Monthly Archives: December 2011

Life After Divorce – The Holiday Blues

Date: December 26, 2011
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Depression, Divorce, Relationships
Comments: 2 Replies

This is just a message to all of my regular readers.  I don’t intend on trying to get this published anywhere else but on this blog.  The holidays were never a gray area for me growing up.  My family had its issues, as every family has problems, but Christmas was always a joyous time filled with great memories.  From year to year I can never recall what I did for my birthday, or how I spent New Year‘s eve.  Since I work in special events I consider it bad luck if I am not working on nearly every other holiday,  but Christmas is something else entirely, I can tell you exactly where I celebrated it, what I gave and got for presents and what I ate.

I didn’t really understand holiday melancholy until I got divorced.  The first Thanksgiving after I left my husband I tried to keep to the same routine.  A couple that had invited us year after year decided to ask me up and Joel spent the day at the Big Apple circus.  Despite everyone’s best intentions in trying to keep my spirits up I felt like a living ghost.  No one knew what to say to me, so I would get looks of pity and little else.  The hostess tried valiantly to connect with me and try to cheer me up and I will never forget her kind gesture, but to everyone else it was if I wasn’t there.  Conversations would swirl around me and I would pick up phrases here or there but my mind kept drifting to a black void of numbness.  I couldn’t focus for anything but that I had sat in the same room with the same people year after year only this time my husband wasn’t with me.  In the middle of the evening I snuck upstairs to call my brother.  I needed a lifeline out of these frozen memories of past good times.  I just desperately wanted my old life back, even if it was a life based on lies more than anything else.  The host took a photo of everyone around the table and my spirit was so crushed at the time, I actually look gray.  It almost looks like I was photo-shopped into the picture, everyone is smiling and then this odd depressed woman in the corner.

That Christmas I went home to Missouri and stayed with my sister.   I was financially ruined, brokenhearted and alone.  I had no hope that anything was going to get better.  What had happened to my life?  What was going to become of me?  On top of the disaster of my divorce, I had just broken off the relationship that I now call the supernova.  It was a rebound relationship that nearly destroyed me.  I was at the lowest point in my life that I had ever been.  About a month after that Christmas celebration I got into therapy and on antidepressants as I had become out of control and suicidal.

It is now two years later and I feel like a totally different person, but the residual effects still linger.  This year a few days before Thanksgiving I felt dark clouds hovering over me, I had to beat them back with constant reminders of how far I had come and all the good things and people in my life.  The best change is that now, I am no longer dependent on another human being or a marriage for my happiness.

If you are going through a rough time and you stumbled on this blog.  It does get better.  Maybe not in the way you think it will, and it may take a long time for it to happen.  Try as much as you can to surround yourself with people who support and love you, and there are always people who support and love you no matter what you may think now.  Life is just a roller coaster and some of us have to stay near the bottom for a long time before it swings back up, and you may never know what direction that upswing will take you.  If you need professional help with your depression, get the help you need by any means necessary.  The mental illness of depression really can become bigger than you, positive thinking is not going to make it magically float away.  You may need an objective third-party to help you  pull yourself up.  Try to avoid anyone who is not taking your situation seriously or making light of it, they probably mean well but they can do more harm than good.  I know when I was drowning in depression having someone flippantly say

“Other people have bigger problems than you do”

“Go out and get over it”

“You should just get wasted and forget about it”

Comments like these were like pouring salt on my wound.  A major loss takes time, and you should instead surround yourself with people who have genuine sympathy for your situation.  Fellow divorced people, or friends who have experienced a similar loss such as a death are the best people to find for support.  A friend who has been through the same thing will understand you better than anyone.

And if you know someone going through a rough time, sit down with them and just listen.  You don’t have to fix their problems, but sometimes just being a person to hear their pain and their story is more important than anything else.  Try to give them the patience they need, as a person in crisis is bound to be a needy emotional mess.  Give them room and allow them their time to grieve.  There are no magic bullets or overnight successes when dealing with loss.  And remember more than anything, before you know it the holidays will be over and everyone will go back to life as usual.

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Life After Divorce – Kiddie Table Banishment

Date: December 7, 2011
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 2 Replies

English: Saying grace before carving the turke...

No one likes to talk about it.  But I have heard from a few friends that post-divorce this problem is quite common.  There is some real estate that is downright coveted come holiday time.  And sometimes post-divorce you lose your stake at it.  And that real estate would be getting a seat at the adult table during holiday meals.  This doesn’t apply to everyone, as not everyone has a huge extended family.  Or if they do they at least have a big enough table so that everyone can sit together.   But for many families, it is simply not possible to put all the adults together and there comes a point when you just don’t want to sit at the kiddie table anymore.

It usually goes like this, when you are married and you come home for the holidays no one would dream of putting you at the kids table.  Just as it is assumed that you will also be expected to send out Christmas or Chanukah cards now that you are a married adult, it is also assumed that your spouse will not be forced to sit and eat with your nine-year old niece.  So things are done, seating arrangements adjusted so that your new addition to the family will not suffer the fate of being treated like a child.  When you get divorced however, everything can change.  Especially when a new member of your generation gets married that year.  Suddenly you find your status lowered.  Much like a single person with no date at a wedding, you are not going to get prime seating.  You instead end up at the table with misfits, and in this case the misfits have bibs, braces or acne.   Or worse yet, it is all of your fellow divorced adult cousins or siblings.  The table of rejects, the table of shame.

Well I say instead of coveting a seat with the adults, look at it this way.  Sure it is the table where wine is openly served but the conversation can drift to octogenarians complaining about their medications and health problems, or a crazy uncle trying to convert everyone to his conspiracy theory political beliefs so look on the bright side.  You now get to sit with the fun crew.  They might even break out into song or start a food fight.

The holidays are horrible anyway when you are newly divorced because even if you wanted desperately out of the marriage it seems every single thing around you is sending a message that you are somehow broken and sad because you are no longer one half of a couple.  Instead of being defeated by your new status of adult child, just think about the perks.

  • No one will expect a holiday card from you this year or one of those annoying family photo cards
  • You get to hang with children where you can openly mock everything without judgment
  • You can bring your own bottle of wine and drink it all by yourself
  • No one will judge you for what you eat or how fast you eat it
  • You can learn about video games, cartoons and comic books
  • Everyone at the kiddie table will eat pie, so just bask in the joy of eating pie with children!

I never understood why people always dreaded the holidays until I got divorced, and now I understand the holiday dread all too well.  But instead of being defeated by it, I am just going to party with my nine-year old niece and bask in the joys of being a misfit at the table of freaks!

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Dating in NYC – Potential Girlfriend or just a Piece of Ass?

Date: December 2, 2011
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating, Dating - NYC, Dating After 35, Dating After Divorce, Divorce, New York City, Relationships, Uncategorized
Comments: 12 Replies

Erotic butt

This is a question that we all must ask ourselves at certain times of our lives.  Am I a potential girlfriend to this man who I am seeing?  Or am I just a another piece of ass?  These things can get blurry.  It seems men over 35 are less likely to just jump into a commitment right away.  This might appear to go against conventional wisdom as younger men have less responsibility and don’t want to settle down.  But younger men will at least bond quicker, men in their early forties are beaten up a bit and scarred.  Men who have lived a life, have also had their egos bruised, hearts broken, trust shattered so they are less likely to give their hearts and emotions over to a new woman as quickly as a younger man might.

Some men are upfront and tell you right away that they are not looking for a relationship or a commitment.  I respect men who are upfront.  I don’t date them, but I love the honesty.  If a woman wants to get involved with no major commitment, and maybe even see a few other guys on the side, it is her choice.  Not every woman wants a relationship, and this situation might be perfect for both parties.

But then there are men who realize that a woman won’t waste her time with a hook-up artist or a non-exclusive relationship.  This type of guy doesn’t want a relationship, but still wants a woman around.  Instead of being direct he will string the her along.  He’ll never say:

“This is a relationship”

but also never say

“This is just something casual”

Some don’t even realize what they are doing, they just want to keep seeing a woman but with boundaries that are comfortable for them.  So they will dodge and weave to avoid creating a situation that will lock them down or leave them emotionally vulnerable.

I got stuck in a bad relationship that was similar to this.  I hasten to even call it a relationship now.  Instead I say “I tried to date this guy” because honestly that is how it felt.   After what I went through I now look for the following warning signs that I am in that nether region of somewhere between girlfriend and a piece of ass.

  • Refuses to talk about what the relationship is or where it is going
  • Refers to you as a “friend” – even though you are sleeping with him
  • Won’t introduce you to his friends, or get you more involved with his life
  • Won’t talk about anything overly emotional
  • Only communicates via text message or email – no phone calls
  • Doesn’t show you any emotional vulnerability – unless complaining about his ex
  • Keeps conversations and correspondence about surface topics

I thought that my guy was an exception, because when I was actually with him, he was warm, affectionate and he treated me as if I was a girlfriend.  Snuggling up to a piece of ass might seem like a good idea, but it just ends up confusing the woman.  I really liked him, so it took me a while to figure out that is all I ever was, just a sexual plaything that relieved the boredom and gave him a thrill from time to time.  And even though I was corresponding with him on a daily basis, the correspondence was still just surface and it wasn’t emotionally satisfying.   I grew tired of hearing about his daily workout routines, and the occasional bitching about his ex-wife because that was mainly all he was open about.  He never set up dates, he never saw me on my terms and didn’t go out of his way for me in any way shape or form.

He did send me many mixed messages in regards to his two children, whom I never met.  He would tell me that his son liked a photo of me, or his daughter thought a dress I was wearing in a photograph was pretty.  He also kept me clued into their struggles, challenges and joys.  Talking about his kids just gave me a false sense of hope that I might become more important in his life.  What I misunderstood was his kids were important to him, where I was not.

Ultimately I was between the world of a casual fling and girlfriend.  I hated the existence so I broke it off.  I made excuses for this man for months, he was upset from his divorce, he was being overly cautious, he was afraid to get hurt and on and on.  Because I allowed him to contact me when he felt like it, and see me when it worked for him I was enabling his emotionally distant behavior.  I had become my own doormat, and he was walking all over me.

My last relationship lasted nine years.  Since then, I sort of forgot how to date.  The last time I was single I was only 27 and the process seemed so much easier, the men less complicated.  Now that I am older and wiser I have to learn to see these signs sooner and cut my losses.  If a woman just wants a sexual relationship with no strings attached, it is usually not incredibly difficult to find.  I am holding out for something bigger and more meaningful, and I have no idea if I will find it.  I do know though that I am never putting up with being treated like that again.

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