| In 1961, C. S. Lewis lost his wife to cancer. His diary from that time was later published in a slim book called "A Grief Observed". This was the same man who authored the Narnia series: an English academic and Christian apologist. I titled this blog in homage to him. The process of grieving after a spouse's death is well-recognised and we have traditions and social patterns for supporting those walking in those horrible shadow lands. We have no such traditions or patterns for separation and divorce. The grief of that loss is as great, but rarely expressed in public. It remains private and unobserved. |
Bear in mind that with divorce there's not a body to mourn. It's disenfranchised grief. The attendant rituals are missing: there's no wake or funeral. The day the divorce is finalized may pass unnoticed. Family and friends aren't bringing food and casseroles. From society's viewpoint, you couldn't make the marriage work, or you weren't right together anyway. So expressions of grief are somehow unacceptable. Friends grow impatient.A little later she says that "Husbands who are betrayed frequently claim that a wife's death would have been easier to absorb than the reality of her leaving for another man or in search of freedom." She also quotes Douglas Gillette:
When a man is voted against — when his sexuality, capacity to protect, provide, excite is found wanting — it's a disastrous blow to self-worth. Men feel abandoned. There's no other message when a wife leaves a husband.All so true, for me at least.
— Nat
