Divorce parties and shifting worldviews

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-04-2005
Divorce parties and shifting worldviews
11
Mon, 03-14-2005 - 9:14am

Hi everyone!

I havent been around in a few days but here I am and I wanted to share some thoughts I've been having.

Yesterday I got a flat tire (again!). I was at STBX's house. I had just dropped off the kids and was about to leave when I discovered I was totally flat. A few months ago I had a flat tire when I was out and I called STBX to come help me, which he did. Later that day I was talking to my father, we'd had a few drinks, and he expressed that he wished I had called him instead and that he was disgusted that STBX didn't buy me a new tire. He told me that he was going to buy me 3 new tires to match the one I just replaced (which he did, later that week.) My softhearted father, as you can gather, is heartbroken over what STBX did to me. Ok, back to the present. Here I was at STBX's house and I called my father to come help me with my tire. I had this wierd sense of stepping out of myself and looking at the situation. I realized that I have made a serious psychological break with STBX. I no longer look to him. It was a freeing feeling.

Also, got my hair cut this week. My hairdresser also works at a fancy restaurant on the waterfront. Too expensive for me to eat at, but they have drinks and appetizers and, with warmer weather, live music. You can sit outside and watch the boats go by. THe crowd is varied in age and classier than your typical "bar", which is not my scene at all. I thought that the restaurant would be a perfect place for a divorce party. My divorce should be final any day. I watched the movie Under the Tuscan Sun recently ( I highly, highly recommend it) and, in one scene, the friend of the newly divorced woman gives her a surprise cake and says that a marriage begins with cake and should end the same way. Beginning and end should be fun, fun, fun. It made me think about how a weddding is filled with such pomp and circumstance and a divorce, which is equally (if negatively) life-changing, is anticlimactic, occuring almost silently. Something should mark it. I'm going to go out with a few girlfriends and my sisters and mother and do something. I hate calling it a divorce party, but I can't think of another name. It will be sort of an I will survive woman thing.

How did (or will) everyone else mark their divorce?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-25-2004
Mon, 03-14-2005 - 9:52am

I LOVED that movie!! Actually, I went wild after I saw it and embarked on a 2 year journey of sprucing up my house - redecorating so to speak!!

I don't think I really did anything to mark the divorce. I was so afraid something would happen to sabotage it for the court process that I was very quiet - told no one until afterwards.

But I love your idea!! You sound like you are holding up well.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Mon, 03-14-2005 - 11:55am

A year or so before I decided I would be a divorced mom, I was going out to lunch with some people from work and they were bashing someone for having a 'divorce party.' Some people see divorce as always bad. For me, divorce was an uplifting and freeing experience. I didn't regret my marriage, but I wasn't going to stay in it any longer either. It wasn't what I envisioned when I got married of course. But at the same time, I was going to make divorce a positive experience no matter what anyone else thought. However, I was careful not to flaunt how excited I was when I was at work or with our couple friends (still my friends) because they just didn't/couldn't see it the way I did.

When I saw the timing was close, I tried to get the divorce to come through by my birthday. It was going to be my present to myself. It turned out to happen a few weeks after my birthday. Even though I kept it mostly quiet, I did jump for joy inside. If I had some close friends that were not also friends with my ex, I might have been inclined to go out to dinner to celebrate it or something like that. I agree with you something should mark the end.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 03-14-2005 - 11:59am

I partied HARD when my divorce happened! HARD! I went out with a group of 10 people - and all night - we were toasting my freedom, the return of my easily spelled, easily pronounced maiden name (my married name was neither!), we had a BLAST! One of my girlfriends went up to numerous men that were there and told them they HAD to buy me a drink, and toast to my new found freedom - - - it was a total blast.

My divorce was DEFINITELY a sad thing - it was. It was the death of a dream, the splitting up a family, the destruction of a committment. It was also a rebirth. OF ME. I'm glad I celebrated. :)

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-28-2005
Mon, 03-14-2005 - 2:03pm

My divorce will come the day before my birthday so I will definitely celebrate!!

Jessie

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-10-2001
Mon, 03-14-2005 - 4:33pm

I did celebrate....about 4 days after my divorce was final (Valentine's Day!!!).

I don't have any single male friends, so I embarked on enjoying myself, by myself.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-04-2005
Mon, 03-14-2005 - 5:27pm

I hope even more respond because the responses to my thread have been so heartfelt and wonderful! Sunshine, I feel that you nailed exactly how I feel about my own divorce when you said that your divorce was horrible and the death of the dream and yet you decided to make it into an experience of growth and renewal (my paraphrasing.)

In the last post I said to myself, 'well why would she want to celebrate with single GUYS anyway?' Then I realized that the post was from t-bone- a GUY! Silly me. I should read who the writer of the post is BEFORE I read it, instead of AFTER!

TY everyone and keep posting!

Amy

Avatar for tcranky1
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Mon, 03-14-2005 - 8:01pm

Hi
You know, I don't think I did anything to commemorate my divorce. I was very depressed when i got divorced because I gave up on fighting for full custody of my kids. (long story) So it wasn't in any way a good day. And I already had moved on. I had James, my SO, so i didn't really need to go re-discover myself, I had been separated for 3 years, I already rediscovered myself. ;0

Of course, about two weeks later, my ex couldn't keep the kids and I took them and though we battled back and forth in court for almost another 3 years, it's all good now.

Tara

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-14-2003
Tue, 03-15-2005 - 8:06am
I went to court on October 18 last year. Told the judge what I wanted and he granted my divorce. My lawyer congratulated me, and I walked down the steps of the court into the parking lot. I had a lot of mixed feelings, but I couldn't control the urge to scream. I got into my car, and turned on the radio. The song "Gimme some lovin" by the Spencer Davis Group came on. I turned the radio all the way up, rolled down the windows and let the cool air blow my hair all around. I sang at the top of my lungs not caring who heard me or if I was on key. I drove all the way home like that and then went inside, grabbed my daughter, called up my real estate lawyer and bought a house I had my eye on for a few months. It was a great way to start my new life!!
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2003
Tue, 03-15-2005 - 8:42am
I do remember celebrating my divorce. I don't remember what I did exactly, but I was very happy. I think I went out with some friends. It wasn't a "I will survive thing". It was a feeling of liberation. Not, I will survive....but I DID survive. I'm out. Some people expressed sadness over the finalization over my divorce and I said (and really meant it), don't feel sad for me because I'm happily divorced. The divorce, in my case, was a good thing.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2005
Tue, 03-15-2005 - 4:22pm

My divorce was long and drawn out (over a year of continuances and petty crap from my insane ex) and it ended a 19 year marriage filled with verbal abuse and belittlement. I felt relief and sadness. But after the divorce there was still the crazy ex and his antics, trying to mess with my mind.


I survived, that's the closest I came to celebration.


But little by little I regained my self and a life of my own. I celebrate NOW, often and regularly...that I am alive, that I have my sanity, that I can still love, that I am making my own dreams and goals come true. I am strong, nothing he does messes with me any more. I'm out of his sphere of "people I can screw up" and I'm thankful to God every day that I'm out of that insanity.

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