Dealing with The Knot(s)

Have you ever owned a necklace, stuck it in a drawer for an undetermined amount of time, only to pull it out 'moments' later and find it tangled and knotted?  The process to untangle it is generally quite complicated. There is the initial pull to see if it would just undo itself, which, in actuality, only makes it more difficult to get undone. Then you locate the main knot, which you begin to loosen, but realize it will require four other kinks in the chain to be removed before you can get to the main one.  Upon the loosening of that 4th one, you inevitably find 2-3 others which require your attention before you can get to that big one.  Then, suddenly, the entire thing unravels, almost magically on it's own and you are left with the original jewel in hand, linked only by the clasp.

So as I was walking my 4 mile loop on Saturday I was pondering the many complications related to my current situation (as I usually do) and had the following 'aha' moment...This necklace thing is a perfect metaphor for the 'tying the knot' of marriage.  I feel like I only just 'got it' because for the last six months, I've been in up to my nostrils actually untying my piece of a marriage knot.

To unravel and undo the multiple years of our marriage seemed an insurmountable task roughly a year ago.  The entanglement of my life with his goes so far beyond that initial knot tied a Sunday in May fifteen years ago.  It's easy to say, as he did, "I'm done with the relationship."  That's all well and good,  however, all that did was acknowledge the existence of the big knot.  It's there and he wants it gone.  I have to admit, I was stubborn and I tried, with all my might, to pull the knot tighter.  I fought for several months, fiercely, to keep it tied.  But, to my dismay (to put it mildly), I had to succumb to the ugly truth.  It was time to let it go.

When we met, we were both college students with nothing but our bright futures ahead of us and our student loans on top of us.  No real assets, no land, no tangible items of worth.  Just each other and what we had to offer each other and the world.  As time marched on, we acquired things, and they were just things, but WE acquired them together.  WE acquired friends, together.  WE developed our own extended family, including these friends and many old ones,together.  WE had children and a family of our very own, together.  The blessings they bestowed on US are beyond quantification.  WE had created a life TOGETHER. No real way to tell where one ended and the other one began.  With his statement, all of this was ordered to cease.  Suddenly, it was expected that EVERYTHING was to be sequestered into a his or hers bin.  The intricate, taut, and hidden knots of OUR life were being exposed and somehow needed to find a way to be undone.   How do you divide the pictures?  Do you keep the wedding photos?  The marriage license? The cd's?  The friends?  The family? The loyalty? The love???

On Saturday I found myself recognizing that the secondary knots are disappearing through hard work and acceptance, acknowledgement and a lot of pain.  I'm hearing two opposing thoughts right now from my closest friends and family..."Oh you will be so happy when the papers finally come" and "When those papers come, it's going to hit you hard".  My retort is, I have absolutely no idea what it's going to do to me.  I have a sense that when they arrive it will be the same as the moment when the master knot of the necklace suddenly disappears.  Not an accomplishment by any stretch of the imagination.  Relief, maybe, yes, because it is finally done.  No more anticipation.  Will I be happy?  Hell no.  This is not what I wanted, not what I pictured or what I needed from the man I married.  Will it allow me to move on, unencumbered and guilt-free?  Yes, probably.  But, I will forever be tied (there is that word again) to him because of my children.  I can't say I will ever be joyful about these proceedings.  Accepting, yes.  Happy, no. 

Will the delivery of the papers devastate me?  I don't think so.  I think I've risen from the mounds of devastation and have refused to return.  Will it hurt?  Probably.  Definitely, maybe.  I think maybe not so much, sometimes, because I recognize a piece of paper is not the way our lives have been dis-integrated.  It's taken almost surgical precision to change the ours to his or hers.  The cuts and the bleeding have already occurred with regards to the emotional reality of the death of OUR life. The grieving for the loss of that life is already in progress.  The papers are just the business of divorce.  As long as I maintain my stance: that I refuse to let it get ugly and mean, to pay respect to the love and life that existed for 14 years: this business deal that has gone bad will come to a peaceable end. 

So, now I wait for the day when the papers are finally signed.  I don't look forward to it, but I don't dread it either.  I don't think about it much, actually.  What will happen, will happen. With that final tug on the necklace, suddenly, the knot will be magically undone, but I know what went into making it happen.