Love the message of the song below–I’ve had so many of those long dark nights myself…
On a not-so-related note: ran into an old friend at the gym tonite–someone that I hadn’t seen since I started grad school. She said I looked radiant and happy (more so that when she knew me before). That that make it a bit easier to reply when she asked a few moments later about how “John was doing these days.” Oy. That’s happened twice this past week–I never do know quite how to reply to such questions. Any advice?
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Honesty: “He’s doing well…and I’m still struggling.”, “I haven’t talked to him in a while; I try not to dwell.”, “I’m not sure—but I’m doing great!”
(All of these have been taken from my own break-ups. When we become a pair, it seems hard to convince people that we are/ever were/could ever be a person in our own right—even sometimes when no break up occurs.)
Solidarity, sister. Angry music and roses :)
Funny, I got a FB message from someone who came to my wedding to JH and asked how he was. My response was pretty much ‘I think he’s well, but you’d have to ask him. We’ve been apart going on what, six or seven years now’. Of course, you can always simply say ‘dunno’, don’t particularly care’.
I’ve tried variants of all those answers, but usually I have to preface it with some sort of explanation of us not being married any longer (this is always necessary, if a bit awkward, if I’ve got an obviously not-John partner at my side…). There’s no way to make the divorce thing not shock the people who’ve known us, and then conversation gets really uncomfortable from that point on.