That Ship Has Sailed

First you divide up time with your children, then you split your belongings, but who gets custody of your friendships?

Having met many divorced people roughly my age in the last six months, the division of friends varies, depending on your situation. As with assets, any friends you had coming in to the relationship remain yours on the other side, with a handful of exceptions for friends who married people who like your spouse better than you and persuade your old friend to jump ship. When you partner tells their side of the story before you get a chance to make your case and paints you as the villain (even if you aren’t), you don’t get to keep the friends. If the breakup is very obviously your fault (i.e. adultery or abuse), you don’t get to keep the friends. If it turns out those people you thought were your buddies actually just tolerated you to hang with your spouse, you don’t get to keep the friends.

After the initial division of companions, other friendships will die off and fall away. Some folks don’t seem to know where to put you once you’re suddenly single. If you were part of a group of couples that hung out together, even if you got custody of the whole group in the split, you might stop getting invitations to gatherings because you aren’t part of a couple. You could bring a date to balance things out, but they don’t really want a new stranger jumping in to their regular game night every other week, either. Your friends don’t know exactly where to put you in their lives.

And then there are the concerns about your husband going off to comfort his buddy going through a divorce, when everyone knows he’s in his reckless post-split ho phase, like that man is trying to get everybody divorced. Same goes for women, who want to go out and be flattered by strange men in bars surrounded in their supportive married girlfriends while their husbands sit at home with furrowed brows. I can practically hear the “my wife/husband says we have plans and I can’t go to Vegas with you this weekend” phone calls.

I used to feel like marital problems were contagious, and if I let that kind of negativity from other people into my life it would infect my own marriage. Obviously purging my timeline of tragic public divorces did not inoculate my relationship, but I would understand the feeling of wanting to distance yourself from me as a single woman, thinking, “I don’t want what happened to her to happen to me,” because when it does happen, aren’t we all thinking, “if it could happen to them, it could happen to us?”

I went on a field trip with my son’s class today, and another mom asked why we’d left El Paso. I am asked this frequently and have yet to come up with a more subtle answer than just word vomiting divorce. The mom replied, “oh my gosh I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” and then stopped speaking to me, she was so uncomfortable. Listen, divorce is ugly, and it’s not my favorite topic, but if I was that disturbed by my own situation I probably wouldn’t give that as the reason. I feel it is succinct and does most of the explaining for me with just the one word. People come to my house to fix things or discuss projects and refer to me as a “y’all” and it’s obnoxious. Don’t be looking over my shoulder to discuss things with the man of the house, I did all the home projects myself when I was married I will continue to do them now. So when they ask what brought me to Houston, I say, firmly, “divorce.” That’s right, I am the woman and the man of this household, and I still need this project finished ASAP.

I have heard from both men and women that being a single person among couples is…awkward. Women seem to be better at reaching out and supporting a single mom, and my experience in my neighborhood has been phenomenal. A group of women have pulled us into their clique with open arms, because they know I am alone. And when I shared the story of my son having a severe allergic reaction a couple weeks ago, my neighbor said to just drop my other kids off with her if I ever had an emergency. I am generally not the type of person who strikes up a conversation with strangers, but sometimes you need a village, and the women on my block have been so wonderful. That said, I’ve been here nearly five months and have not met one other single person in my neighborhood.

In some cases, however, a single woman might not be as welcome in a group of married people, and the same goes for a single man. Are they a threat? Are they jealous of all the happy marriages? Are they coming to your kid’s birthday party to steal a spouse? Snag a Daddy? Whisk away a trophy wife? Rest assured I would not touch a married man with a ten foot pole strapped to a telephone pole tied to the space needle. I am a firm believer in “if he would cheat with me, he would cheat on me.” Integrity and good character are things I value even in casual dating, and if you’re looking to cheat on your wife, whom I presumably also know, you are a bottom feeder with no moral compass. I am sure this happens, as people are inherently flawed, but hopefully not very often. Please don’t go to events with families to poach partners, we don’t need single slime balls out here giving us regular single people a bad name.

The friends you keep, who ride out the storm with their hands on your backs, are a special breed. Divorce is full of ups and downs, from “let’s go get drinks and toast to your new life” to “it’s going to be okay, I know you’re worried about how your kids are handling all this change.” You never know which version if your friend you’re going to get when a text comes through, and the true blue friends take it all in stride.

The friends you make on the other side are also very special. Most of my new friends are also divorced, and they are holding my hand and teaching me how to be divorced (and in some cases, how not to be divorced) and a functional member of society, warning me I might be seen as a husband hunter in group settings, telling me to look for the kind moms who will be able to easily envision what it’s like to have full time childcare without a partner (my ex has not relocated yet, but sees his children regularly). I am new to being divorced and I have logistical questions (if it’s his weekend and he is sick, do they still go see him?) and also tender questions (will my kids be permanently damaged?). New friends have helped me through some ugly obstacles in the first six months, and I’ll be forever grateful for their support. And if they find love and settle down again some day, they get custody of my friendship when the shit hits the fan.