I was talking to a client whose husband left after 40 years of an enchanted marriage and she made a comment that I’ve heard many times before. She said that things would be so much easier if he’d just died. We got into a discussion about the difference between being left and being a widow (I’ve been both!) and I thought you’d be interested.
Grief
In both abandonment and widowhood, you suffer crushing grief and a profound sense of loss, but in the case of abandonment, she said, it’s a “dirty grief” - socially not the same thing. Nobody tells a widow, “You’re better off without him” or “I never thought he was right for you.” Widows are permitted space to grieve deeply and for a prolonged period of time, but little room is made for women who’ve been abandoned to experience grief.
That grief is confusing. You’re mourning your loved husband who no longer exists but, at the same time, hurt and angry with the man who is sending you lawyer’s letters. The grief is tainted - not pure. It keeps you in an emotional spin - grieving and then hurt and angry in alternate moments and that makes it hard to resolve the loss.
Memories
Widows tend to remember the happy times they spent together with their husbands. They can bask in the bittersweet glow of special loving moments and when they talk about their departed loves, they highlight the positive. Abandoned wives, however, are stuck remembering the recent traumatic events that triggered the loss. We all repeat in our minds the outrage and shock that lead to the end of the marriage, particularly the moment when it all fell apart. We steer away from remembering the happy times - how can you revel in the happy times when you are stuck seeing him as the liar or coward who hurt you so badly?
Financial stability
Often widows are in a good financial position after their husband dies, especially if he had life insurance, RRSPs or a pension that reverts to them. There’s no question that they will keep the house, cottage and car as well as any savings. Abandoned wives, however, are typically in a weaker financial position than they were before, having to fight for anything that they can get from their ex, while paying astronomical lawyers fees to boot. They often have to split the value of the house and move to a more modest home. They may have to go back to work if they were retired or had been a stay-at-home mom.
Family and friends
One of the topics we often talk about in my Hearts & Minds divorce recovery groups is the painful loss of family and friends. When a husband dies, the whole community rallies around the widow, bringing cakes and casseroles. She’s invited to any family events and remains a part of her late husband’s family. When he leaves her, however, she is often booted out of the family, even if she’d been integrated with them for decades. Her mother-in-law stops calling and even welcomes her ex’s new girlfriend for Thanksgiving dinner. Friends make judgments and take sides and it’s not unusual to lose a certain number in the process.
Privacy
When your husband dies, he takes your secrets with him to the grave. When your husband leaves, nothing is sacred. He’s building a case about why he had to leave to justify his actions and provides evidence to the world of your weaknesses or even secrets that only he knows. You lose control of your version of your story as he proclaims, loud and clear, his version of events.
Children
When your husband dies, you and the kids go through it together. You‘re typically all mourning their dad in harmony. You support each other through special events, like holidays and birthdays, missing him and reminiscing about good times from the past. When your husband leaves, however, your kids are thrown into a profoundly complicated position. They love their dad but may turn against him when they see him in a different light and know the hurt he’s caused you. If they’re young, they may go back and forth to his house with his girlfriend, knowing full well how much that hurts you. You avoid talking about him during special events - they don’t want to hear your pain. You worry about what the loss of the dad they knew will do to them.
Your Future
Finally, another big difference is that, when he dies, your pure feelings about your husband are not tarnished by rejection and betrayal. You smile thinking of him and get to keep the relationship you had with him forever. When a husband dies, it is not his choice. But when he leaves, he purposely did so without any regard for the repercussions. When he dies, you never see him again. But when he leaves, you watch him build a life with someone else.
Divorce Funeral
My client then suggested, why don’t we have a divorce funeral? A rite of passage to acknowledge the end of the marriage rather than what we currently do, which is to slink away in hurt and shame? I would certainly not suggest a bitter diatribe party against the ex but rather, a mindful moment to punctuate this turning point in our lives. We could get together with our friends and family and perhaps recount the story of the marriage, highlighting the growth changes we went through during that stage of our lives.
Light a Candle for Yourself
In my work as a marriage counsellor, there are times when a couple comes to the session wanting to talk about the fact that they’ve decided to separate. I always light a candle during those sessions, to honor the sanctity of their marriage and acknowledge that it meant something important. I ask them to sit with that for a few minutes before jumping into the chaos of separating their lives. That’s because, when you’ve walked a good part of your life with someone and the path comes to an end, either by death or divorce, in spite of all the differences, being married means something that you take with you in your heart.
