I signed the separation agreement two weeks ago today. There in black and white, the legal record of my failures.
We’re still getting Christmas cards addressed to the five of us. I just don’t know how to tell people, still. Word has spread among those that I see often but it’s the long distance friends and family, the Christmas card set, that still don’t know. In their minds we remain unbroken, a festive photo on a card with no blemishes.
I used to send cards every year, with a chatty and fun newsletter and cute photos. But I stopped last year. No amount of glitter could cover my shame.
I still feel that. I slink away from neighbors at the grocery store, leave messages on Facebook unanswered because I’m embarrassed. I have baggage, as certified by two lawyers and the government of Canada. There’s a giant heard of elephants in the room that stampede around me everywhere.
I always assume they won’t know what to say to me now that I’m half of a whole, and I can’t put that burden on them. I’ll be invisible to avoid spreading the weight of it to anyone else.
I still chose that. I ran towards that liberation with open arms. No regrets. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be sad sometimes, and it doesn’t mean you can’t be lonely sometimes.
There is good stuff here though. A group of my mom friends from the neighbourhood dropped by a few weeks ago with a card letting me know they were thinking of me, and a Christmas gift. I was moved, and I was seen. I still have a place here. People can just be so beautiful sometimes.
And other friends who never really knew me as Married Lynn have been great, meeting me for coffee and making me feel like I’m still welcome in polite society.
So for 2024, I think it’s time to stop skulking and stop feeling Scarlet Lettered. It’s time to own it, live it, be it.
This is a real chance for a fresh start. Let’s move on and see where it goes.
TurtleHead 
I completely validate your feelings. What you feel is real because it’s what you feel. That said, I’m not sure everyone thinks about your change as much as you think they might or as negatively as you think they might. Perhaps the challenge is that possibly a small percentage do, and maybe it’s hard for you to guess you can feel safe with and who you can’t.
Some weeks you’ll have the energy to test that, and some weeks you won’t. But the good thing is that, over time, you’ll figure out who is in Camp Lynn and who isn’t, and then there will be no more fear of what other people think.
I wish I could do more to take away your feelings of shame. Shame comes when we feel we’ve done something wrong. But you haven’t done anything wrong. You may have made a mistake – and sure, you can call it a fail – but what’s wrong with failure? If we all felt shame with every failure we’ve made, we’d be crippled by it. Maybe a small step would be to reframe the feeling as embarrassment rather than shame to give you the hope that the feeling will pass with time.
But whatever you feel and whatever you do, I’m here for you. Love, M.
Oh, and just to clarify, the mistake I’m referring to is the choice to *marry* that person (or to stay with that person beyond what was best for you). The mistake was not the choice to *leave* them. To me, your recent actions have just corrected a mistake, not made a mistake. But yes, to correct a mistake, we often have to admit (even just to ourselves) that we made an error in judgement in the first place. And society can be a cruel bitch in making us feel bad about that.
So glad to read what FT (aka M) has shared and commented above. I also feel like “failure” is a very harsh word to use on yourself and this situation, especially as many many many marriages end in divorce (and most relationships will break up, if you look at all dating relationships over time). There is a lot of learning (as you have done and are doing) and growing (ditto). I feel like using the word “failure” might inadvertently add to your feelings of shame (which is problematic, ref: Brene Brown) but perhaps there are other words you might use instead to categorize what’s going on here?
You absolutely get to feel sad and lonely, but I have to give you a gentle figurative smack for the failure and shame stuff because no, you are not a failure and you should not be ashamed. You had a good marriage when you had a good marriage, and you have three amazing kids (two of whom saved the music category for us at WTN) that came from that, and then you left when that was best for you. That is big-brass-balls brave, Babe. Maybe you need some fun “I’m divorced” cards to hand out when you run into neighbours. I loved your fun Christmas letters, and you don’t have to keep doing them, but you can, and they’d still be awesome. This is all hard, and there’s no need to pretend it’s not. Change always is. But you’re still awesome.