Divorce is worse than death...

[LittleMinnow]

Hey everyone,
I wrote this little bit about how I think that divorce is worse than the death of a spouse or fiance in my story "my husband left me on my birthday", and it got a lot of responses, so I thought it might be helpful to some other people.
Let me just preface this with the fact that I've gone through the death of my fiance who was terminally ill and needed a lung transplant. We were only 100 days away from getting new lungs when he was hospitalized. He died six days later. Those were the hardest, must gutwrenching six days of my life, because he was my soulmate. We loved each other wholly and selflessly. In his last hours of life, he wrote me a note. I could not read the handwriting until two days after he died. He said that he would quit if it weren't for me. He was ready for heaven if he needed to be, and I would be part of it when he went. In his last hours, he was more concerned about letting me know that he was okay and that he loved me than anything else in the world. I had to make the heartbreaking decision to 'pull the plug." Anyway, it was the hardest thing I'll ever do in my life watching my angel die, seeing him grow weaker and weaker over the months, see how hard he had to fight just to breathe. I loved him more than I thought was humanly possible. So don't doubt that my heart is beat up, that I mourn and grieve every day (it was 6 years ago).
But divorce is a different hurt. A mean hurt. Here's my thoughts about it.

In many ways, divorce has been harder on me than my fiance dying. Hear me out....
My fiance didn't leave me, abandon me, betray me. He died with love in his heart for me. Right before he died he told me that heaven was wide open spaces, blue skies, horses, dogs, green fields, AND ME IN HIS ARMS FOREVER. (Romantic eh?)

My fiance is gone, but I love him and he loves me.

Break up and divorce is a loss too, but it's a betrayal of love. Full of mean spirited words and feelings, jealousy, ill-intent, betrayal, abandonment, and disrespect. It hurts in a whole different way. A heart shattering way that seems to say, "HA I tricked you! Made you think I loved you, but I really don't." That kind of hurt that makes you feel like a turtle with its belly exposed. The kind of pain that makes you grow a turtle shell over your heart....
Death makes your heart ACHE and throb and cry with sorrow and lonliness and LOVE.
Divorce WRECKS your heart, makes you put barb wire around it to protect it from other people who don't know how fragile a heart is.

Anyway, that's my thought on the pain of divorce/break up. Any takers???

[bluesman]

Hey LittleMinnow,

I don't know how to get your quote highlighted, but your words are so right:

Break up and divorce is a loss too, but it's a betrayal of love. Full of mean spirited words and feelings, jealousy, ill-intent, betrayal, abandonment, and disrespect. It hurts in a whole different way. A heart shattering way that seems to say, "HA I tricked you! Made you think I loved you, but I really don't." That kind of hurt that makes you feel like a turtle with its belly exposed. The kind of pain that makes you grow a turtle shell over your heart....
Death makes your heart ACHE and throb and cry with sorrow and lonliness and LOVE.
Divorce WRECKS your heart, makes you put barb wire around it to protect it from other people who don't know how fragile a heart is...


I was taking care of my wife for couple years...had to come home to give IV's on lunch hour, take off work for hospital stays / doctor visits and take care of our daughter...we went through the procedure to get approved for liver transplant and were told we would have the "pager" in a couple weeks...
I had to take her to ER room from breathing difficuly and they drained fluids from her lungs...she felt better, told me to go home (her mom was still there)...came back next day and they had the "tube" in her throat...saw her eyes brighten up as I came in and held my hand to her face...then they had to sedate her...she lasted another 6 days...the doctors woke us @ 4:30 in AM and told us what would be happening soon and we had to make decisions...

I finally (about 4 years later) found someone I was so happy with...but when I got dumped for someone else, it hurt worse than having my wife die...I even wanted to ask her (dumper) "if this was somekind of cruel joke"...


you described it perfectly...

[Trying2Hope]

Thank you guys for sharing.  I have been wondering this for quite some time now.  My divorce hurt so bad, I had often thought that it might have been a little less humiliating and I would have a little more of my dignity if she had just passed away.  I have been thinking that thought and hating myself for it for a long time.  Thank you for justifying what I've been feeling.

I'm sorry for both of your losses.  It brightens my heart, though, to know that you both found love and it truly lasted (and will last) even through death. 

Divorce has made me feel like a laughingstock, a loser, a rejected piece of crap.

I guess that's what's missing in a relationship that ends in death ... rejection.  You know that no matter what, even when faced with death, that you did the best you could and you weren't rejected.

Once again, thanks for sharing. 

[Rotteninphoenix]

i have often wondered this also... i would imagine if she died all of a sudden in a car accident, knowing she loved me.  I strongly believe i would be able to haddle it better... Man that sounds horrible but it is the truth.  Or if some one hurt her in any way i would have given my life to get revenge for her sake.  i wanted to be her knight in shinning armor, not her fool who got played.  Maybe that is why my favorite movie is BraveHeart, a story of a man who goes to death seeking revenge for his wifes death....

Knowing she cheated, tricked, and ruined my life is killing me emotionaly....

i am also sorry for both of your losess,

[hudson]

Divorce has made me feel like a laughingstock, a loser, a rejected piece of crap.

I guess that's what's missing in a relationship that ends in death ... rejection.  You know that no matter what, even when faced with death, that you did the best you could and you weren't rejected.
 

I'd say that explains it quite well.  In addition, death is a natural act, we all have to face the realities of death at sometime in our lives.  But with divorce, everything about it feels unnatural and wrong. Divorce is the unnatural cessation of something that should culminate in death.  Divorce creates an incredible inbalance in so many aspects of our lives so every aspect of our lives needs to be examined in order to get it back into balance.  Divorce=chaos.

My two cents.

[reck]

In many ways, divorce has been harder on me than my fiance dying. Hear me out....

I always thought that from day one a year ago and its good to see someone who confirms that who has been through both .....you have truly experienced all permutations of hell, my sympathies.
I have always believed I would have dealt better with my exs death …knowing she still loved me, and only having good memories and feelings to live with……instead I have only betrayal, lies and the self doubt of my own judgement that I didn’t see what she was really like after sharing our lives together for over a quarter of a century…..and haunted by her ghost possessed by this new "stranger" because of our kids.     
But having said that I still feel like im a "widower"….i still love the memory of who I thought she was and what ever I do I cant connect that person with the "new" .......i miss her

[Carl Spackler]

Agree 100%.  With divorce, spouses, at least the cheating ones, leave out of choice. A death of a spouse due to illness or accident is not by choice.

[jojo]

thank you for writing that i have felt quite guilty about this subject...
My friend died in oct last year aged 23 she left her partner and two children under 5..When we were in the church everyone was saying how is he gonna cope etc etc and i though 'hows he gonna cope, he doesnt have to think of her with someone else he knew she loved him and he never has to see her again......' I sat there feeling soooo bad for thinking this and just wanting my stbxh to hold my hand' Then I thought he just wants her to hold his hand and she never will again and felt even worse...
Why dont people see that divorce is a death its a living death for a long time...
I'm still very emotional about this and I'm glad someone who has been through both as the guts to say what it is like...
Thank you for helping me feel that I am not a bad person.
I too am sorry for both your loses deathwise and divorcewise.
with love
jojo x

[reck]

Just as an after thought....i wouldnt myself articulate these thoughts anywhere except here or to someone with a like situation....they would never understand not having gone through it.

[Kermie (PQ)]

That was one of the first things I was told when I found out my ex wanted to leave me. "Divorce is worse than death because you don't have to see them living their lives happy without you." Don't remember who told me just remember hearing it.

[iron man]

"Divorce is worse than death because you don't have to see them living their lives happy without you."

I think that probably nails it PQ.. having gone thru the death thing and now the separation thing.. this IS far worse.. she moved two f-ing blocks away.. i guess she thought I needed a sharp stick in my eye or something but moving close by would be a good substitute.

[sylvia3113]

I'm so glad to read this.  No one in my family has been divorced.  No one understands and nothing I can describe about what I am going through can make them understand.  I remember telling my mother "this would be easier if he were dead, if I have to be without him at least then I wouldn't have the rejection".

I think about this alot.  I'm not sure why.  I certainly don't wish him ill and I don't think any of us are implying that, but I can understand the sentiment here. 

[SS]

Wow.  You have a wonderful way with words. 

I have often said that when someone choose to leave you - in a way it is almost worse than death.  I spoke of that in regards to my father abondoning me.  I had always thought it would be easier if he died - knowing he still cared for me except for living that he made conscience choice to remove his daughter from his life.  So I definately can understand and sympathize with what you wrote.  Excellently written.

I am sorry for your loss.

SS

[imisshim]

i told my soon to be ex husband this...
i said you know this would be so much easier on me if you were dead...
and he was like.. huh!! and i was like well then i would know that you loved me until you died... like OUR VOWS said you would... like you promised that you would.. instead of dumping me for the first bimbo with a big butt that comes along....

he also told me all the time that he loved me...
lier
he told me that he wishes he dies first so he doesnt have to live without me
lier

god..... i want to hate him so bad
but i cant
whats wrong with me

[nrsgirl]

It is so strange for me because just this morning I was thinking to myself that the death of my fiance was worse than this "break up" which has me a total mess. But when I read your words about how loss through death keeps you believing in love, its an ending "in love" rather than through all this hate that we go through with relationships ending, you sort of changed my mind. After my fiance/best friend died in 2002, my heart was so overflowing with love I still had for this man that I lost that I completely rebounded it to his best friend, who I immediately became involved with and lived with for three years afterward. The problem is that the friend wasn't even half the man my fiance was. ANd it came out over time. And all the love in my heart, there was so much! just got stomped on over and over until my heart became stone and now I cant seem to "un-stone" it. Its grief I guess, just a different kind. I wouldnt trade the memories of my love who died at 38 for anything in the world. If I could do it over and avoid the relationship that followed, I definitely would. I could never not be grateful for having the love of my life for eight years, though he died when I was 27. Still, I had the love of my life that some people never have, and had the experience of being cherished and loved in a way that some people never do....