When you live somewhere far away from your hometown or a place with many friends and family, and then get divorced, you spend a lot of time alone.
There are differences between being alone and being lonely. More than two years removed from marriage, I am alone more often than I was right away, but feel less lonely.
But as someone who thrives on social connectivity and human interaction, there can be no doubt that I find myself in the loneliest period of my life.
I’m going to be fine because this won’t be permanent, and because I actively pursue social activity today more so than I did during the hardest, darkest days following the divorce.
But like so many of these experiences new to me in this unexpected life phase, it dawns on me that I can’t be the only one experiencing this.
The Recipe for Social Isolation After Divorce
I’m sure it can happen multiple ways, but here’s how it happened for me.
I was born in Iowa and lived there until I was 4. Then, my parents divorced and my mother moved us to Ohio where we lived near her hometown.
I grew up in a small-town, big-family environment and had a large group of friends throughout elementary school and high school, so even though I was an only child, I never experienced loneliness.
My college years proved to be the most-connected, and I believe not coincidentally, the most-fun years of my life.
Because I was young and took for granted the connection between friends and family, and my internal happiness and well being, I moved to Florida more than a thousand miles away after graduating college.
My girlfriend, who would later be my wife/ex-wife, was with me, mitigating some of the loneliness and social isolation we both felt after a few months living so far from home for the first time.
After a few years, we moved back to Ohio, only this time, we moved near my wife’s hometown—a place where I had no roots, hundreds of miles from all the people I knew and grew up with. Still, it felt much more like home than Florida. My wife’s immediate and large extended family welcomed me, and holidays were warm, vibrant affairs, and that helped offset any loneliness or social isolation I felt being in yet another new place far from home.
We made friends. Almost all were married couples because when you’re married, you tend to befriend and hang out with other couples.
It wasn’t perfect. My dad’s side of the family was 500 miles away. My mom’s side was a four-hour drive away. But we had made a home and forged a comfortable life with our new friends and my wife’s kind family.
Even though it was a slow death at home, so sneaky I didn’t even recognize it happening until she finally said one night: “I don’t know if I love you anymore,” it must have seemed quite sudden to friends and family because my wife and I were so good at wearing masks and pretending.
She’d had enough. And she left.
And at first, I was so out of breath, and so emotionally and mentally and spiritually damaged, focused on the loss of my presumed lifelong partner, half of my little son’s childhood, and all of my hopes and dreams for the future, that loneliness and social isolation weren’t on my radar.
In fact, there were many days and nights where I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
But time heals even the deepest wounds. And something like normalcy returns.
You lose friends from the fallout.
You lose an entire family because when you divorce your spouse, you often divorce their family too, no matter how kind and loving they remain in your sporadic post-divorce meetings.
…
So you take stock of your life.
I have no family.
I lost friends.
My son needs both of his parents, so unless we all agree to move somewhere, this is where we are for many more years.
You accept your fate. It’s not ideal. You’d move if you could. But your son matters so much more than anything else, that there’s no internal debate.
When you are a divorced parent to children fortunate enough to have a viable parent nearby to help love and care for them, you tend to be geographically stuck. And if you’re someone like me who happened to move with your partner to a place far from home, you find yourself here. Just like me.
Longing for more.
Yearning for the joy and comfort of lifelong friendships.
But resigned to your fate.
This is where I live. And I have to make the best of it.
The Journey Home
I’m visiting family and friends this week in western Illinois.
No matter how many years of vibrant social living you’ve experienced, when you live alone as I do now and rarely see people from your past, it’s easy to forget how soul-enriching it is to be with loved ones.
It has been a wonderful visit. Incalculable fun and laughter with people who have mattered for as long as I can remember.
But this is the last day. The one that always arrives too quickly.
Tomorrow, we—my young son and I—return home.
Not home, per se. But, home.
…
It reminds me that home isn’t just a destination, but a state of mind, a state of being.
That it’s about people and how we feel when we are with those people. Those beautiful few we let all the way in. The people who cross from friend to family, despite the absence of shared bloodlines.
I came across this today in Medical Daily:
“While solitude can stimulate creativity and even improve our attention span, it can also have deadly consequences. A 2013 study published in the journal Psychological Science found social isolation increased people’s likelihood of death by 26 percent, even when people didn’t consider themselves lonely. Social isolation and living alone were found to be even more devastating to a person’s health than feeling lonely.
The human species is inevitably a social species that has depended on other members since birth. We’re social creatures that need other people in order to be well and thrive. Naturally, surrounding ourselves with others and fostering close relationships are the antidote to living happy, healthy, and well.”
…
I can’t go back in time and change the course of my life or marriage.
I can’t run away to places in this world where I have family and friends networks that mean so much to me.
And I can’t rely on others to do anything for me.
It has to be me. It has to be us—everyone who finds themselves in these relatively unique life circumstances.
We have a responsibility to create the best-possible life for our children. We have a responsibility to be the happiest, healthiest versions of ourselves so that we can be the parents our kids need.
To totally sell out and rock a pretty annoying cliché, we all have a responsibility to make lemonade. You know, because of the lemons.
Our families can’t do it for us.
Our faraway friends can’t do it for us.
It has to start with the choice to be friendly and generous to others. To courageously try new things and participate in new activities. To put ourselves out there for acceptance or rejection and being willing to roll with the punches knowing we’re going to earn a few new “family” members along the way.
Because when you can’t be home, you have to make home.
To inject more life into life.
And it boils down to one simple choice: What am I going to do today?
Beautifully written!
Thank you very much!
You have encapsulated many of my thoughts on moving away from ‘home’. When you cannot be home, you have to make home.
I live away from my siblings and extended family too, and now as I am alone it can be quite hard. Yet I chose to live here to be closer to two of my own four adult children.
I figured there would be people who really “got” it. Thank you for saying so.
Poor guy :/
All is well. 🙂 I hope this didn’t sound like whining.
I’m just so moved at the simplicity of the statement “my son needs both of his parents… so this is where we are for many more years.” It must be a hundred times more difficult than that (I want to so much…) and yet so obvious (but I won’t.) I just wanted to say it’s a beautiful thing, this immense love you have for your son (and beautifully written, as always.) I have to think such a great love will inspire more love and friendships and created families.
Thank you, Jennifer. I don’t say this to downplay it. I say it because it’s true, and 99.99999% of parents will get it: my immense love for my son is just the regular amount of love almost every parent has for her or his child.
I’m not doing anything special. I’m simply doing the job. And I WANT to. It just has a handful of social consequences. And I’ll get through them in time.
Ah, such lovely words. Somebody smart told me that being lonely is a painful thing, something you can feel even when you are surrounded by tons of people, but solitude can be a joyous experience.
It’s always struck me as interesting that they both involve being alone, but one feels wonderful and the other feels painful. Solitude is something we often seek deliberately, a few moments we sneak off to embrace ourselves, while being lonely often involves feeling rejected by others.
I think I can appreciate the distinction. I was an only child. And as such, I was accustomed to spending a fair amount of time alone.
Much of it is time well spent.
When you are in love it seems simple…of course you can move to be closer to the partners family..and when it doesn’t work out, you are completely screwed. It is hard to make adult friends and even harder to keep them. It is daunting to experience solitude knowing that you are committed to staying in a place that simply does not fit your needs so it serves a greater purpose of child raising.
People need to truly consider moving away from their families for the love of a partner, because circumstances change. You NEED a family to support a marriage as marriage is brutally hard, even when you love each other and are doing things right. And we all know most marriages don;t fall into this category.
If you have moved away, then the only thing you can do is create a social network for yourself by spending large quantities of time with like minded people, which may tick off the spouse you moved for. And the truth is, no matter how close you might be, no matter what role they may fill for you, it is NOT the same as family..not even close..but it’s better than nothing. They have a life and a family and you will not be invited to their family functions.
Once kids are in the picture, the responsible thing to do is to stay and raise the child. Sacrifice your daily happiness to ensure their stable childhood. But then move when they get out of school and go back home. Kids find their own path. It’s more important to have a happy parent part time than a full time one who you rarely see who is missing large pieces of their heart.
You nailed it, exactly.
I don’t think people think about divorce when they’re getting married (nor do I think they should), but you make some fantastically practical observations about what happens in real life when things don’t work out like everyone had hoped.
Roots. Family. Friends.
These are invaluable things that we all take for granted until they’re out of reach.
People always think they can go home and things will be the same…but they aren’t. Life has moved on and as much as you love people, changes have happened in their lives to change everyone. It’s why it’s so important to recognize the REAL sacrifice you will be making if you do move away from your friends, family, life for a new relationship. Older people ‘get it’ …they have lived it and/or experienced it. They know how hard it is to raise your child without a support system, someone to share the heartaches and joys with. When you lose the partner, the relationship, the extended in law family…well…there is a recipe for depression and heartache. The good news (yes there is good news..lol), is that once you survive this disconnection, once you fight your way into believing you can handle it, you grow from it. And like any damaged plant which has suffered during brutal storms, you come back stronger and more able to withstand future issues. And you choose better next time, make better decisions; understand that relationships are work, but when you are happy you love the job. You choose someone with a wide family base who adopts you and your child and gives you the stability you crave. And life blooms again, even after the wildfires burned everything. Sometimes nature does that, destroys the old so something new and beautiful can grow in it’s place.
Reblogged this on A Joyful Process and commented:
Because, in all these words of this post, he says much of what I’m feeling (without the young son), but especially about the living alone.
Reblogged at A Joyful Process: http://joyfulprocessblog.com/2015/07/26/no-place-like-home/
This was a well-written post that feels like what I’ve had to deal with since I moved to a new town, living alone. I don’t have a young son; my daughters are grown. But the feelings of loneliness, while living alone…it’s like what I’ve lived since the marriage broke up.
Thank you for sharing this, sir.
First, we beat the inner turmoil. Then, we heal.
And then we have a new problem to face if we’re geographically isolated and no longer part of our in-law’s family.
Just like the first problem, we beat this one too.
I just wanted to suggest another way of looking at this. You miss your home and feel far away and, as someone who lives 500 miles away from my parents, I totally get that. The thing is, you are your son’s home. For him, home will be wherever you are. And that’s a beautiful thing.
He was born here. And I live in the house he came home from the hospital in.
You’re absolutely right. It’s home for him.
And I’m working every day to make it better for him. Thank you for providing that perspective.
This article helped me get through some very dark days. I had it saved in my phone to remember it. my ex and i had moved from los angeles to miami and just like you said one day said she didn’t love me anymore and moved out. miami is a difficult place to build a social life, culturally radically different and very transient. took me 2 years to decide to relocate back to california and abandon everything i had ever worked for and now living in my parents spare bedroom where at least i have all my brothers nearby. i will say one thing about kids though, we never had any but talking to friends who went through similar experiences i sometimes wish i had kids because it sounds like it provides motivation to get you through these times. not sure where i go from here but it’s better than staring at the four white walls of that place in homestead florida losing my mind.