“I, too, have felt jealous of those who have truly lost a parent”

The Real Life story of a young divorcée visiting the shivah of her newly widowed friend and comparing the support her friend got to the judgment she received after her divorce triggered many, and we received a number of pain-filled letters we felt obligated to share.

The conversation continues:

A Child of Divorce

As a child of divorce, I found this story very validating, as it is exactly what I feel. I, too, lost a parent, like other girls I know, yet I didn’t have the chance to sit shivah, to mourn, to have people comfort me about the loss — because my parent is still alive. I don’t have the freedom to look upset, because people will judge, rather than accept. I, too, will be second-rate in shidduchim, whereas girls who have actually lost a parent will be looked at as “so strong” and not be offered boys who are second-best. Like the protagonist, I, too, have felt jealous of those who have truly lost a parent, and wish to have been through that rather than what I did go through.

Communal Attitude

Why, in our community, are children of divorce looked upon with judgment rather than compassion? They have often been through just as many, if not more, challenges and trauma, as someone who’s truly lost a parent. Can people not be more accepting that we aren’t to blame and there’s nothing wrong with us? Will we one day be allowed to “slump” in the grocery store, and have people tell us we’re strong, rather than judge and blame?

A Divorcée Speaks

A shout-out to Penina Roth for describing so well the pain of both the widow and the divorced woman. As a divorced woman, I myself can relate to the often unvalidated suffering we divorced people experience and to constantly grieve the life that could’ve been mine if only my marriage had turned out different. As a divorced woman, I also wanted to give a shout-out to all the people who are doing things right. To those who send over supper, offer to watch my daughter, invite me for Shabbos meals, or even just smile at me on the days when I feel so alone. To those who don’t judge, or those who, when they do find themselves passing judgment, take a step back and with humility admit that they do not truly know what went on in my marriage. Thank you to all of you individuals, and to all the others who are kind and empathetic to divorced people. We appreciate all your compassion, understanding, and most of all for the ability to admit that you may never truly understand what went on in our difficult marriages.

You Never Know What Happened

I greatly appreciated the Real Life article in Issue 981. It offered a rare and honest window into the suffering of a young divorced woman — a perspective we aren’t often privileged to see.

Women who find the courage to reclaim their lives are too often misunderstood or unfairly judged. In truth, they deserve to be regarded as the heroes they are — and to be given the time and space to mourn what they endured and what they never had. Only those who have glimpsed that world can truly understand the strength it takes to walk away and begin again.

We can never fully know what another person has faced.

The Agony of Prolonged Singlehood

I’m writing, not in response to Penina Roth’s Real Life, but to expand on the theme of mourning that’s untraditional, that goes largely unrecognized by our community. It’s a parallel to the pain touched on in the piece, but the piece skirts another pain, one that’s just as valid and just as agonizing. She mourns the husband she thought she had, the home she wanted to build together. She mourns these things because she got divorced and lost all of it. She says, rightly so, that her divorce was traumatic, that it caused her real pain, real grief, that went unacknowledged and was even viewed with suspicion.

But what about the chronic grief that single people experience every single day, for years, and years, and years, and years?

It’s a bit like being a widow, except it’s arguably worse, because you don’t even have the good memories, the good years, to fall back on, just the things that never happened and may never happen. It’s a full-body agony that nobody acknowledges. Watching people five, ten, fifteen, twenty years younger than you just glide into marriage, like it’s nothing. Watching your beauty diminish, white hairs and wrinkles appear, knowing you’ll never get those youthful years of marriage, should they ever come at all. Watching your age rise and your ability to have children shrink and shrink.

And that’s just the physical reality, never mind the emotional one, the communal one. Not only are you alone, but you’re partially locked out of frum life, out of things that you were told were your birthright, your destiny, never mind the basic markers of adulthood. In our community, marriage isn’t just a nice adornment, it’s the sole rite of passage that grants you the ability to become whole, to participate fully in life, to acquire the things nearly every human being wants and needs. To be deprived of this is enough of a challenge, add to it the society-wide judgment and general values, and it becomes unbearable.

It’s in our faces constantly, endlessly, every day, every hour. Wedding invitations pile up; that kid you babysat in high school, that neighbor you remember as a toddler. Weddings every night, engagements every day, sheva brachos every Tuesday, vorts every Wednesday. And you just grin and bear it and pretend there isn’t a black hole slowly swallowing the remnants of the life you’re trying to hang on to. Childless people experience this, too, of course, and it’s immensely painful, but at least they’re married. They’ve “made it.” They’ve got a chance. They’re not alone in their pain.

You can dress it up any way you want, but single people live in profound deprivation and they’re supposed to just watch everyone else’s life hum along and distract themselves 24-7, so the pain doesn’t bury them. And as mentioned, it feels a bit like being widowed, but it’s also worse because it’s unacknowledged. It’s invalid. There’s no mourning ritual for it. Nobody will try to comfort you. Nobody will see you and comprehend the pain you’re in. Your old friends have moved on, and if you’re lucky enough to make new single friends along the way, they’re always at risk of crossing that threshold before you, leaving you alone, again.

At best, the people you meet try to find you a match, at worst they’ll tell you why you haven’t earned the right to be married yet. Debate abounds. What should we do about the shidduch crisis? How can we help daters? We need more coaches. We need more shadchanim. We need initiatives. The boys need to marry younger. The girls need to be less picky. To picture or not to picture... On and on and on and on, while we feel like we’re dying a silent, invisible death.

Nobody addresses that. Nobody addresses how to live while being single and alone, denied years and years of companionship. Nobody. There’s no guarantee. There’s no end date in sight. There’s just an endless dark tunnel that we walk alone, taken for granted and condescended to. Who mourns for the decade you spent going to sleep alone, waking up alone, going through the motions, absorbing the sting of a million daily triggers, while the entire community smiles and laughs and celebrates around you? Who mourns the life and rites of passage you’ve been denied?

Do you know what it’s like to flip through a magazine and be bombarded by page after page of ads and articles that rub your singlehood in your face? Kallahs, engagements, weddings, newlyweds. “Married women only.” Birthing classes. Children, children, children… You’re 20 years old, engaged, about to be happily married, setting up your dream apartment? Okay, let’s start indulging you and showering you with gifts and luxuries and experiences and recognition. Because you deserve it. Single? Too bad. Maybe you should lose some weight. Or consider that divorced 42-year-old with five children (no offense).

Do people not understand the cruelty of this paradox? Nobody considers it. Nobody dares to voice it. Single and lonely? Here, come to us for Shabbos. In my home, with my husband and my children, where you get to face your grief (yes grief; immense, endless grief) once again. Listen to this beautiful devar Torah about shalom bayis without feeling like you’re about to explode. There’s a reason many single people move out of this environment. It becomes unbearable, almost hostile. I don’t have solutions. There is no solution. I just think this was something worth writing.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 984)