Week 11 – 08 December 2011
I began to feel flat. Previously there has been anger, sadness, pain and anxiety. Now there was a flatness. A feeling of nothingness. A total lack of enthusiasm for doing anything and just wanting to sit like a total blob, wanting to stare into the emptiness, and not move. In some ways it was a bit of relief as the pain at the pit of my stomach started to subside and I was glad the intense aching inside of me was beginning to disappear. The downside was I had no energy. Pain and anger were energy charged emotions and I had been able to turn those feelings around into something positive by spring-cleaning, ridding myself of clutter and establishing my space. Now my domestic chores were banking up and I ploughed through my activities like I was wading through molasses.
I figured that I was going through the yearning stage of the grief process of this divorce as I was certainly craving the togetherness, and hungering for the life that was or should have been, that we had shared as a couple. I was trying to cope with the emptiness that had taken its place, and the strange loneliness I felt whenever I went out and found myself in situations with other people, yet alone, where previously we had been together.
I tried to distract myself by getting a few extra Christmas items but I became overcome with emotion again and again as I came across things that had previously held meaning to me and now did not.
I tried a different approach – humour. I started to look at the humorous side. Was there one? Yes, if you can divorce (excuse the pun) yourself from the hurt. Here is an example (my apologies to the men reading this where the situation is reversed):
“Woman wants monogamy; men delights in novelty.
Love is woman’s moon and sun; man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her Lord; Count to ten and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?”
Dorothy Parker’s take of Lord Byron’s famous satirical poem that begins:
“Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,
‘Tis woman’s whole existence ….”
And here is a funny take on “what to do when your husband leaves you
Spring into Summer 
Ultimately, it is humor that saves us. Writing about it, too, has been a real life saver for me. Please keep doing so. The rest is in God’s hands. Wishing you the best as you make your way.