After divorce, maintaining the bonds to the family you don't want to lose
Divorce doesn't necessarily have to mean losing the family you married into but I've discovered there are a few foundational elements to keep those connections close.
When you are divorcing after a long marriage—over three decades, in my case—there isn’t just the severing of legal ties with your spouse. There is the distressing prospect of losing valued connections with the family you married into: your spouses’ parents, his or her siblings and their husbands and wives, nieces and nephews, cousins. People that I love and grew into my adult self alongside, sharing weddings and births, baptisms and funerals, birthdays and vacations. Countless family dinners.
Marrying a man from another culture, another country, and moving there in my late 20s, I was in new and uncertain territory, not even speaking the language at first. His family embraced me with unquestioning love and acceptance. I cherished our closeness. The fear that the divorce would break those bonds caused me another layer of sorrow.
I knew that my decision to initiate the divorce was causing his siblings pain and they were concerned for their brother. And I knew that my ex-husband needed to lean on his siblings for support. (His beautiful and beloved parents had died several years earlier, tragic losses I am grateful we were able to endure together).
But one day several weeks into the decision to divorce, I decided to write my brother-in-law and sisters-in-law, my “sisters-in-love,” as we have come to call each other over the years. I explained honestly and vulnerably the reasons I initiated the divorce, conveyed my deep love for them and that nothing would ever change that for me. To my great relief they wrote back in the same loving way: with regret for what had happened but with understanding, too. They confirmed that our bond was intact. My ex, to his credit, played a part in this, not wanting me to lose these relationships either.
Five months after the divorce was finalized, last summer, my ex and I attended a family wedding on his side of the family. It was a bit awkward as my ex and I orbited around the room, no longer part of the same constellation. I felt both joy and a momentary sadness as I watched the beautiful young couple take their vows, thinking of the promise of that kind of love.
I had been a bride once, too, and it didn’t seem so impossibly long ago. I think of myself on my wedding day, and wonder now, how had I been so sure? I was only twenty-nine. I hadn’t been sure of anything, how could I be? It was a leap of faith.
In initiating the divorce thirty-three years later, I was taking another leap of faith. And this time the vow was to myself. I was my own bride. The poet
captures this so beautifully in her poem, “Bride,” originally published in The New Yorker (which you can hear recited by the poet). She also writes about the genesis of the poem in her Substack.
(And for more on Smith’s own divorce reckoning, profoundly told in her memoir We Can Make This Place Beautiful, listen to this recent episode of author Dani Shapiro’s podcast “Family Secrets” from her interview with Smith on the stage of the Miami Book Fair in November 2023).
But even if I had “broken” the vow to my ex-husband (which was much more of a slow dissolving over time than a breaking), I hadn’t lost everything. We had waded through the muck of divorce to emerge as friends and as an added blessing, I could still count his family as part of my own. That’s no small thing.
When I reflect on what allowed the bonds with my ex’s family not to fray, I think it was the foundational elements we had for one other of love and respect, and their willingness to try to understand my perspective. The honesty and vulnerability I brought to the conversation opened up space for them to do the same. After a lifetime of avoiding difficult conversations, I was diving straight into them with greater confidence.
There are blood ties and there are love ties. I am grateful that I can count on the love of people with whom I have shared so much living and that we remain part of each other’s stories.
Questions for readers: If you have gone though a divorce, how did you navigate the experience as it relates to the extended family? And does the poem “Bride” speak to you as it did me?
Three Songs for 3D
Divorce
“Lovely,” Sara Haze
Dementia
“Unforgettable,” Nat King Cole
Destiny
“I am Woman,” Meli
This is a testament to two very special people and their families; congratulations to you both to making this side of things work. Still work in progress, here. Thanks for sharing Amy 🧡
I resonate very much with this maintenance of family ties to "wasband's" < my preferred term for former husband, courtesy of Megan Wells. I'm grateful our marriage ended amicably and his family understood my perspective. Much of the behavior/choices which broke the marriage they'd experienced from him too. I also learned a lot about how I wanted to show up & things I wanted to change about how I interacted in relationships.
June 2022, I was invited and attended my wasband's 3rd wedding. It was beautiful! And his entire family was so welcoming! As were several mutual friends. I was/am eternally grateful D invited me. His brother said to me, "we've always loved you and always will."
As for being one's own bride, I "married" myself at a regional Burning Man event called Figment summer 2011. It was deeply meaningful. Each bride (or groom) was invited to choose a ring (to keep) and write their own vows spoken to oneself in front of a mirror while witnessed by an adoring celebrant. The experience always stats with me, especially as a 56 year old woman who often chooses "singlehood" and has taken herself to 30 countries solo. I love to take myself to dinners and events. This is all to say, being one's bride is powerful!