I was half-heartedly listening to the radio as I got ready to go to work, caught up in “poor me” thinking, when I heard the announcer say my younger brother’s name. He had just died in an accident.

I learned that day there is nothing so bad that it can’t get worse or isn’t worse for someone else.

When your marriage is falling apart it’s very easy to focus in on yourself and believe that things can’t get any worse. But they can. And for those thousands of people who died on September 11, 2001, and the hundreds of thousands of family and friends who never got to say a proper goodbye, it did.

I listened to a trauma specialist discuss the possible aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy and he said the divorce rate would probably increase as a result. I can understand that. If you’re in a bad marriage and you feel the situation is hopeless, the reality of how quickly life can end might be the push you need to file for divorce. Maybe it also helped to bring together those husbands and wives who had been letting little problems get the best of their marriage.

After 9/11 there were various news reports of violence against people who are of the same ethnic background as the suspected terrorists. To take action against someone because they’re the same color or race as the persons suspected of these acts is no different than a man who says all women are bad because his wife left him for another man or a woman who says all men are abusers because she was abused by her husband.

We need to focus our anger on those who deserve it not those who “resemble” them or we will miss out on the chance to have new relationships with people who could enhance our lives.

Life is fragile at best and certainly should never be taken for granted. Never believe things can’t get any worse. They can.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

Decades ago, divorce was far less an every day event. Marriage virtually welded two people into a union that sometimes took extreme measures to break apart. Being realistic, we all know that some marriages shouldn’t last forever and those marriages shouldn’t need an act of Congress or a Papal blessing to dissolve.

But what about your marriage? If you’re a wife whose husband has just announced he has no desire to remain married, that he “loves” you but he isn’t “in love” with you, what do you do? If you’re a husband and your wife has just told you she’s had enough and she’s leaving what do you do? How do you handle the fear, the pain, the anger, the confusion, the betrayal, as your world shatters?

As a married person, people within your social circle and your closest friends are likely also married. Divorce puts a strain on some of those relationships as friends distance themselves to prevent fall-out damage to their own marriages. You are losing the common interests that have kept you close over the years.

What you need most at this time are new friends, friends who are single, divorced or widowed who can help you through the transition from married to newly single. Friends who know exactly what you’re feeling because they have been where you are. They can share their experience, give you the moral support you so desperately need. You need friends more than you need lovers until you get yourself healed.

It took a long time for me to make the decision to leave my first husband. I was afraid, I doubted my ability to survive on my own, I saw divorce as failure. As far as my coworkers knew my marriage was just fine, maybe even the “perfect” marriage. They drew this conclusion because I never discussed my personal life with them. When I decided to leave my husband, I made an announcement to my peers during a Monday morning office meeting, telling them that I wanted them to hear the facts from me and not from rumors.

Because no one knew my marriage had been less than perfect several of my coworkers tried to convince me to rethink my decision telling me I’d be “lost” without my husband to “take care” of me. A few weeks later some of those same coworkers were asking me for my “secret” to surviving divorce so well.

My “secret” was two-fold: I waited to leave until I couldn’t stay any longer and I didn’t share the details of my new life (or my old one) with anyone. They didn’t see my struggles or my tears, they saw my successes. I kept my business life and my personal life separate.

It was much easier for me to start a new life than many of you because I had a successful career and we had no children. When the divorce was final my ex and I had no reason to ever make contact again. This doesn’t mean the change to my life wasn’t difficult in the beginning but adding a support network of single and divorced men and women gave me the extra confidence I needed to get through the roughest times.

I had to find strong support after my second divorce and that began when I met two women at a business meeting shortly after my divorce became final. One was divorced, one was widowed, and both were about my age. They had been in their “single” state for several years by the time we met so they had lots of good advice and empathy for my situation.

Over the years we have laughed together and cried together. They remain my closest friends even though I’ve remarried. We don’t spend as much time together as we used to but the support is still just a phone call away.

Virtual friends can be a surprising support system as members the Midlife Club forum are finding out. Very similar to group therapy, the forum provides a place where each person can say what he or she feels without having to hold back. That’s a good thing because so many people come out of a trashed marriage or a longterm relationship with a desperate need to make contact with people who can validate the seriousness of their emotional turmoil.

I wouldn’t trade my friends for anything but it would have been nice, during some of those very long and lonely nights, to log onto a forum such as the one on this site when I was recovering from my divorce and “let it all hang out” with virtual friends who didn’t know anything about me except that I was going through the same thing they were.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

Here’s what I said:

You’re going through the same thing that every divorced person goes through… it just seems different because it’s your life.

Nineteen years of marriage is a very long time. You have at least a year, maybe several years, before you’ll get your emotional balance back. You have a lot of anger to disperse in the meantime.

It is demeaning to be married to someone who would rather be married to someone else. That’s how you have no doubt felt at times during your marriage… and now it all comes to reality as he returns to her. As they delight in each other’s company, you feel betrayed once again. Yes, it is cause for tremendous anger.

Couples grow apart. Some more than others. Maybe the two of you did share the same goals and dreams in the very beginning, maybe not. If not, you know the marriage shouldn’t have happened. I’m curious, if you knew all along, why you went ahead with something that you suspected would cause you the heartache you’re experiencing now.

You’re going to have to work through this and focus on healing yourself. All of those 19 years of marriage, all of those dreams that no longer exist, for you and for him, are in the past.

Your anger at him and at her do you no good. It does not make you an attractive or interesting individual. It robs your “today” — giving more of your current life to him and her than you might want to give.

It takes time. It takes wanting to move on. It takes forgiving yourself, him, and her.

And it takes believing that for every action there is a reason. Once you get completely past this, you will learn the reason. It may be as simple as meeting a man who has been living his life looking for you.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

Are memories keeping you locked in the past? “How can he say he doesn’t love me anymore?” “Was she lying to me all along?” “Maybe we can work it out…” “If we tried just one more time…”

How can anyone forget everything once shared in love? And remembering, how can anyone not think that with a little more effort, the marriage could be put back together… repaired… made whole again.

Memories can be selective. Bits and pieces of the good times woven together to form a comforting blanket of how it used to be and how it might be once again. It’s easy to wrap yourself in these warm memories to protect yourself from the harsh reality of today.

But, there’s another blanket you should weave, the blanket woven with the painful memories of here and now. Try to wrap that uncomfortable blanket around yourself and you’ll find that you’ll feel better if you toss it as far away as possible.

Memories of the good times will keep you trying to recapture a past that is long over. Memories of today will help you work forward to a future that is yet to be written.

Divorce is a small moment in time. The memory of this time will fade and be replaced by more pleasant memories that you will make in the future. Years from now you will have forgotten the black hole and the desperation.

Trust me on this one. I’ve been there. Long ago I traded my blanket of bad memories for a much cozier one woven with newer memories of good friends, warm love, and a renewed faith in myself. You’ll do it, too.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

Some marriages never should have begun at all while others are built on the weakest of foundations. The left behind spouse may be unable to recognize the problems within the marriage as they cling desperately to their illusion of the marriage, not the reality.

Some marriages begin with the premise that “once we’re married, (s)he’ll change.” Unlike magic potions that change bad habits to good, marriage usually intensifies the negatives.

During courtship men and women are supposedly on their best behavior so that potential mates will stick around. But some people accept bad behavior expecting to write new rules for their spouse after marriage. If one of them cheats during courtship, where’s the proof he or she can commit when married?

Courtship is a “proving ground” for marriage. If fidelity is lacking during courtship, it will most likely be lacking during marriage. Marrying an alcoholic or a pot smoker and then expecting them to quit drinking and smoking pot is a quick road to an unhappy marriage.

My first husband used to say: “I may be the world’s worst boyfriend, but I’ll be the world’s best husband.” I bought into the premise even though I had no proof of his “good husband” potential. If I had been smarter, I would have insisted he prove himself as the world’s best boyfriend first before we considered marriage.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

When you marry a divorced person, you must be prepared to accept all the “extras” they bring with them. Divorce does not wipe out a person’s history in the same manner that reformatting a computer’s hard drive deletes old programs.

Do they have children? Even if your spouse isn’t the custodial parent, don’t expect him or her to abandon their children because you don’t want reminders of their spouse in your marital home or because you don’t get along with the children. Regardless of why the marriage ended, they’re still their children, too.

Are they making child support payments? Are you angry that your economics are being negatively impacted by child support payments? Child support is part of the package you accepted when you married just as custody and visitation are part of the package. It may seem unfair, but sometimes the new spouse ends up with less, financially, than the former spouse.

Does your spouse pay spousal support (alimony)? You may feel that his or her ex doesn’t deserve money out of “your” pocket, but that’s not your decision. If alimony was a stipulation of the divorce decree, they have a legal obligation to make timely payments regardless of any new obligations they might have.

Are you angry that your new in-laws remain in contact with the ex? The marriage may be over but if their spouse’s relationship with their in-laws was a good one, they have no reason to end the relationship. This is particularly true if there are children involved. How does anyone tell a child that, because their mother and father are divorced, they can no longer have contact with their grandparents?

Does your new spouse remain in contact with ex in-laws? Divorce doesn’t mean all friendships are required to end and if your spouse had strong friendships with some of his or her former in-laws, there is no reason for those friendships to end.

Does your spouse have a civil relationship with their ex? Do they talk on occasion? Are you afraid their relationship may turn intimate? Are you fearful they’ll get together? Not all exes hate each other. Some actually get along much better when they’re divorced than when they were married. If children are involved, it is certainly in the best interests of the children that they maintain a civil relationship toward each other.

Recognize the baggage they’re carrying. It’s not easy being the second, or third, spouse. It takes maturity and self-confidence to accept the baggage a divorced person brings to a new marriage. That’s why a lot of second, and third, marriages fail.

Don’t let your rush to tie the knot get in the way of taking time to understand the responsibilities your spouse brings into the marriage from a former marriage. Those responsibilities will become yours once you enter the legal contract of marriage. Make sure you know what you’re getting into and that the price is one you’re willing to pay.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

The phrase “midlife crisis” is an increasingly used catch-all phrase used to explain away a person’s bad behavior regardless of their age.

• A wife says her 20-something husband must be having a midlife crisis because he’s cheating.
• A young wife says she must be having a midlife crisis because she’s unhappy with her responsibilities as a wife and mother.
• Finances push a marriage to the breaking point but when one spouse leaves, the other excuses it by saying he or she must be having a midlife crisis.
• A spouse is abusive but the abused spouse excuses it by saying “He (or she) can’t help it, he’s having a midlife crisis.”

The truth is, some marriages just aren’t very good. Some spouses are just plain mean. Some spouses aren’t capable of being faithful. Midlife crisis has nothing to do with why some marriages fall apart.

Dealing With Aging Issues

Entering middle age means we’re going to have to deal with unpleasant side effects as our bodies mature: graying hair, balding, weight gain or shift, wrinkles, age spots, and a host of diseases that seem to plague the older generations. Our physical body is reacting to our physical age. Quite frankly, we can’t live forever in this physical world of ours.

When an event occurs to push us to thoughts of our own mortality, whether it’s the death of a close friend, the death of a parent, or even disasters such as 9/11, it may cause us to rethink how we feel about our life.

Is our current life satisfying? Are we getting all the enjoyment from life that we need to in order to be happy? Is there anything we’re running out of time to do before we’re too old to do it or to enjoy it?

Midlife Divorces

In many marriages, that midlife question of “is this all there is?” can lead down a path that ends in divorce. The spouse who didn’t want the marriage to end considers the other spouse to be selfish. “It doesn’t matter what he (or she) wants, he’s being selfish by leaving me.” In reality, which spouse is being selfish? The one who leaves or the one who wants their life to stay unchanged?

Trying to “do the right thing” is painful — for the person working through to resolution and painful for the person who may have blindly thought their current life would never change.

The Decision To Leave

How can a spouse walk away from a 20-plus year marriage? It is not easy no matter how it looks to someone outside the marriage or even to the spouse who’s left behind. Those decisions aren’t made by waking up one morning and deciding that life elsewhere would be more suitable.

When a husband or wife gets to “is this all there is” and walks away from the long term marriage, does that make all those prior years a lie? No, not if those years, when they were happening, were filled with happiness. Midlife issues are just that — issues that may never have surfaced until he or she realized they weren’t going to live forever.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

There are many reasons why a person will stay in an abusive, unhappy or unfulfilling marriage. They can’t financially afford a divorce. They are influenced by family pressures and opinions. They don’t want to put their children through the divorce experience. They are too scared to leave.

For some people, reaching middle age causes them to rethink their priorities, to reconsider their options, to reevaluate their abilities. Sometimes they find that what they were too afraid to do years before now seems their only option. After so many years, fear is less a factor, family opinions don’t mean as much, and with the kids grown and gone that excuse no longer applies.

Women and men alike may make an abrupt life change at middle age. A woman who has spent her entire adult life being the dutiful wife and mother may decide that pursuing a career is the only thing that will make her happy.

A man who has spent his entire adult life working to provide for his family may decide that he’s earned a life with less stress and more fun. Even if he or she feels ready for a life change, when that change comes without warning, it’s a catastrophe for the spouse who is caught unaware.

What causes a person to walk away from everything? How can a person make a decision that may devastate the people closest to them? I don’t think there is any one answer that will satisfy everyone. Some people can easily pass into middle age while other people take a front row seat on the midlife crisis rollercoaster.

There is something quite frightening when we realize that we’re past our physical peak and there just isn’t enough time or opportunity to do all we feel we have to do before we die. Instead of accepting that what we’d like to do and what we can do aren’t necessarily equal, we begin a desperate rush to do as much as we can before the limitations of elder age stop us in our tracks.

Menopause is the commonly accepted middle age marker for women. When my mother began menopause she wailed as though her life was completely over. Women of a certain generation believed that a woman’s usefulness ended when she could no longer bear children. Most of us have moved past such thinking but there are still some women ? and men ? who buy into that archaic premise.

Unfortunately, some women will reach outside of their marriage for the reassurance that they’re sensual, sexual and exciting. They don’t think or perhaps don’t care what effect their actions will have on their husbands.

The pursuit of sex isn’t the only reason for midlife man to stray. Men may not lose the ability to father children but many men experience sexual problems that depress or panic them. They may attempt to prove that they’re still as virile as ever by entering into one or more sexual affairs.

Midlife man may not just be looking for sex. He may be seeking companionship that he isn’t able to find within his marriage. Whatever the reason, in a majority of marriages broken by his midlife crisis, the break comes due to the addition of a third person ? “The Other Woman” ? to the marriage bed.

Not all midlife marriages end because of a third person. Some end because one spouse just doesn’t want to remain in the relationship any longer. If asked, they can’t explain why they want out because they really don’t know the answer. All they know is that they’re desperate for something that they don’t believe they’ll find being married, or at least not being married to their current spouse.

If we’re lucky enough to live to middle age we’re going to have to deal with our reaction to what we see when we look back and when we look ahead. What we’ve done in the past should not be all that defines us. Entering middle age should not bring panic and chaos. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

Being a cheater at age 25 isn’t having a midlife crisis, it’s disrespecting marriage vows. A man who cheated when he was younger and cheats at midlife is just doing what he’s always done. A faithful husband who, at age 45, searches for his “true love” outside his marriage, might be in the grip of a midlife crisis.

Midlife crisis isn’t a medical condition that is easily diagnosed and cured. There are no pills or innoculations or preventative surgeries for midlife crisis. It can breed anywhere. It can be a short “blip” in a marriage or a “black hole” with disastrous results.

What triggers a midlife crisis? Is it really seeing the wrinkles for the first time? Is it finding that exercise doesn’t keep the flab away the way it used to? Is it realizing that those adults in the photograph are actually your grown children — can you possibly be that old?!

Is it believing that acting young will stop the clock? Is it grasping your mortality, understanding finally that life doesn’t last forever? Is it the first time you are called “gramps” or “grandma”?

If there is one thing many midlifers seem to have in common, it is that they don’t want to make the passage alone, and too many of them also don’t want to make the passage with the person to whom they are married when their crisis begins.

Is it necessary to destroy a marriage in the pursuit of midlife happiness? A midlifer will not feel that they are destroying anything. They will believe they are finally finding the happiness they have been seeking.

A married midlifer may feel their marriage is the cause of their growing dispair and their spouse becomes the target of their anger and frustration as the unhappiness within them consumes them. If they can get away from this person, if they can replace this person with someone who is more understanding, more comforting, then they can escape the unhappiness and pain.

Because the unhappiness is within the person going through crisis, no one, including their spouse, can ease it for them. The midlife spouse will have few options other than taking care of themself as the person they love changes into a stranger and their life together begins unraveling.

In less frequent instances, the midlifer may have a clear vision of the new life they want for themselves and will be willing to sacrifice everything to get it. In such a case, the midlifer has no qualms about walking away from a marriage because he or she has a specific goal in mind and may have already entered a new relationship to make the transition easier.

Sometimes the sacrifice of a marriage due to aging issues turns out to be a mistake. The midlifer makes the passage, discovers that the happiness he or she seeks is the life they threw away, and returns home. Life does not go on as it always has because there are scars and bruises that must heal. Forgiveness takes time. Sometimes there is no home to return to, the cuts are too deep, time has expired on forgiveness.

Sometimes a midlifer finds his or her new life to be worth the price. Even if their spouse is willing to try again, wants to forgive, begs for a chance to restore the marriage, they will not return.

Not every midlife passage will turn into a crisis but for those that do, the passage will cause unbelievable pain to the person in the middle of it as well as to the loved ones caught in the grinder with them.

There is no way to know which midlife passages will end with the marriage intact and which will end with the marriage forever broken. The only surety is that too many midlife journeys will be passages through Hell and back.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

Remember how you felt when they were always there for you no matter how bad things were? How you could always count on them to make you feel better with a soft touch and a loving word.

Or maybe he hit you instead. Or maybe she was too drunk to care. Or maybe he only said those loving words to his girlfriend. Or maybe she saved the soft touches for her stolen moments with him.

When he says he doesn’t love you any more, you immediately blame yourself for having done something wrong. It doesn’t matter if he has cheated and lied, and is now living with a replacement lover, you still believe you did something wrong.

When she leaves, you believe you can convince her to return by promising anything. You’ll change, things will be better, you swear! All you need is another chance.

Perhaps you are to blame for the marriage failing. Did you cheat? Are you an abuser? Are you an addict or alcoholic?

Perhaps the both of you are to blame for not paying attention to each other’s needs as well as your own.

Or perhaps they are to blame. Sometimes you can do everything right, you can have overpowering love for them, but if they don’t feel the same way, if they aren’t in the marriage with the same conviction and commitment, you don’t stand a chance of longterm happiness. Some people just don’t know how to love someone else. And, sometimes, for no reason we can fathom, love leaves a relationship… never to return.

Whatever reason brings you here today, please resolve now to get in touch with the person who really matters the most in this world – YOU!! If you’ve never known it before, you must come to understand there is only one person on this earth on whom you can completely depend and that is yourself. (Please note I said “on this earth.”)

Be kind to yourself. Do not allow others to be unkind to you.

Respect yourself. Do not allow others to disrespect you.

Love yourself. You do not need someone else’s love to validate your worth.

Like yourself. Without “like” can there really be “love”?

If you can learn to respect, love and like yourself, others will take notice. You’ll have a self-confidence that will attract others.

Don’t do it for someone else, do it for yourself! You are important!

Once you have mastered the technique of respecting, loving and liking yourself, you’ll be ready to jump back into the relationship ocean. This time you won’t need someone else to cling to for support. You’ll be able to take care of yourself.

I have shed my share of tears over love gone bad so don’t think for a minute I don’t understand the pain you’re feeling. I’ve been there.

When a relationship ends, for whatever reason, you don’t have a lot of options when it comes to MAKING someone else love you. We all have free choice, or at least it’s supposed to be that way. Even though you may choose to love them, they may use their choice to love someone else.

Whatever your situation, you must make the best of it by relying on yourself as well as reaching out sparingly to those friends and family who may offer to assist.

You must develop your own personal strengths to handle this challenge. It isn’t the last challenge you’ll ever face and it may not be the worst. It is today’s challenge.

You are being prepared for the next step in life. When you move past this, you will see what you can’t see now. You are worthy of love and being loved. Know it. Believe it.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.