Divorce - The gift that keeps on giving

I just got back from dinner with one of my neighbors and a friend of hers who's visiting from a nearby state. I'll change the names to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.

Jane, my neighbor (and friend), I knew had been married for 38 years when her husband one day pretty much out of the blue said he was leaving. And he did. Jennifer, Jane's friend, had been married for 34 years when her husband totally out of the blue said he was leaving. And he did. This happened to both of them about the same time, about two years ago.

Neither Jane nor Jennifer have remarried. Both of their exes have, both to women they were seeing before they left. Both ex-spouses denied that there was anyone else when they left. In both cases, the grown kids dislike their dad's new wife. Jane's kids go with gritted teeth to events that include their dad's new wife (whom they wouldn't ever even consider calling their stepmother). Jennifer's kids aren't too receptive to going much of anywhere with their dad and his -- until today -- fiance.

Yes, Jennifer's ex got remarried today. Jennifer has a boyfriend of over a year so it wasn't as tough as it could have been. But her daughter -- we'll call her Jill -- had a rough day. Jill refused to go to dinner with them awhile ago -- I don't know the details -- and apparently the new wife-to-be (who is only a few years older than Jill) didn't take it very well. Jill didn't get an invitation to the wedding. Her brother did. Not cool.

It gets worse.

Daddy asked Jill if she was coming to the wedding. Jill said not if she didn't get an invitation, though privately she had already decided she wasn't going. Thursday, two days before the wedding, Jill's invitation came in the mail -- torn in two inside the envelope. That prompted Jill to decide to go -- wearing black. So she did. Must've been a fun day for all.

One of my male friends years ago got divorced and married the love of his life whom he'd met years before when he and his wife had been separated for a time. They never got over each other and finally he got out of his unhappy marriage and was free to marry her. I remember him telling me that he felt like he was in the corner in his living room watching the rest of the family live their lives. I said to him, "How sad for everyone," and he told me later that my comment had gotten him thinking and helped him to realize that he wasn't doing his family any favors by staying when he was so unhappy. His high-school-and-college-age kids had a problem with that. It got pretty bad. His daughter stepped in front of his car in the street to stop him one afternoon when he was on the way to her soccer game and screamed at him not to ever come to another of her games again. The good news is that a year later, she chose to go live with them. And, the jilted wife found someone she loved and also remarried.

I think the worst story I know of first hand came from a woman with an unusual name -- let's call her LaDonna. Her brothers also had fairly unusual names -- let's say Damian and Oscar. All were over 35. When it came out that their dad had been having an affair with a woman for some 20 years, it also came out that he had had three kids with her, one girl and two boys. Guess what their names were. Yep, LaDonna, Damian and Oscar. Can you imagine?!? All six kids were at that wedding. I lost touch with LaDonna so I don't know if that story had a happy ending or not, but I vividly remember the look of grim resolve covering up a soul-deep sorrow the day before the wedding.

I thought my divorce was bad, and it was, in its own way. Aren't they all? But it was 26 years ago so I'm long over it. People who get divorced from people with whom they have children have an especially challenging road. Like my friend Jennifer said tonight, "Divorce -- the gift that keeps on giving."