divorce

I haven’t been writing because I was in the process of finalizing a divorce and I didn’t want to vomit emotion all over the place when I was in the midst of reining my emotions in and conceptualizing what was going on. 

 

The short version is that about a year ago I was dumped, for ill-explained reasons, and then suddenly I started to hear from the friend after twelve months of complete radio silence.  They offered to make an apology and an explanation which I declined with the caveat that if they needed to explain themselves or their actions or even apologize I would listen but that I didn’t need it and was over it and done.  I also offered my own apology for whatever unexplained offense I committed but also stated that after a year whatever it was I should be feeling I was over.  When I typed that it felt like a huge weight had been lifted but I wanted to wait a few days to make sure that it wasn’t a stage of grief but was the real thing. 

And, essentially, I teach middle school.  I do not live there. 

The problem with a platonic break up and in this case a platonic friend divorce is that the emotions are different, but still powerful.  This friend that I lost was the closest thing I have to a long-term friend and best friend from childhood.  A side effect of being an army brat is a lack of connection to people and a lack of relationships that the children of stationary civilians, ‘normal people,’ have.  I do not have a lot of close relationships.  I don’t think I have any close friendships and I’m not really close to anyone in my family.  I thought I was close with this friend and I think it was more that I wanted to check a box in my life that I did have a close friend, one from childhood, and we had been friends for a long time.  I feel lacking as a person that I do not have that social skill.  Of all the social skills I lack this is the only one I wish I did, indeed, have. 

I can’t deny that whatever the grounds they had for separation, dumping, and divorce are valid.  I think that, especially as someone so terrible at friendship, a person deserves to be served notice of divorce – even if it is swift, sudden, and severe.  So, I deserved to know what those valid reasons were.  I think I deserved to know that we weren’t friends and that they weren’t dead, in a coma, or in a Turkish prison.  Unfortunately, the terms of the separation and divorce make any reconciliation impossible on my end.  I really don’t want to be friends with a person like that – not matter how dear they were to me in the past.

The divorce was final in my heart when they emailed me back and I was filled with this dread that they would ask to be friends again and that I would relent and say yes.  It offered an apology and explanation – which can always open a door to reconciliation.  I shut the door but didn’t slam it.  I’ve let go of a lot of friends before: roommates, teammates, and classmates and the key differences being that I never really cared about those people and was more socially than emotionally bound to those people and I was the one dumping.  There is a lot of power in being the one who walks away.  I like to be in the driver’s seat. 

I know I am difficult to be friends with.  I’m temperamental, loud, arrogant, strange, embarrassing, and awkward; I’ve got very limited talents and interests, those talents and interests lend themselves to increased introversion; I say and do stupid things without realizing I have said or done something stupid counter-balanced by a finely-tune concept of forgiveness rooted in age-old Lutheranism; and if you are image conscious I am the last person to have in your entourage.  I have many, many faults that make me difficult to tolerate and spend time with.  Anyone who has difficulty doing that owes me no obligation beyond the politeness that indeed we are no longer to be associated in the acquaintance plus category of social interaction. 

Along these lines I also realize that I do not want to be tolerated by anyone.  There are enough people who, for reasons I do not understand, love me or like me and want me as a part of their lives.  They see something that this friend did not and frankly that I do not.  For some reason they want me around and for some reason this person does not.  I do not have time to maintain the relationships where I am wanted; why would I maintain the ones where I am not?  Why would I give up that time or even expect this non-friend to?  I’m hard to be friends with for a million reasons, but please move over if you don’t want to do it for those who do.

Emily, unfortunately, is going through something strikingly similar.  The key difference is that she is textbook definition of a good friend and a decent human being.  When we talked about our divorces I said something to this effect (and I will expand on it): losing a friend is like a tree losing a branch.  It hurts the tree in the short term but the wound heals over, leaves a scar, but the tree moves onward and upward – still growing.  At one point that branch helped the tree grow and now that it is gone other branches develop to take on that branch’s place in the nurturing and development of the tree. 

Am I sorry this friend is gone from my life?  Yes, and no.  I don’t need a person like that around and I don’t want a person like that around.  I don’t want to be a burden to others and I have other people who want me around.  The coin flips and I am presented with someone who I shared experiences and made memories with.  I learned a lot about being a friend (good and bad) from this person and I wouldn’t trade my time with them for something else.  There was a time when I’d have overlooked things and reintegrated them into my life but their absence taught me first that I wasn’t as important to this friend as they were to me but that I am important to other people.  Our relationship was long distance and it’s awful to say but I really didn’t notice them gone that often. 

I wish the other party well in life and I hope it is well away from me.  

Comments

[Erin Shippey]

Chris, I just went through this same sort of thing myself! You have somehow managed to sum up my emotions better than I could. By the way, I've always found your unique personality a bit comforting in that it proves that I am not the only person in the world who is a bit strange in the head.

[iidlyyckma]

One of the reasons I love you so much is because you are difficult to be friends with. I love that you are temperamental, loud, arrogant, strange, embarrassing, and awkward. Does that make sense?

[Erin Armknecht]

I'm going to just second what the other Erin said.