Divorce: Yes, there is an upside

Over the past couple of days I’ve had conversations with two straight male friends of mine. One is going through an acrimonious and horribly expensive divorce; the other is a serial dater looking unsuccessfully for love. I always like to lend a sympathetic ear and an ergonomic shoulder, and I’ve come out of the experience with new insight into what it is to possess a Y chromosome and an interest in Popular Mechanics.

Now, both of them have reason (here’s a big surprise) to think that Joburg women are full of shit. Of course, that’s another blog entry altogether, so I’ll put that particular debate aside for the moment.

But what strikes me is this: yes, there is an upside to being divorced. Oh, granted, in the best of all possible worlds, you’d choose to live happily ever after. Nobody in his or her right mind would choose through month after month of the emotional equivalent of scouring one’s armpits with a cheese grater and then exfoliating with lemon-scented Vim. My divorce and everything around it left me shattered and since it’s supposed to take two years to get over it, I’ve still got a couple of months to go.

Still, there are positives, and there’s nothing like the less than perfect lives of your friends to remind you of this. When you’ve been divorced, you’ve been there, done that and put the T-shirt in storage, and there’s something to be said for being sent through the mill and coming out the other side.

For one thing – and for women, this is probably the biggest of all – there’s no longing for the white dress and the walk down the aisle. I had the church service with the impressive guest list and the impeccably tasteful reception. I had the string quartet and the mobile disco. I chose the wedding invitations and worked out the seating arrangements; I posed for pictures I’ll never look at again. If I’d never been married, I’d feel as though I’d missed out on one of the most spiritually profound journeys in the life of any woman, the chance to be Bridezilla.

Divorce also toughens you up in interesting ways. All those calluses and battle scars make for excellent armour. Those who have never divorced are delicate naked mollusks quivering without shells. They’re completely vulnerable. If you’ve been through a divorce, you’re better able to handle the vicissitudes of a life that refuses to follow the script, and few lives do.

Here are a few other upsides:

• There’s no wondering what if, what might have been, no desperate quest for The One. Because you know there isn’t The One and never was.
• Once you get over the knee-jerk need to fill the spouse-shaped hole in your life, you’re perfectly happy on your own. People who have never been divorced are doomed to seek out their other half because they don’t know how lucky they are to be alone.
• You know that how perfect something might seem, it could go pear-shaped in an instant. I have another male friend who was happily married for 13 years, only for it to gurgle down the plughole in a matter of months.
• Also, because of this, you know that happiness can never be taken for granted. So you live in the moment and enjoy something for what it is, rather than what it might be.

Divorce makes some who survive it very angry; my experience of it was an overwhelming sadness. Sadness, if you learn from it, can lead to wisdom (anger, in contrast, tends to lead to cynicism). So now I get to be wise and wry — or at least pretend to be wise and wry — in matters of relationship advice and though, given my track record, anything I have to say about this should come with a strenuous disclaimer, sometimes it’s the people who are bad at things, who have learned from bad experiences, who have the most insight to offer.

Nothing forces you to reassess relationships and your expectations of them than the dissolution of a legal entity. When your ivory-and-lavender blue fantasies dissolve into the black and white of a final judgment at the South Gauteng High Court, you grow up very fast. And maybe, just maybe, you’re a better person for it in the end.