Paths Forward
Carolyn Hax recently had divorce advice which also applied to infertility. A woman is in the middle of the grieving process after a divorce, but she’s terrified that she will still be angry 20 years down the road plus she is annoyed whenever people tell her that she’ll find someone else. She doesn’t want to focus on someone else; she wants to focus on the situation in front of her: the divorce.
Hax points out that “The sense that you were treated horrendously can give way to the excitement at the promise of Life II: The Sequel without his selfish self as a co-star. Or just the promise of having any weird thing for dinner without having to factor him in. It’s okay to start really, really small.”
Okay, so clearly divorce-focused, but I started thinking about how much of my initial anger with infertility was tied to a feeling that my body (or the universe or whatever I was promised would happen when we tried building a family) was treating me horrendously.
You can see either a life plan wrecked behind you, or do-over opportunity ahead of you — into which you build any joy you can. Even the idea or intention of joy, before you’re actually able to feel it, will help shift your center from regretful-then to hopeful-now. After you sort through the grief, of course; it’s normal and healthy to be as mad as you want to be.
A life plan wrecked or a Plan B formed. It’s just a tiny shift in thinking. Something comes next; not everyone gets that next moment, that next day, that next stage of life. So how do you look forward into it? You can either look backward at that old life plan, or (once you are ready) start charting out the new life.
Here’s to paths forward.
4 comments
I am mostly a “no regrets” kind of person – I move on from things fairly quickly, because there’s no way to change the past. So I totally appreciate Carolyn Hax’s viewpoint. It’s fine to mull some stuff over and see if there’s anything to gain from the wreckage of things gone wrong. But you can’t let that drive you forever – life moves forward and you need to move with it.
I wonder if this tiny shift is part of what makes the difference between a resilient person and a not-so-resilient person. The former is somehow able to look and move forward, and the latter remains in the hurts and expectations of the past. Not that it’s either/or. Most people probably do a dance between the two but ultimately land on one side or the other.
I once wrote a post about the similarities between our situation and those who are divorced. see this so clearly in the childless not by choice community. There are some people who continually think about the “should-have-beens” and make themselves miserable. And there are those who – as you say, when they are ready – decide to embrace what is positive about our lives. I love her final point about gratitude. Not for the betrayal, but for the new opportunities.
The key though is that first you need to be able to mourn what you have lost. And society doesn’t do well on this note. All those glib responses (“you can have my kids, they’ll drive you crazy” etc) essentially dismiss your loss. I like Hax’s “put a bandaid on it” analogy. But in the childless world, we’re often told we don’t even need a bandaid, because we never had anything to lose. Disenfranchised grief.
I think recognizing it as a shift is good — that at first, it absolutely feels like a life plan wrecked, a derailment that leaves you reeling. But then, once that initial shock isn’t quite so fresh, reorienting to Life Part II and the possibilities, opportunities, and benefits of that new start… That’s super empowering. Having had my life made over twice (first with my divorce at 30, then with resolving without children in my 40s), I’m a fan of the shift. But also of thoroughly mourning what was lost while trying out a new direction. I agree with Lori on resilience and Mali on the mourning, a. with eventually having to move forward either way. Great post, got my wheels turning!