h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It deals with how to live again after getting a divorce, which happened to me well over two years ago. It's a strange old world out there. Maybe it sounds a little jaded, but there you are.

Hi.
A truly poignant entry which is obviously written from the heart.
Having never been through a divorce myself (though I was heavily affected by my parents' divorce) I can't begin to give any advice about content, though I can add the 'Grass is Greener' phenomenon which seems to crop up after a relationship goes down the pan - This is usually true if it is you that has ended the relationship - No matter how miserable you were in the relationship, once you are out of it you only remember the good bits, and you wish it had never ended. This rule applies whether you are currently in a new relationship or single, and the strength of the feeling is proportional to the length of the relationship multiplied by the inverse of the speed that the relationship finished to the power of guilt.
I really would like to see this entry appear somewhere in the edited guide, but I'd love to hear from my peers about their opinion.

Best wishes

- Adam

This is amazing. I am truly impressed at how well you have done it without writing in the first person. Please tell me you spent hours and hours on it. If you can write like that in a single sitting, then I am speechless with wonder and envy.

I don't have many personal-experience comments to make on this one, (very nearly, but not quite yet), but I think it is one of the really great Guide entries, and deserves praising far and wide.

I'm also shocked at the deafening silence with which it has been greeted. Talk about one hand clapping.

*Cheers, and applauds loudly*

T'is good
BCNU - Crescent

I am going through my third parental divorce as we type. Despite being 27 and having a completely separate life, this has affected me and my brother as badly as when we were 12 and 7. What is worse though is now I can clearly see what is happening to my Mother and Stepfather and now that I am old enough to understand they want to tell me all about it. Complete of course with their own particular brand of spin.

I am going to print this article out and pin it to their respective fridges. Then I am going to highlight the bit about new partners. My Mother's choice is a rare case of someone I can find nothing good to say about.

Perhaps you could add something about the other people who are involved but on the edges: children, grandparents, brothers and sisters-in-law. Often these people think they are being pressurised to take sides.

*Hugs for Abi*

I know what you mean about the other casualties of divorce.
My parents divorce will affect me forever - I am quite cynical about relationships, and I suppose I always will be.
I still (even though it happened 20-odd years ago) get upset about it all, and then I get angry with myself.

You shouldn't get angry with yourself for being upset, it is a very natural way to feel. I think your parents probably feel that way to. I know my Mum is furious that neither marriage has worked so far.

Perhaps if people want to talk we should do it over here rather then fill the thread with emotional baggage

You shouldn't get angry with yourself for being upset, it is a very natural way to feel. I think your parents probably feel that way to. I know my Mum is furious that neither marriage has worked so far. Perhaps if people want to talk we should do it over here rather then fill the thread with emotional baggage ;-) ;-) http://www.h2g2.com/F14538?thread=73929&post=563314

Hey, thanks for the pat on the back and suggestions.

I'll definately think about adding something about the family and friends around that get hit by the fragmentation of the marriage. Good idea.

As to the question about doing it in one sitting, I did the bulk of it in about 20 minutes. I edited it a few times over the next couple of days with the help of one of my friends.

Anyway, thanks a lot guys

I just found this Guide Entry {trying to find my own} and as I am divorced, I decided to read it. I must disagree on one point, from my own experience. My ex-husband & I seperated, he hit the single scene & with 2 weeks he had found a woman not yet divorced, her divorce going through the month before ours. He courted her for a month, despite attempts by myself to repair our marriage. She had children aged 2 years and 4-months, when they met, we had 3 children aged 7,6 & 2. Within a year, he was living with her, 2 years later they were married, they had a daughter together, she is now 8. They are just about to celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary. It was the first relationship for both of them, from their marriages ending. Was it just a damned good arrow, from Cupid? Unfortunately I have stumbled through the last 15 years, bringing up children alone, then teenagers {!} with no help from my ex-, their father, trying to make another family with someone else who turned out to be a pervert *after* I'd had his child so I am back where I started, bringing up a child alone again. Sorry this has all spilled out now. I should have gone & posted this on Abi's page....in fact I think I will...

...hmm... I guess there could always be exceptions.

However, if I can relate a similar story from one of my friends who was just divorced:

Within a month of separation, she started dating a friend of hers. They've been together almost a year and a half now and seem very happy -- in fact they are about to move in together.

*However,* upon having a couple of pints with her and gently asking a few questions, it seems that she is feeling a little smothered by the whole thing. Sometimes she just wants to spread her wings and fly. She finally broke down and finally told me that one of the things that keeps them together is simply the fact that firstly, she doesn't want anyone to think that the reasons her marriage failed included her own problems and secondly that she is terrified of being alone (which is something she claims to most people is not the case).

Is the relationship working? Maybe on the surface. I sure of hell wouldn't want to be in it tho. Will they be together forever? Maybe. Will the guy pick up on the fact that she's not wholly there and feel unfulfilled? Maybe. Will she pick up in ten years and blast off to the coast like she says she wants to deep in her heart? Maybe.

Who knows? Maybe they are happy.

Maybe your ex will stay with her forever. Maybe six months down the road he'll be laying on a therapist's couch and discover that he's trapped in something he doesn't want. It's always been my feeling that divorce is such an evolutionary process that afterward you become a whole new person, and that growth will be stunted and destructive if you are hemmed into a role you began to play while it was still going on. And I stand by the idea that you don't really realize what happened in the marriage until the next relationship where generally a bunch of the same mistakes are made.

My two cents. I'm not god but I've never seen it work in the dozens (literally) of divorces I've been around.

http://www.h2g2.com/A391682

Hi Marduk.

It's not entirely clear why this entry has been moved to the workshop - do you have any idea? I suspect it may be an administrative error - these things sadly happen For which I apologise.

I'm going to have a check through this entry to see if there's anything obvious that means it should be in the workshop - if not, I'll see if we can move it back, if so then I'll try to point out the problem so you can fix it...

Ok, I think I can see what the rationale was... I think...

The first point is that no entry on life after divorce is complete without lots of quotes from those who've been through it or are going through it or were close to someone who was - there are some people in this forum who may well be able to furnish you with such quotes, if you push them a little bit.

Push them! You could also add your own quotes, or quotes of people you know, where appropriate.

The correct form is something like:-

One researcher observed of his divorcing mother:

She ate so much chocolate she exploded, and it took fifteen oompaloompas to clear the place up afterwards. (etc, etc).


{end form}

or perhaps:-

Mrs. Wonka told the following story about how life after her divorce was made more tricky by her former husband:

He kept phoning me up and saying "Stop, Come Back" in that ironic voice of his. Well, it may have got him an Oscar for the film, but it didn't do my nerves any good at all.


The second bit is to observe that saying that *all* rebound relationships are doomed to failure is perhaps a little inaccurate - don't sacrifice the truth to the alter of exaggeration.

So, I'd say a bit of a rethink about the structure of the thing (perhaps including "a typical reaction to divorce" with "stage 1: weeping", "stage 2: wearing sweat pants", "stage 3: going to a strip bar", "stage 4: picturing yourself with other women" - or whatever you decide)

What do you think?

Just to clarify - this was moved here in one of the first batches, and as such we hadn't yet institued the rule of always posting an explanation to the thread.

Sorry again - hopefully this sort of stuff is less likely to happen now...

Personally, I think it should go back to PR!

ummm.... why?

Cos I think it is good enough for the guide, and I think the guide would benefit from it

If you're wondering who recommended this article for the workshop, it was me (boo, hiss!) I enjoyed reading this entry. However, there are some aspects of divorce that aren't even mentioned in this article, that I think need to be talked about before it's ready to be in the Edited Guide.

For instance, what about the kids?
• Child support and alimony. I don't know if the UK and other European countries have provisions for child support/alimony in case of divorce, but America certainly does. Many divorced fathers refuse to pay child support. In this case, if the government can track down the father, they can deduct it from his paycheck.
• Visitation rights. For the dad/mom to get visitation rights, there's usually a painful and lengthy legal battle. Does the dad get the kids on the weekend and become the babysitter, while the wife goes out on the town? Does the mom keep the kids for all but two weeks of the year so the kids won't know what their dad looks like?
• Counseling and support for children after the divorce, and the necessity of a civilized and amicable relationship between the parents - no kid likes to see their parents fighting, and it's even tougher after a divorce.

How do we divvy up the stuff?
• Who gets the car, and who gets the house? Or do we sell it all and keep the money? A recommendation on the smart thing to do would be good right about here.

The emotional impact of divorce.
• You've handled this aspect very lightly, and I think it needs a little more attention. Okay, so you've decided that there are irrevocable differences between you and your spouse, and the only thing you can do is get a divorce. This is a really hard slam to the ol' ego, and one of the reasons people get married, or at least heavily involved right after divorce, is that they're trying to prove something to themselves. Kind of a mix of "am I the problem?" and "I need love/affection." Sometimes it's as simple as wanting contact with another human being... (bedcuddles! ) As you said, the after-the-divorce relationship is doomed to fail - for this very reason.

If the notion of all that research overwhelms you, another option you might consider is to narrow the focus of your article and talk about the dating scene after divorce. This would make things a lot easier on you! (I recommend this option - it would require only a tiny bit of rewriting)

As I said earlier - I liked this entry, but I had to judge it on content rather than readability, and it really needs more solid information in it to really be about "Life After Divorce."

Sorry about the confusion, Marduk! Because this was moved to the workshop before we developed a voting system for that, I see no reason why you couldn't repost to the Peer Review and give it another go. What do the other scouts think?

- Lentilla

OK, I've finally come back.
I took a little hiatus after the reorg to h2g2.
Thanks for all the responses. I can't really comment on kids, we never had any. We did have a ferret named loki, but he probably doesn't count. At least he didn't look like he needed counselling. Just some raisins (sorry - ferret joke).

The other suggestions are great. Maybe I'll do a re-work
Any help would be great.