Home > Letter #2 - SMLB
Welcome to www.HunterJones.Info

Letter #2 - SMLB

Letter #2 - SMLB

Letter # 2

Dear Aireos,

Like I said in my research I came across this concept of "grief management". It seems this lady doctor did some work on death and dying back in the sixties. She concluded that people who have lost a spouse or close loved one go through five psychological stages of grieving: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and finally Acceptance. Let me give credit where credit is due: Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' book On Death And Dying, 1966 Macmillan Publishing Company, N.Y., ISBN: 0684839385 (Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross passed away on August 24, 2004 but her Web site lives: www.elisabethkublerross.com).

Grief Management: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and finally Acceptance

Every one of the books I've read so far on divorce will somewhere make reference to the doctor's work and draws parallels of death and dieing to the anguish of divorce. They note that divorce, on the Richter Scale of emotional trauma, is second only to the death of a spouse or close love one, and that a person getting a divorce goes through the same psychological stages of grief.

By implication (or maybe I manufactured it with my wishful thinking), the inference is that this "grief thing" is a straight line from point A through point B to get to point C - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

NOT! By the time I think I've arrived safely at Acceptance, I'm suddenly catapulted back to Denial - thinking (hoping) that the next e-mail from her will say something nice. Or as she comes up the stairs and puts down her briefcase, she'll look over at me, smile and say.

I'm sorry Aireos. Give me a moment.

Man I'm telling you Aireos, I wish this ugly dream would end with this period. Or this period. This period. This period. This period. This period. This period. This period. This period. This period. This period. Darn. Darn. Darn.

This damnable blue shirt.

I think I'm back. Let's try it again.

I think they should warn you that "grief management" instead of being a straight line from point A to point B to point C is more like the words in that song, it's "a long and winding road". The kind of road you would find snaking up, around and over some treacherous mountains range in Tibet or Afghanistan. A road with so many twists and turns you often find you're coming back on yourself, a road so twisty and turney and treacherous you're not surprised to find you're following your own taillights or blinking blindly at your own headlights.

Jeez, that is even "too" surreal for me, Aireos. Let's see if I can't say it differently.

When I first read the five psychological stages, I said to myself, "Hey, I've been there".

I can remember Denial. I can remember being staggered to find out everyone knew about her plans to divorce me but me (I guess I knew but like they say I was in Denial). "You mean you've told your friends at work?" Well, that wasn't too bad. They were her Pajama Party Pals. And I guess you have to let them look at some of your tattoos, to see their tattoos or piercing or scars. What's fair is fair.

"You mean you've told your stepsister? Ah jeez, she's in Japan. You don't see her everyday. You only call her once in a while, like on holidays or whatever. You mean you called her up, long distance, and told her you're divorcing me?"

"Ah jeez, you mean you've told your old high school friends? Those are the people you never tell the truth to. Those are the people you only show your bright and beautiful face to, your most successful face to. Those people are kept in the dark about your failures and screw-ups. Those are the people to lie to when they ask if "that" was your son they read about in the newspaper getting busted as a drug mule for a Colombian drug cartel."

"Oh no! You mean you've told your father? Jeez, he's eighty years old. You don't tell him anything. You keep him in the dark about almost everything."

"Ah jeez, who haven't you told? Do my relatives in Arkansas know? No. But you told my cousin who lives in LA! Ah jeez, jeez, jeez! That's a straight pipe to my home town of eight hundred and seventy-one people, most of whom are blood."

Like I said, I can remember Denial. "Hey, this little spat, tiff, fray is nothing more than a bump in the road of life, a little hiccup after thirty-six years of fine dining.

Everyone knew her plans. Everyone knew our business. That's when I realized. That's when I really, really realized I was in trouble, our marriage was in trouble and the "future" of our marriage was in trouble.

A woman like my wife who is so "outer-directed" having taken such a public stance and then widely broadcasted her plans could never, "to save face", retract her intentions or come down off such a lofty position.

Man Aireos, the bulls had been released and were on the run, the train was coming off the hill full tilt and I was standing on the tracks like a deer caught in the headlights. I realized then that the future of our marriage was not only in trouble but also possibly in an irrecoverable tailspin. She had told everybody but me, or maybe she did and I did hear her or maybe I didn't want to hear what she was saying. I can't remember, or I don't want to remember. Maybe that is what they mean when they talk about "Denial".

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

Anger? I can remember anger. But I tried to Bargain first.

Within days, it seems, we were suddenly scheduled for a one-hour freebie, "get to know me, I'm your new friend, the mediator" - type meeting. What the heck is a mediator?

My wife, unbeknownst to me, had for weeks been shopping around for an attorney, calling this one and talking with that one - hunting, I guess, for the best one. However, someone, maybe one of her Pajama Party Pals, pointed out that a mediator only cost $350 an hour verses the $10,000 retainer fee an attorney wanted, just for starters. Her PP Pals, I guess, drawing from a collective wisdom on the subject, pointed out to her that attorneys were for people who were so antagonistic toward each other that they could not talk to each other directly but had to talk through their attorney, for example - Danny DeVito's "War of The Roses" movie. Where Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner purposely tear up the house and cars just so that the other could not have them.

Back to bargaining instead of anger - the week before the first "for pay" mediator meeting, while we were amicably working through the list of assets we planned to be cut in half, I repeatedly asked her if we could slow this thing down. Could we schedule a meeting with a priest, a social worker, a counselor anybody other than someone who just wanted to cut our assets in half and watch us bleed?

That's when she said, "Why won't you let me go? I want out, o.u.t. OUT!"

"Okay. Get out. Go! Who needs you anyway?"

I never said any of that of course. I thought it but I never said it. I was afraid if I did say that stuff she really would go and be gone from me forever. If, however, I didn't say any of that ugly stuff, it would buy me some time to work on her and possibly turn this "Titanic" around.

Aireos, we had our first "you're on the clock" mediator meeting today. Like I said earlier, the mediator is a nice lady, very amiable and very, very informative and very attentive to our needs and to the situation.

Just an aside - what a depressing job, but I guess somebody has to do it. Somebody has to help you cut the baby in half and serve it up to the courts, so that the judiciary can rubber stamp the mediator's surgical work and expedite the ". and let no man put asunder" process - "Hey! You there, next, move it along, mind the queue, keep the line moving, next. NEXT!"

In the beginning life is so beautiful. "Tying the knot" is so joyous for young people, who are so much in love and so full of the future, so hungry to build a life everlasting together, so eager to cling to each other and weather the storms of life, while dodging "the slings and arrows of outrages fortunes".

Joyfully, for some young people they eventually get to celebrate sixty wonderful years together, while sadly for others the winds of winter blow cold and wither and dry up the tender buds that could have grown into an everlasting and loving relationship - that which was once "joyous" now has no joy and that which was once full of life now has no life.

Then on some cloudy, rainy Monday morning someone picks up a big black marker and scribbles, "DIVORCED" across the couples "golden passport to the setting sun" and the "asunder process" becomes final. That irrevocable ax has fallen and the "everlasting ties that bind" have been cut forever.

Oh well, I guess somebody has to do it. Some body has to dress in black, bury the twisted and crippled "until death do us part" corpus and say some nice parting words as the legal morticians cross the T's, dot the I's and toss some parting dirt into the open grave.

Wow, Aireos, can I get anymore morbid?

After the first "freebie" mediator meeting, where we got our homework assignment - "snip, snip", I followed my wife to her car and ask her one last time (which I've done a number of times since) if she would please reconsider.

"Why won't you let me go?"

I walked away mad. I was finally "angry". If she would not slow it down for her own good, I would do it for her. I started canceling meetings, feigning conflict of schedule problems and putting things further and further out, trying to buy time, "hoping" she would wake up and see the error in her mission. Maybe it was more like - I was hoping I would wake up from this ugly dream.

However, the more we worked together "you take that, I'll take this, we'll sell that and split the proceeds, blah, blah, blah", the more I realized she really wanted out. She convinced me that I had been a flaming A-hole for thirty-six years - an emotional abuser - and she had had enough and was now ready to do something about it.

"Julian, you're an emotional abuser and a flaming A-hole with no redeeming qualities" - boy that kind of indictment can put you in the old toilet gasping for air and mistakenly pulling at the flush lever, trying to lift yourself out.

You know Aireos, I have never really gotten angry. Maybe I've been too busily parked and waiting in the "Depression Drive-though Window" to really get angry. It's difficult to get angry when your wife is the best thing that has ever happened to you and you tell her that often, to her face, in front of other people and sometimes to yourself sitting alone at a red light waiting for it to change. It's easier to slide into Depression than to go off and get angry.

Aireos - I've never gotten really, really depressed but I'm telling you - I'm getting there now, buddy - excuse me for a minute.

I'm back. The cloud has passed.

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance - Like I said, for me, it's not a straight jump through the hoops. It's more like "a long and winding road" and I keep backing over my own tail. Aireos, I've worked the dickens out of Denial, I was the only one on the Titanic that didn't know it was sinking. I kept tipping the bandleader to play louder over all the commotion and noise. And Bargaining? I've worked that number up and down the street so much that the middle yellow line is no longer yellow but has turned black and blue. I've been drinking mostly Depression with a little Anger chaser once in a while.

Acceptance, for me, is like a revolving door. Every time I dash through it, I swish around for a few turns and wind up outside again, standing in front of this tall building wondering what happened and why is it so cold out here.

There has to be a sixth psychological stage, one that Dr. Ross didn't mention in her book "On Death And Dying". It's the one I'm living in now. I call it "hovering". It's not Denial. I got the message, finally! It's not Bargaining. I'm finished playing that game. I've played every card I had and even some I borrowed out of another deck. And no it's not Anger or Depression and it's definitely not total Acceptance. I'm a long way from that. No. It's more like just "hovering".

"Hovering?" - Yes. It's kind of like watching a little dragonfly hovering over a sleepy stream on a hot summer day.

I'll light on an angry colored lily pad for a moment, then fly off and just hover for a while. Next, I'll light on a soft spongy piece of Depression and ride that down stream for a while before I fly off and again just hover.

As Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance float by, I'm just too cool to land and stay on any one of them for any length of time. I can slip from one to the other, to the other, to the other effortlessly. And when I get tired of doing that I can always hover. In fact I can hover endlessly.

Maybe it's not hovering. Maybe the stage I'm in is more like being shell-shocked. Picture a cartoon where a World War II soldier is sitting in a foxhole where a mortar round just landed and exploded. He's the only one left alive. His eyes are big white saucers staring out at the reader, as small ribbons of smoke waff up from his uniform and smoldering helmet.

Aireos, I don't know if I am just too cool and can hover above all this tragedy. Or if I'm the shell-shocked soldier sitting there with his ears ringing, wondering what just happened.

I don't know where this fits but I'll plug it in right here because it happened today. If these un-mailed letters are suppose to help you let the steam off, I'll vent here for a second and see.

I had a working lunch with my wife today to make sure we have all the numbers (in half) that we will show to the mediator tomorrow. From our numbers the mediator will draft the MSA (Marital Separation Agreement), which we'll sign in a few days and which she will file with the court to start the six-month dissolution clock running.

My wife looked beautiful as always - but don't let me go there.

When we sat down at the table, the first thing I noticed was that she was not wearing her wedding ring. That bothered me. Was it some kind of taunting provocation, an intentionally contemptuous act of defiance on her part or was it a wave of reality finally washing over me? Whatever it was, it bothered me but I didn't say anything then. I decided to hold my "pissyness" until after we got our business with the numbers done and out of the way.

We did a good (fast) job with the numbers. I don't know if I'm being too easy and accommodating or if she is being very considerate and not asking for or taking too much.

About half way through the numbers and lunch, an elderly couple passed by us and they were helping each other walk without falling.

I paused and watched them for a moment and said, "That's the way I hoped we would grow old together."

Her comment was, "Julian, would you please stay focused on the problem at hand!" She cleared the calculator and continued.

We finished the numbers along with lunch, put our papers away and ordered coffee. We talked about nothing for a short while, until it was time for me to get "pissy".

"I see you are not wearing your wedding ring. Does that mean you are advertising your availability? I mean the ring used to be a stop sign for any roving Casanovas. Since the ring is put away does that mean the stop signs are down too?"

Nothing.

"I haven't had sex for nearly four months. You putting down one flag and raising another, does that mean I'm a 'free agent' and can go looking for a little diversion, a little recreation, a little amusement, a little whatever?"

"It means you can go do whatever you want to do."

A long silence was finally broken when she asked something about her car.

"I want to lower the value of my car on the spread sheet. One of the electric windows is acting flaky and won't come down and it needs a smog check to renew its registration. It's a piece of junk."

"If you had a husband, he would take care of all of that for you."

"Well, it's time I learned how to do some of that stuff myself."

"Yeah, right, whatever."

I started to tell her about the fuse that would solve the window problem but the hell with her. Let her pay through the nose to have some professional solve her problem at union hourly rates.

As I started to get up and leave, I realized half of what she was going to have to pay to a professional was going to come out of my half of anything, so I sat back down and told her about the fuse.

Man Aireos, what a depressing and exhausting lunch. Seriously, the way she comes across, she really wants out. There is no doubt about it.

Aireos. Aireos. Aireos.

That's okay partner. I'll just sit here and hover for a while, if you don't mind - Julian.