What I Know For Sure 30 Years After My Divorce

With divorce often comes rage and resentment towards your ex.  However, the Huffington Post article by Brittany Wong, What I Know For Sure 30 Years After My Divorce, provides reassuring insight of 30-year divorcee, Carol Stigger.  In her early 40s, Carol Stigger’s husband ran off with one of her good friends.  She realized that the man she loved for 20 years was not coming home, and that if he ever did, she would not forget what he had done.  She told Huffington Post that this meant she had to learn who she was without the convenient label of a “wife.”

Stigger offered that her divorce in fact freed up her life.  She was now able to pursue an exciting and rewarding life, such as becoming a journalist, which was something she said she was never able to do while “married to a man who wanted a maid and cook for a wife.”  At first, she describes walking around without her husband as feeling like an “amputee”, when going to a party alone or even just going to the grocery store alone.  Stigger thought she needed a new man to solve this problem.  However, after ten years and a “series of lovers who turned into losers”, she realized that her rage was what was getting in her way of moving on.

After learning that every divorced woman needs a little discernment, she saw that this discernment she needed remained buried beneath the mountain of rage.  Stigger eventually realized one day that she was finally making choices that were not curdled by “I’ll show you”, and was now free again to make choices not driven by anger.  She has now let go of the marriage entirely and realizes that it was never really about “and they lived happily ever after”, but instead about the children they raised, the ones who she describes as “making her heart hum.”

Stigger began to see that all she really needed was a “cozy nest with guest rooms for grandkids.”  Although it took Stigger years to overcome her inner rage, she ultimately came to the realization that it’s the little things in life that matter the most.  Being divorced in her early 40s gave her time to reinvent herself and change from a middle manager to a journalist who travels the world.  She says it was easier for her to succeed professionally than personally; it took a great deal of work and a year of graduate school, but after failing in marriage, she was not going to fail at her dream.

The biggest obstacle Stigger was faced with was identifying and confronting her problem and rage and then losing it and letting go.  Now, instead of being enraged at her ex-husband and the “other woman”, she is grateful for the three wonderful children that came from that marriage.  She is now set free from her bitterness and resentment.

Are you considering filing for divorce or separation?  When a couple decides to dissolve their marriage, there are many aspects that need to be addressed including child custody and support, parenting time/visitation, spousal and equitable distribution, to name a few.  These are subjects that Jay D. Raxenberg, P.C. has gained a great deal of experience in over the last two decades in Supreme and Family Court.  Mr. Raxenberg has extensive training, knowledge and experience in this area of the law and is dedicated to providing exceptional legal representation to all of his clients.  Please call (516) 491-0565 or toll free at (888) 543-4867 to arrange your initial consultation.