Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

“Divorce”

Divorce may be the final step in a long sad process of alienation, but it doesn't end the list of crazy things that befall the divorced persons. Once you are out of the old relationship, lately plagued by a coldness that could frost the pumpkins of your old marital memories, you would like to think you could bask in the warmth of relief. But whatever welcomed respite the decision to end the marriage brings with it, is only a pit stop on the way to a long and grueling race with your own emotions. If you thought you were going to leave your troubles behind you when you dumped the Evil One, think again. The process of divorce is like a long curving underground river that sends hot jets of yellow-green steam to the surface of your psyche without warning. People get burned by the bursts of emotional confusion that the grief of divorce is bound to bring with it. If you have been married for any length of time beyond two hours, the entanglement of your emotions in that relationship will keep you wounded for a lot longer than it takes to try to start a new life. Relationship bonding, even in a bad marriage, is more powerful than you expect. Anything more than a marriage of fifteen years, and the divorce is only a paper document event. The emotions keep going like the battery bunny. The only drum beat you will hear is a throbbing in your head. Divorce is not the end of your troubles; it is the beginning of an inner turmoil that pales the outer turmoil you were trying to escape.

If you flew a U-2 spy plane over Cape Coral, you could look down and see half the population (remember the statistics?) milling around, after their divorce, seeking solace and comfort. In various ways, the walking wounded would be coping with loneliness, anger, and great emotional pain over the failure of their death-do-us-part commitment. Some would be devastated, lost and confused. Some would be in denial about their grief, and would be seeking comfort in another love relationship. These latter are the same people who, when their dog died, ran to the pet store right away to get a new puppy. They didn't realize there is a PROCESS for the grief. Instead they make the local smoke-filled hang-out their unwitting divorce-recovery group. Spy plane film footage would reveal desperate measures of those looking for love in all the wrong places, seeking reassurance that someone, ANYone, finds them attractive. The Donald Rumsfeld of relationship battlefields would be tempted to send in the troops to stop these divorce victims from permanently harming themselves.

Hey, it takes time for the wheels of healing to grind out a new life for the bereaved! It also takes pro-active self care to tend to the emotions and get on with getting through it. Some of the victims would realize that something died (was it the smell that clued them in?) and hold their own version of a funeral: maybe some friends over, a shared bottle of wine, and a ritual where something gets set on fire and reduced to a few grey crumbles in the ashtray. I'm not talking celebration exactly, but more like a wake. Emotional stuff. Stories. A box of Kleenex. Of course, there are other sensible measures. There are real divorce recovery groups, and there are pages of yellow pages under "Disaster Cleanup", "EMTs", and "Psychotherapists".

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