
Building a support system of lifeline friends will shorten the time it takes you to adjust to a crisis. We all need friends who can throw us a lifeline when we feel we are “drowning.” A friend whom we can talk with is a real “lifesaver” during a crisis. If you have not developed such a support system, then you need to start doing so—it may save your life.
Children have a problem with friendships also, often feeling isolated and “different.” In some communities, they may think they are the only children of divorce in the whole school. They may not know anybody else whose parents are divorced, partly because children often don’t talk about their parents getting divorced—it is a painful experience for them, after all. Of course, a youngster may go to school and say, “Guess what? My parents are getting divorced.” And these days, other kids are likely to respond, “Welcome to the club!”
Just as their parents tend to become friends with only formerly married and single people, children may begin to seek out friendships with kids from divorced or single-parent families. Some children may withdraw, just as parents withdraw, and shut out all friendships whatsoever. Children who are going through the pain of their parents’ divorce really need friends to talk to, but they may find it difficult to reach out or to discuss personal things. Schools are concerned about this, and many are providing some sort of counseling service to help kids who shut themselves off, whether because of their parents’ divorce or for other reasons. It is a valuable service for children experiencing emotional trauma. (What’s more, it may go a long way toward helping to prevent some of the tragic acting-out behaviors that have devastated many communities in recent years.)
Parents can help their children find somebody to talk to. Maybe it is the time for other relatives to get involved. (Caution: relatives—or friends or neighbors—who are highly emotional and who may have unresolved concerns themselves are not good people for the children to talk to. They are likely to be more concerned with meeting their own needs.) Also, while it is often helpful for children to talk to adults, this is the time that they need to talk to other children of divorce if possible.
We need to be aware and supportive of the needs of our kids as they are going through this process. We can encourage them to become involved with others through after-school activities and community programs. Having friends to talk with will shorten children’s adjustment time, just as it does for the adults involved.
Now might be a good time to sit down off the trail, rest for a moment, and take a look at the people around you. Have you taken the time to get to know any of them, to see them as actual individuals rather than as potential love partners or people to avoid? Do any look interesting enough to have as a friend? You’ll find it easier to make the rest of the climb up this mountain if you have a friend to hold your hand, to give you a hug, and to catch you when you slip. Why not take time right now to invest emotionally in some friendships? If you worry about rejection, remember that that person may want a friend just as much as you do!
Use the checklist below to assess your progress with friendships before you go on to the next chapter. And remember that friendship does not just happen—like anything worthwhile, it takes continuous effort.