The Side of Divorce You Don't See

Maybe I’m not the perfect protagonist.

Really. When you see the hard-working single mom who appears to have been wronged by the evil ex, you empathize with her. You watch as she struggles to make ends meet. You cheer her on as she battles traffic to get both kids off to school on time yet still make it to work in a timely fashion. You pray she’ll meet someone who won’t take her for granted and will sweep her off her feet. You’re her biggest fan because she’s the underdog and you want her to succeed.

But what about the recently divorced women who AREN’T the underdog? Is a divorce any easier for a woman who was the more dominant force of the relationship? Should she receive less empathy because she was the breadwinner and can still afford to get the grass mowed despite the fact there’s no longer a man in the house? Should she be ridiculed because she works from home and has a more flexible schedule that makes her life “appear” to be that much easier?

It’s an interesting dilemma. I know that throughout my divorce nobody really thought too much about how I’d fare. It’s not because they didn’t think I’d make it on my own – they expected no less. The assumption was that I’d basically been doing it alone for so many years that this shouldn’t be much different. And maybe for once assuming didn’t make an ass out of u or me.

On more than one occasion though it was brought to my occasion that I didn’t really have it “that bad.” There were PLENTY of divorced women who had it a whole lot worse. There were women who lost their houses, who had no job to fall back on, who truly couldn’t afford to get by. Agreed. But do you tell the man who has cancer that at least he doesn’t have AIDS? Of course you don’t. Not that there's any comparison between a terminal illness and divorce, but you get the point.