Divorcees--did your divorce improve you or destroy you?
- Amie Warrenposted 13 years ago
0 Wychic, I wrote this for you. You know my story. People other than Wychic may not want to bother reading this whole long post that I aimed at Wychic, only to try to share what I learned about my own similar situation.
I had that custody thing too, and I don't pretend I was "thrilled" with seeing my children harmed (emotionally and financially) by strangers who believed lies about me, or who later didn't believe them but did nothing to get the truth out in court). I am angry and I have anger, but it's still the same "me" that has that same anger I would have if someone harmed my children under other circumstances. For me, the anger I have is very much a sign that I am, in fact, still the same, undestroyed, me.
whychic, I don't know why people lied about you, but I can tell you why they lied about me; and that is that they didn't even believe they were lying. I was dealing with people who didn't know "the real me" at all, and who underestimated me as a person. Between dealing with a couple of men (who did what a lot of men do, which is think that someone thinks/acts different from they must be "inferior" to them, especially if they're dealing with a woman). I was also dealing with women who seemed to forget how old I was, disregard all the demonstrations of being capable, strong, and sensible that I'd shown so many times; and, instead, seemed to imagine that I was far younger (like a child) than I really was. These were, in some cases, people who will respect and believe any man before respecting and believing a woman. Some were people who only believe or respect someone who is intimidating or "matronly". Some may have only believed people with an "impressive, sure-sounding, louder, voice. In other words, I was dealing with people who generally couldn't imagine that someone who looked like I did could possibly be solid, mature, sensible, and maybe even smarter than they were. Then, too, I was dealing with some people who had always kind of disagreed with the way I did things, or always kind of seen me as a rival; and at the first chance they got to take pot shots at me they jumped at it. In my case, it was a matter of several people saying very small, inaccurate, things that all added up to a report full of lies. I didn't look my age at the time, and I almost think people couldn't reconcile the signs of strength and unwillingness to have other people try to put in their two cents on my business; with what I looked like to them. In other words, at close to 40, and with absolutely every right not to want people who didn't know my kids as well as I did, and who weren't my kids' mother; I was seen as, like, a rebellious teenager who wouldn't "buckle under" to the authority of people who thought they had a right to try to put in their two cents on my business. THEN, when I was indignant and angry and didn't cry (the way, I guess, "a fluffy and silly little person like me" ought to have cried), it was seen as "inappropriate".
I'm convinced that if I had looked more matronly, or even like an intimidating looking "bombshell", or like a masculine woman, or any other kind of woman than I looked; things would have been different. Heck, long before the divorce my thinking would have been respect, rather than presumed to be "flighty" or "out of the blue" or "more sure than I should have been".
I always knew what I looked like was a problem for me when it came to be taken seriously and respected in any setting outside of a work setting (where you get the chance to show the kind of person you are). I knew (and asked the lawyers to make sure this didn't happen) that if some people got to put their thoughts about me into a court report, it would "all over" for me. Instead, the GAL went to everyone and his brother, including people like neighbors (who didn't know me very well at all).
It wasn't a shock to me that people underestimated me. It was a shock to me that the court allowed their input at all. For the most part, I don't think anyone truly meant any harm (although I know some egos were offended when I didn't "buckle under", and I know that made a few people a little freer to feel "it's her or me" when it came to "who's right about this". I had people who thought I was making a mistake by leaving a marriage they knew nothing about too. Again, trying to prevent "silly me" from making "a mistake" - and stopping at nothing, apparently.
I don't know if this is at all the kind of thing that happened with your case; but maybe some of it was? With the exception of those times when people got their back up because I wouldn't just happily "buckle under", for the most part nobody meant any harm to me. The thing was they actually believe my kids would be better off with someone other than me. That p'd me off, but it didn't hurt me; because I wasn't surprised by any of it. Actually, I was kind of glad to see a few people see how bad it is for someone like me; because I don't think anyone who isn't stuck with an appearance and voice like I have would EVER imagine how bad it can be, when it comes to people thinking they have a right to be your parent (and the killer is these are often the people someone like me takes care of in some way, or people who relied on me for emotional support whenever they needed it).
One way I thought I could stop this kind of thing from happening again was to "put me" in writing on a place like HubPages, where my words show that I'm not a "fluffy little flake", a child, an idiot, or whatever else anyone assumes about me because I don't have an intimidating appearance and voice.
You know what, though? None of the people who had those opinions read what I write, because they're not interested in what I have to say. 
It's hopeless!
More to the point, I think the way you keep it from happening again is to understand why/how it happened, talk about why/how it happened, tell people what you live with, even if that means making yourself say something someone may think is obnoxious, like, "I look too young, and people don't realize that I'm an intelligent, capable, strong, person who knows what's she talking about and doing."
I've always had inner confidence about what/who I am. (Not so much about the fact that I have a look that causes me problems when it comes to being seen as "nice but not as wise or strong" as someone else. I hate my looks because of that.) With the confidence, though, people who didn't know me well enough (and should have, in view of evidence they should have seen) people thought someone like me had "more confidence than I should have had". (That's a sign of mental illness or at least emotional problems. But, what should I have done? Pretend not to have confidence and go along with people who thought they had a right to put in their two cents on my life and my kids' life?!!!! )
Anyway, I don't know if any of this applied to you or your situation; and I don't if it will help you; but my only reason for writing this long post is to at least try to share what I do know went wrong in my own case.
Basically, if the problem is that people underestimated you as a grown-up and capable, solid, adult; the way you can get a reading on that is to ask whether they're happiest when you're the one accepting their help and advice and being willing to be "taught" by them (the way, say, some government agencies operate); or whether they're people who believe in you and do things that will empower you to be independent. In other words, are people happiest if you're "under their thumb" or happy for you when you're not? In the matter of child abuse, there are some children in a family who are said to be victimized more than others. This is the same kind of thing. Some people (I think strong people who look like they "shouldn't be that strong", but people who are also non-aggressive and even very kind and gentle by nature) may be the ones who are more likely to magnets for overbearing, if not abusive, others.
I never had a problem in school or work, but the thing for stay-at-home (or part-time-work) mothers is they don't have that full-time job to "show the world" how "respectable" they are. Then, if someone arranges that they won't have money, they don't have that "concrete proof" that they're respectable. They're left with nothing but what they look like when dealing with people who don't know their work or haven't watched them in their home with their children - "good luck to them". (Again, hope this helps shed some possible light in even some little way.)
I still have my same confidence. I just don't have my same take-it-for-granted-that-what-I-am-really-like-is-obvious" that I once did. I lost some trust in some people's judgment or even in some people, themselves; but since they didn't deserve that trust in the first place, no loss there. "Easygoing" may be a keyword there. I actually have people who think I'm "easygoing" because I'm nice and not a troublemaker. I'm not easygoing at all, but people often think that not being rude and cruel is "easygoing". Basically, divorces happen because at least one spouse doesn't think much of the other, or at least doesn't respect her (or him) the way anyone in a relationships ought to respect the other person.
As far as your husband goes, there's that saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". All it takes for a shrewd person to make sure he has more "friends" is to make sure he turns that enemy's "friends" into her enemies.
Sorry, everyone else who isn't Wychic, for the length of this "monopolizing" post. It's just that I thought maybe some of what I went through was similar for her; and maybe I could offer her some things to consider in trying to figure out her own situation.Thank you so much for this post
. It is very possible that my appearance -- and my actual age -- had something to do with it. I am baby-faced, tend to stay quiet until I have something to say, and don't make my opinion known unless it's really important to me. If I'm surrounded by people I know won't listen, I don't bother speaking. Unfortunately, I was around a lot of people who thought very highly of themselves and apparently hadn't heard that "an empty wheelbarrow squeaks the loudest," and if I didn't argue an opinion then to them it meant that I didn't have one of my own. Perhaps this was an invitation for people to try to impress their opinions on me, and when I didn't conform I wasn't seen to behave as I ought to.
One of the people who turned against me during the divorce missed my childhood, and I think tried to catch up on being a parent. I made the mistake of thinking he really wanted to get to know me and to at least cultivate a friendship. It blindsided me when he turned up in court at all, much less on the other side. However, I do know that he's pretty chauvinist and got along with my ex-husband very well, and I guess I just wasn't doing what a "proper daughter" ought to do...cheating wasn't a good enough reason to leave what he saw as an "otherwise good relationship." There were other people that showed up there because they thrive on drama, or didn't like that they couldn't control me...and then there were the ones who believed my ex that I was crazy, which I guess must have been easy to believe since I behaved differently than them. I think it shocked them to discover that I have ideas of my own, and ways of doing things on my own.
As for being a "respectable woman"...yep, that applies too. It didn't matter to anyone that when I quit my outside job (Wal-Mart) my then-husband was the one who suggested I stay home. It didn't matter that since then I'd built a much better income freelancing. All that mattered to them is that the house was cluttered and since I'm female it was my job to clean it. It was also my job to watch my son full-time, and make a full-time wage. I couldn't do all three, so I picked the most important two...and that was my fault because I actually expected my husband, who worked a "real job" (a mere 40 hours a week) to help around the house. Most of the people there could only work unskilled labor, and couldn't see any way this "mindless idiot" could make a living as, of all things, a writer. Well, a writer is an artist, and we all KNOW what artists are like.
I was also shocked that the judge listened to any of them, as was my lawyer. I had my income tax statements, proof that I was really working and making nearly as much as my husband. I had been my son's sole caretaker for three years, and none of them had been concerned in the slightest then, and even sent their own kids to me for care. In the end, all that mattered was opinions that my husband had and his friends...and some of my family...mimicked, because he behaved like them and so he must be the normal one.
Again, thank you (and apologies to everyone else for the length of this post too
), that has given me a couple of new angles for looking at things. It makes sense, we know what human nature does with things that are different. I was raised in a different culture -- my grandmother was Lakota, so we were raised with a mixture of Lakota and pre-Depression Midwestern ideals -- even though I've never left the same state in which they were all born and raised. I'm don't do well with sheeple, and I'm certainly not one...I don't think they liked that.
My personality and who I am are largely unchanged, but I feel that I've improved because of the lessons I've learned about human nature, and obviously continue to learn. In addition, the divorce gave me a chance to meet someone who originally wasn't even influenced by my looks or tiny childish voice...he didn't know what I looked like...but thought I must have a master's degree and formed the opinion from the start that I'm very intelligent. Maybe it helped that his Russian Orthodox upbringing, and his ideals from the generation before me, were very similar to mine. Either way, we were able to find a much happier, much more compatible life together.Wychic, the kind of subtle stuff that women (often most women, but more often women who don't come across with a booming voice or otherwise as intimidating, or at least as "old enough to have earned respectability and wisdom") deal with (especially those who have been fought by men who are at all interested in at least thinking about trying to take children from their mothers) is far more widespread than anyone who hasn't dealt with it would realize. Even if fathers decide they don't want to take children away from mothers, lawyers are expected to "zealously protect" the interests of their clients (not their client's children). So, built into the "divorce system" is that possibility that some lawyer (with skill in this situation) will know how to make a big case out of a bunch of small misunderstandings/lies.
You're right - if a woman doesn't say what's on her mind, or (as in my case) if she does her own thing and doesn't bother mentioning much about it because she knows nobody else is interested in her "silly, little, doings", people fill in the blanks. I actually had it put in a report, "..hasn't worked since she was married" (!!!). I had the pay stubs, bank records, and newspaper clips to prove that was a lie. I don't think a person even needs to have a "baby face". I don't have that. I just think it's an overall demeanor and look. People are less likely to think a woman who is the "Bea Arthur type" or even the "Blond Bombshell type" is "crazy". If you're more the "Sally Field type", and you dare to come across as strong and unwilling to be treated like a little girl (or a moron), you're in big trouble.
People may think the "Bea Arthur" type isn't all the nice (and those types may have their own set of problems). A lot of "Bombshell types" have to deal with people thinking they're not smart. "Sally Field types" are the kind of women who are expected to be everyone's child right up until they're the time little old ladies, at which times they may treated like a child because they're elderly!
I don't think you need to worry about something like what happened before happening again, if you're surrounded by people (now) who know the real you. It isn't as if the whole world is guilty of being incapable of sorting out what you look like from who you are. It's just, I think, people who have some investment (financial, professional, emotional, egotistical) in situations when "it's they or you", and they aren't about to let "someone like you" be right, or get the upper hand. People who have an unhealthy, inappropriate, belief that they should have control in someone else's life are only a problem to those people whose lives they're close to, or have some stake in.
Belief it or not, one problem for me was that I'm pretty skilled in finding things I have in common with other people. That made people who knew me jump to the conclusion that I was "just like them". THEN, when I did something (leave marriage because only I knew what was going on in it) they wouldn't do, they saw it as "out of character".
I always suspected it was "bad" when it came to how "certain" other people think. What went on confirmed for me that it was far worse than I'd realized. I consider it a learning experience. Since I don't plan to have more children, and the ones I have are now grown, it won't happen again in my life. One reason I even write/talk about it is because I think too few women realize that it could happen to even them. My house was neat, and people who couldn't keep their home neat and organized as effortlessly as I could said I "cared more about the house than anything else"! In the legal system, if someone wants to go after a woman, they'll go for either the "nuts" or "sluts" approach. If there's absolutely no question that there's nothing that would support the "sluts" attack, they go for the "nuts" approach.
I think, if most women had to choose one of three "types" I mentioned, they'd end up having to go with the "Sally Field" type over the other two. Most of the time, it's not a huge problem for women to live their lives having to deal with the day-to-day junk of having a lot of people underestimate them. Where it becomes a big problem is when child custody, ego, or some divorce-related person's professional reputation is on the line (particularly if they've screwed up and don't want that screw-up discovered). So, unless you plan to get into another custody battle, you probably don't have to worry about it happening again. If there's a chance a custody battle could occur in the future, at least now you know some of the things you need to be ready for if such a thing were to take place.
I'm glad you're happy now. Enjoy that and be glad you're away from the few people in your old life who created all the problems. Somewhere out there, there may be a wife/mother reading this, who is thinking about getting a divorce and who would never imagine that any sane judge would EVER give custody to anyone but her. Or, there may be women who have only recently found themselves the victims of the "nuts" approach. If there are, I hope that maybe they'll find this string of posts eye-opening or helpful in some way. 20 years ago, if there had been a way I could read something like all this, I would have been sitting there, thinking, "Awful story, but I KNOW there's no way that could ever happen to me. And, if the system weren't set up to allow a person or two to make "crazy" allegations against someone, and then, once that happens, to allow "everybody and his brother" into the case to take his pot shots at the person he's already got an issue with; maybe these things wouldn't be happening. But, they do. When a woman is up against people in her personal life who want to have a say in what she does, and then when the court system brings in everybody else and his brother (strangers with something to lose, mediocre professionals, or other people capable of harming children who mean nothing to them), it's pretty much her and her children against "the world".
I personally think that the one thing that is really positive about divorce is that it gives the parties the opportunity to change their negative habits... and in that way win (in themselves)
The most negative thing is that the parties who don't take a positive approach to it, end up justifying and clinging to their negative habits.. and generally loose.
The most positive thing that a positive party can do to a negative party that chooses to defend and attempt to force their negativity on the positive party is:
- To Help Them Loose by Finding their Worst Insecurities and Showing them how positively you can Endorse Them.
In spite of what is behind that post above... ditto.
china man, who me? I was referring to my own " post above" (which obviously shows what a bunch of hell I went through as a result of leaving my marriage). I thought I was being funny (but also meaning it) when I said "ditto".
I guess I should have added, "....what is behind my own, long, post, above".- it seemed to jump up and bite me, but with no reason, - you know, a bit like an abusive partner
All I have to say is, watch your back. I'd also like to suggest going to school - with the economy as it is and the job market standing in line, going to college is an excellent use of time.
My answer to the question: Both. Someday I'll write the story.That's the thing. You can have your education a "ton" of work background; but if the divorce means you're left with less money and/or no job (or way to get one), all of a sudden the whole world can seem to start assuming the only reason you're in a "financial pickle" (or worse) "must be" that you aren't educated, don't know how to manage money, etc. People mean well, but too few people know how it can all work.
(And then, too, besides having people think you need to get educated; you have to deal with people who think you "just weren't willing to work on your marriage" or "didn't take your vows seriously" or "must have issues for leaving a perfectly good marriage - because 'all marriages have problems, and you just have to work on it'".
Divorce may not have changed who I am at the core, but - boy - it was an education in its own way. That's one reason I write about it (or post about it) so often. It's not that I have "issues" and "need to vent". It's that I think people need to know "how it all can work".
If people don't say it (or write about it) other people are still going to go on believing the things they believe about divorce (and "money setbacks" if that happens to also be part of the divorce).
- ahorsebackposted 13 years ago0
ahoreseback, your response inspired a Hub (and some immediate pondering for me). (Thanks. I've been coming up short when it comes to things to write about.)
I hope the fact that my response resulted in a Hub doesn't come across as "being argumentative" or "making a big thing", because it's really more a matter of "looking beyond" or "looking deeper" in response to your comments.
(One reason I like to come to the forums is that other people's fresh input can inspire a little pondering on one's same old, stale, ideas about what to write Hubs about.) I'll link to this page, but if you'd like to link to your profile or some divorce-related Hub (whatever), just let me know either by commenting on the Hub or else through my profile.)and someone who hasn't been particularly motivated recently too!
The Hub's all done and up (but you may not like it . (Oh, you probably won't mind it if you end up reading it. ) Anyway, I pulled out some of the old "files" in my head, dusted them off, and printed the contents.
I can save anyone who can't be bothered reading a whole Hub the trouble, by summarizing: 1. Yes, life is short, but people shouldn't let fear using up precious life minutes push them into moving ahead too quickly. 2. Not all the things appear to be "emotional-hang-ups-based" "not-moving-on" are, and 3. Not everyone sees considering his divorce being in a "failure mode".
Another good thing about the forums is that a person can use them to sum up his Hubs for people, and save them the time and bother of having to read his writing.
- ahorsebackposted 13 years ago0
- ahorsebackposted 13 years ago0
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