Seniors, this is a controversial subject I feel strongly about?

Question

Some of us have experienced a broken marriage, some of us have lost a spouse to death.
Do you, as seniors, feel that a loss due to divorce (that you did not want) can be as devastating as a death of a spouse?

Example: Jane Doe's husband finds another love and divorces her. She is devastated because it is truly a death of a marriage to her but very hard because this person is still alive and it hurts a lot.
Example 2: Jane Doe's husband dies and she receives sympathy cards, and her friends rally around her with love and encouragement.
Point I am trying to make: Do you consider one more devastating than the other? If so, please express your opinions. I hope I worded this correctly. Any loss is sad but...how do you feel?

This is placed in the Senior Citizens section because we have lived longer and are more aware of the impact both of these have.

Answer 1

Absolutely, even worse, can you imagine if your husband didnt die? If you found out he was alive and well and living a good life with Betty Sue across town and has a couple more kids?

It sounds harsh but having someone die and not leave you by choice or for someone else is easier IMO.

I have had both happen to me - with divorce there is the added grief created by anger, a feeling of inadequacy, the questions, why did he stop loving me? The wondering if you can "get them back".

Having to see them with another woman, another family, feeling discarded - I have heard widows say it would be easier if he was alive and I could still see him sometime.

WRONG. They say that because they havent been through divorce, and honestly are any of us THAT noble? I'm not.

Widows are seldom suddenly scrambling to find a new home for themselves and their kids, and arent fighting another woman for financial support and security at the same time they are grieving.

They arent getting phone calls from God taunting them with things like "I have your man now, he's mine".

People can be EXTREMELY insensitive about a divorce, and will tell people "to get over it, get on with your life, let go" and try to get the person out and dating within as short as a month.

There is very little respect for the grief and pain a person is going through - you arent entitled to time off work for instance to grieve - They will say stupid things like "what did you do to drive him away?"

With a divorce you also lose friends, instead of supporting you, they dump you too. A divorced woman is seen as a threat around "happily married men/couples" as if she is "on the prowl for a man".

People can be and are really ignorant sometimes

I am Asst Mgr on a divorce support forum so we hear it all, and support a lot of "discarded" cheated on people -

My second exe was having an affair with a man, so he didnt reject me per se, he rejected my entire gender, so that was LESS painful IMO.

My first exe I left because I discovered two months after marrying him he was an alcoholic and a mean drunk.

I was the one who opted out of both my marriages.

I have had two long term relationships (out of about five) where the guys cheated on me, and that hurt. Its a deal breaker. I dont do team sports, so it was over right away.

One was really bad, he cheated on me during a very very bad time in my life, two relatives had died, I had major surgery, was selling my house, moving overseas, leaving my kids for a year, and I was stressed to the breaking point, instead of supporting me through this he decided to have an affair because "he felt I wasnt paying enough attention to him".

It was HARD and no one had any sympathy or understanding, can you imagine telling a widow "yah well these things happen, get over it"

Answer 2

I think it depends on the situation and the people involved
as to how devastating one is over the other. Both can be
equally bad depending on the people and the circumstances.
The divorce can be worse, in a way, because it
symoblizes rejection. But death is more final. In the case,
of the divorce, it's not the fault of Jane Doe, but of her husband. Ultimately, time does heal all. Even though it
may take a long time and the person hurt may not
believe it, and it may not seem like it at the time. I was divorced once, a long time ago, and it hurt at the time, but I was able to move on, and I met my present husband who is the love of my life. We've been married almost 33 years. Sometimes, a person can eventually come out better in the long run. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Enough though a divorce can be devastating, I do not think it is as bad. My sister lost her husband last year due to cancer. They met at the age of 16, got married at 18. They celebrated more than 40 years of marriage. Yes she received sympathy cards, but did that remove any of the pain and the emptiness in her life? If he had left her for another, it might be less painful. The marriage would of not have been as wonderful, plus she would have the comfort of knowing he was still alive.

Answer 4

1. Homosexuality... ...Should not be a controversial subject. Sexual orientation is determined before birth. It's a part of people, and I feel no one has any right to debate the issue of homosexuality itself. Gay marriage on the other hand? I am 100% pro. 2. Abortion... ...I consider myself to be so pro-choice I'm almost homicidal. Yep, that's right, that means I'm not only someone who is okay with a woman having an abortion, but someone who thinks it's often the best move. 3. Sex... ...As a whole? When it's consensual, I think it's wonderful. It's the closest two people can get Intimately. As for teen sex? That I'm against, because I think sex takes a level of emotional and physical maturity that just isn't possible during the teens years. And premarital sex? I encourage, because I think you need to know someone sexually before you devote your life to them. 4. Religion... ...Being a UCC Christian myself, I can say that, personally, religion is a big part of my life, and a part I could not do without. However, I think it's taken too far sometimes when it gets to the point where it's so exclusive that many people are left ostracized and hated. I also think it causes many problems, many unnecessary arguments, and many very hateful people. So, in reality, it's not always so great. But in theory? I think religion is crucial. 5. Race... ...I can honestly say that I am part of a generation that doesn't see skin color nearly at all. We've come very far in this department, I think. What about you? How do you feel about these issues?

Answer 5

Not to downgrade the death of a loved one. But I feel the loss of a spouse in marriage, whether it was expected or not, is more devastating. Why, like you said everyone rallies around the widow/widower. But the one remaining that was betrayed in the divorce is left to their own devices. There is no encouragement from anyone. No one is concerned to listen to their anger, sorrow, hate, betrayal, or how they will be able to get on with their life or not. They have financial matters that they have to deal with. They have to pick up their lives and get on with it as if nothing happened. People are so superficial, and do not want to discuss the deeper points of how that person is feeling, or even to care. Believe me it has been a real eye opener. And it doesn't make it any easier to deal with.

Answer 6

both are catastrophic events you go into a marriage with dreams of spending your life together in one you both work hard to make your dreams come to life you act as one entity and live your dream and then one partner passes that person did not choose to go it was the last in the world they wanted they loved you and could not imagine not being a part of you they had no choice it was their time
in the other the person chooses to deceive you and plays at loving you and the life you are building and by choice tears the dream apart for their own goals leaving you to wonder what happened.
in my opinion the latter is much worse when the person you love dies the love is still there and the affection for that person is forever and you know that it was not their choice with the other you are left feeling many things you wonder what you did wrong your self esteem and self confidence sink to all time lows. you end up feeling that you have nothing to offer anybody that they would want. it takes a long time to recover from that. some never do. i know because i spent 18 years working on a marriage only to find out that i was just a beard and no longer needed to protect an image i wish she had died it would have been easier to take what a fool

Answer 7

Both are devistating, the parting that takes place in divorce is often times as final as death. The phases that you go through after both are very similar: the denial, anger, depression, acceptance, numbness, etc. To say one is worse than the other is difficult. Each person handles it differently, but you have to allow yourself validation for the pain and grief as the suffering, coping, and moving on skills are as unique as the individual experiencing them. Life is a journey, not a destination, and we move forward one step at a time no matter if the loss is from death or divorce.

Answer 8

I worked hard at my marriage for 16 1/2 years. And I always expected to grow old with the man I had chosen to be my husband.

It was hard to first, accept that he was looking for "stimulation" elsewhere. I don't want to brag, but I am damn good at anything I choose to do, and how to please my man was another such area to excell at!

It was equally hard to accept that I COULDN'T "fix" this problem. My husband didn't exactly want to "move on", but when it became a choice between having no women outside of our marriage, and ending our marriage, he chose to throw away the marriage.

My ex was very much a stimulus driven person...he needed that "bloom on the rose" feeling. His actions since our divorce have proven this.

But what the break-up did to me was actually WORSE than if he had died. If I had lost my loving husband of 16 1/2 years to an accident or disease, at least I would have had that 16 1/2 years of love to look back on.

What I had instead was the knowledge that I wasn't "good enough" to keep my husband interested. I was somehow lacking in the attributes it took to keep my man interested, no matter how good I thought I was at interpersonal skills.

And THAT was devastating.

If my loving husband had died I would have taken a year or two to get over his death, and then been able to move on and probably would have happily re-married.

Instead I was left with such a blow to my own ego and self-possession that I was unable to date for 5 years afterwards, and I only went back to dating to FORCE myself to try to heal.

No. Divorce is MORE DEVASTATING than a death could ever be.

Answer 9

I have been divorced as well as widowed. The first time I was divorced, I was 23, becaues it was civil and we had children i became amicable and I was actual;y friends with the new wife. The second time, i was 30, my husband was a drunk driver and crashed into the back of a truck, the steering wheel injured his liver, he died 6 weeks later, he essentially bled to death internally at the hospital, we were totally unprepared for anything like this ever happening. It was also financially devastating since their was no life insurance and it took forever even to pay for the funeral, we lost our home, cars everything. I remariied again and my husband had a stroke. As an RN, I called it, called the paramedicas, we transported to the hospital, they said he had a 'virus" and sent him home with medication for 'nausea". By the following morning, he was in a coma with Combs sign, his eyes were blackened by the blood pooling in his head ,since the clot was on the brain stem, things were really touch nd go for a long time. He never fully recovered. Had the hospital acted within the first few ghours, he might have had a chance at life again. Hehad to learn to eat again, to walk, To use a bathroom, to learn to feed himself. Because of the clot,his mental status was altered and from the most delightful man you would ever want to meet, he became cruel, threw feces, food, anything he could toss. He couldn't remember me or his kids, so he called us all swear words. He had another stroke a year later and died. I know he wasn't happy the way he was. No friends or family rallied around to help either, the first days after the initial stroke, people called all the time. AS time wore on. no one called or came to see us. In a way, his death eased his pain and I was more prepared to handle any difficulty.

Answer 10

One thing I have learned is that loss is loss - even when one is the perpetrator of the loss...i.e., the one who wanted the divorce, for example.

When I divorced, I was the one who asked for it....yet, after he moved I went through an actual grieving period which mystified me. A friend gave me a gift of a book titled, Creative Divorce, and while reading it I discovered that regardless of the circumstances, when a union ends through divorce, it is a profound change in a person's life and one grieves just as much as when the spouse was lost due to death.

I then allowed myself to miss him, and to miss being married and to regret it did not work out and my 'dream' was shattered, and also allowed myself to feel 'failure' and later to learn from missteps we b oth made, grow and move on.

For many of us who grew up in the 'old school' divorce was frowned upon, as was the
divorcee' - hence we received/receive little support as when the spouse dies.....but know there those of us out here who KNOW the pain.