***I posted this yesterday and immediately felt something was wrong. Turns out, I was wrong lol. In the original post I made very inaccurate claims regarding a beloved and badass woman and for that I am deeply sorry. Offering up as an explanation, but not an excuse- in therapy we are opening some long-locked doors and my brain, which on the best of days resembles closing night at Coachella, now is more like a packed theater right after someone has yelled out FIRE. Dates and timelines of events are screwed up more than usual and in my haste to get a very impulsive post written I failed to do the right thing and run it by the one sane part of my head, The Fact Checker. So. I apologize profusely and humbly and with a bunch of shame. Truly my bad. ***
Back when I first started this blog, in 2010, there wasn’t much out there about divorce. Oh, sure, there was a little. Most of it was centered on reconciliation, getting your man back, etc. There wasn’t a whole lot of honest, upfront writing about how divorce really felt.
In fact, the only other woman I could find out in that toddler-aged internet was Single Mom Survives. Found her on Twitter and reached out after reading a few of her posts. We had a lot in common: ex husbands who cheated on us, left us for the affair partner (according to literally everyone back then “they never leave” LOL), raising a child on nothing much more than wishes and dreams. Her ex even got remarried on their original wedding date, just like mine!
When you’re dealing with a life altering blow like divorce, you just want to know you aren’t alone. And when it’s divorce due to betrayal, it’s even more important to find your peers. All divorce is tough but the ones that are born out of lies and fuckery are decidedly jagged little pills (all hail Alanis, please). It makes you become an analytical mofo to the nth degree. It takes your self esteem, makes a thousand little cuts in it, and rolls it around in a bed of salt. That shit hurts. And while you’re out there, bleeding and raw, you’re expected to show up. Like, daily. Show up for your kids, show up to work, show up in court. Show up and suck it up and be a good little lady who is “so strong” and “so brave”.
So I started writing. It felt weird at first, exposing myself and my shitacular life to dozens of people. But then it started feeling GOOD. Like, it helped. It became a release that I didn’t know I needed. It was like sitting in a living room with a bevy of friends, only the living room was massive and had no walls, no ceiling. The friends came and went, some stayed longer than others and some barely had time to find a spot on the couch. But for me, it was life changing, this blog. Even though Melissa McCarthy never read it and called her agent to play me in the HBO limited series, even though Nora Ephron never sent an email saying “nailed it, queen”, even though Reese Witherspoon hasn’t called Jennifer Aniston and said “girl check this out, she got divorced at the same time you and Brad did”. Even though none of that happened, so much did happen.
It was kind of lonely out there in the blog world. In a dizzying, crowded web full of messy bunned, stay at home mommies hiding in their pantries while eating Ben and Jerry’s and bitching about their hapless husbands, we divorce ladies were relegated to our own little category. Literally, The Divorce Bloggers.
The world doesn’t exactly welcome women who don’t have an uplifting tale to tell. The world doesn’t want to know, intimately, how it feels to be gutted and left for dead by the person you trusted the most in this world. Ugh, right? It’s just so messy.
And so we kind of kept to ourselves. Sometimes, our essays and posts got attention and that was great! I was featured on Scary Mommy a bunch of times, which was an absolute trip. It felt like the big time, baby! There were only a couple of us in the SM stable who wrote about divorce. It was me and another woman. She had one of those glossy divorces, the kind where you end up with killer alimony and the luxe marital home. I was the poor one, lol.
If you think the world is not kind to women who are angry, let me tell you this: it’s even unkinder to women who are angry and broke.
So there I was, a poverty stricken, pissed off blogger. I wasn’t Dooce, I wasn’t The Blogess, I wasn’t any of the cute, smooth and witty writers who filled auditoriums for bloggy awards and conferences. Like the real world, the blogging world wasn’t super kind nor was it particularly welcoming. People didn’t want to peek behind that ugly curtain, the one where life tastes less like premium ice cream and a lot more like a big ol shit sandwich. We divorced ladies were like distasteful reminders of what could be, we cast light into dark corners which most of the world wanted to be kept in the shadows.
We represented the worst case scenario.
I fumbled a few times, and a couple other times, hit it out of the park. Going viral was not on my to-do list, but it happened a few times. I deeply regret one of those- the tongue in cheek yet supremely gross post about what women need to stop saying after a certain age. I meant it as satire and it came out as an ageist piece of shit. The other ones, zero regrets. Pleading with mothers to not let their daughters be stay at home moms, recalling my first trip to the food shelf, and telling my ex husband exactly what he missed- those are all keepers and so far, I’m not embarrassed by them.
As time wore on, more of us began emerging. One woman in particular stands out- Tracy, aka The Chump Lady. If you’re a divorced, cheated on woman, you have probably heard of her. If you haven’t, you should. She has made a huge difference in the lives of so many people. Her loud and funny voice, and her well written and powerful book, have helped countless people who previously felt unheard and alone. Brava, my friend. Thank you for being you.
Remember when all the bloggers started talking about how sometimes they hated being moms? That was considered groundbreaking- startling too! And then all of a sudden it started becoming a thing to talk about mental health. Again, groundbreaking. Everyone was depressed! Anxiety became famous! Everyone, this divorce blogger included, had at least one facebook post featuring a sad faced selfie and words about not feeling happy. FINALLY. We were putting down the ice cream and picking up some real life.
The same thing is happening with divorce now, too. In my little private Hausfrau group, someone mentioned yet another former Mommy Blogger getting divorced. And it got me thinking about the old days and not being able to find other voices that kind of matched mine.
While it still chaps my hide, just a little, knowing that less than a decade ago writing about divorce wasn’t considered cool or significant…I’m glad to see it’s not so taboo now.
Because divorce is that club, man. It’s a club that’s existed for an eternity and one that will forever be welcoming new members.
I’m not happy to hear of yet another marriage biting the dust but you know what?
Imma scoot over here on the couch and make some room. Someone new needs a place to sit.
*photo is the crappy little Chromebook that helped me survive. Thank you, crappy little Chromebook ❤
