English: A sleeping male baby with his arm extended (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I always thought I would have kids, my husband and I planned to eventually have a family, but at the age of 36 I discovered my husband was a closeted homosexual. My marriage immediately ended and I entered the dating pool past my prime reproductive years. I knew it would eventually take time to have healthy relationships again, and I definitely felt like my biological clock wasn’t just ticking but banging loudly like Quasimodo’s bells through my entire body.
Because I am over 35, some men view me as a lousy match if they want to have kids. I didn’t think it would be this bad, but in my age range I tend to find hook-up artists who never want to settle down, men messed up from a break-up or divorce, extremely socially awkward men with no dating experience and the men I refer to as wife shoppers. A wife shopper is usually the following
Over 40
Never Married – No children
At the peak of their professional career
About to buy property or has just bought property
Wife shoppers are men searching for the future mother of their children. They make no bones about wanting to start a family and many won’t consider women over the age of 35. Women do lose reproductive capacity after 35, and in health terms pregnancies in older mothers are deemed higher risk. Yet none of my extended or immediate family members have had to use any extraordinary means to get pregnant. In fact, most got pregnant almost too easily, my aunt and my grandmother both having babies in their forties. So do I have to print out my medical history and that of my extended family and bring it to dates? Should I put it on my online dating profiles? Something tells me that bringing up fertility on a first date would cause most men to bolt.
I have discovered most wife shoppers through online dating websites. Something about online sites just make it too easy for them. Men can sort of pick the traits they prefer, height, build, eye color, hair color, age, and if a woman wants children. On dates, a wife shopper will bring up reproducing almost before they have ordered their first drink. One of the habits I have noticed is something I call baby momma math. My date will look at me, ask me my age again, and then I watch them adding up how long we would have to date before trying to start a family, and they aren’t exactly subtle about it. I have also gotten questions right off the bat such as
What neighborhood do you think you would want to live in?
I don’t remember this ever happening to me when I was in my twenties. Maybe it’s something about the personality traits of any man who waits until they are at the peak of their career before getting married and having kids. In their mind they have a checklist and once they have gone down everything else they want to accomplish in life they move on to starting a family.
Having my marriage end the way it did has given me major trust issues to begin with, so the idea of running down the aisle with a man hell-bent on becoming a father is terrifying. Divorce is hell on earth and the thought of having another divorce only the second time with children is especially nightmarish. Rushing into a situation in order to have children with a partner I barely know seems like a recipe for another divorce.
Of course women have been doing this sort of thing for ages. It is almost a cliché of the single woman over a certain age talking about eggs, biological clocks and running out of time. When I meet a wife shopper, at first I think it is a good sign because at least this man isn’t like the multitudes who just seem to want to get laid and nothing else. But then I start to feel like little more than a womb. Keeping a healthy marriage together especially one with children is extremely difficult. The union between the two adult partners should be the most important thing, communication, lifestyles, goals, and temperaments must work in harmony before the added stress and pressures of children are added to the mix. I have accepted that having a biological child may not happen for me, as I would rather not bring children into a haphazard marriage situation. I just wish I could find something in between the hook-up artists and the men who think nothing of ordering up a wife they way they would a sandwich.
This post is originally from July 2010. I am moving this from my other blog. It got tremendous feedback and I am sad that I can’t move the comments over as well, but I am very proud of this post. Depression is a mental illness and should be treated as a serious medical problem, not something that can be easily brushed off as the blues.
My last blog post was so positive! Well here comes the ANGRY part of my little Miss Angry Girl blog. The other day had such a beautiful interaction with another human being and then last night……..ARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH (pirate growl)
Someone gave me yet more unsolicited advice tonight. Boy, do I hate unsolicited advice!!!
“Why don’t you try looking on the positive side of things for a change?”
Really, I hadn’t thought of that. Now I am sure that this person had the best of intentions. They thought they were helping me out, but let me break it down for why it is not so easy to simply “Think positively”
Would you tell an anorexic to just eat some food? An alcoholic to simply stop drinking? A drug addict to simply stop using? A person with ADHD to simply focus? A person with schizophrenia to simply stop hearing voices? Or would you even dream of telling a person who is physically handicapped to simply start moving? Yes stopping the negative behavior is part of the problem, but there’s a reason telling a person suffering from mental illness to THINK BETTER is absolute nonsense.
Just as a physically handicapped person can not suddenly become fully functional after thinking positively, the same cna be said about a person suffering from depression. I’m suffering from reactive depression. To quote Psychology.suite101.com
This form of depression is a direct result or responses to a painful or difficult circumstance or event in a person’s life. In reactive depression there is a specific and recognized reason found to be the source of the condition. Examples of situations which may result in a person suffering from reactive depression include: redundancy, work stress, marital problems, bereavement, loss, problems with one’s children, retirement, moving house, DIVORCE or changing job.
Sometimes it takes longer than perhaps casual acquaintances think is necessary to work through a major life changing event. I was clinically depressed just a few months ago, so I’m actually doing better off now. Clinical depression is depression that gets so bad a person cannot normally function. That is eat, drink, bathe, sleep, get out of bed…..FUNCTION.
Not to mention that I lost not just the primary relationship that I had for nine years. I had to move. My income has severely dropped as has my ability to find work. All thanks to a number of circumstances surrounding my divorce. Even the loss of a regular source of income could lead to depression never mind, the loss of my husband, sense of betrayal, loss of trust in other human beings, damaged sexuality, and destroyed self esteem.
If you are reading this and don’t know me, I found out my marriage was a complete fraud. My husband has been living a secret life, and has lied to me from day one of our marriage. It’s been a rough 13 months.
All of this doesn’t even take into consideration my childhood, my life history or any trauma’s besides my divorce that might also be contributing to my depression. Trust me, you could sit down with my therapist and we could go over some things in my past that might make your hair turn white. I’d rather not rehash them here. :
Depression is an illness. Depression is an illness. DEPRESSION IS AN ILLNESS!
It’s not to say that I won’t overcome it, but my brain is sick right now. Chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, nor-epinephrine all play a role, and they are real. It is not simply a question of “thinking positively”. I’m not being self-destructive sexually or with drugs and alcohol, and I’m in regular therapy with both a therapist and a psychiatrist. So I think I’m doing everything that I can to overcome this.
What I am currently dealing with is trying to get off an SSRI (Zolfot) while still trying to figure out how to survive in a ravaged economy with high unemployment. My life hasn’t exactly stabilized since leaving my husband, especially financially speaking.
Not to say that positive thinking won’t help, of course it will, but I’m dealing with a chemical withdrawal of a drug that altered my natural levels of serotonin. Just sitting back and trying to think happy thoughts, is not really going to cut it. What might help is some respect for this MENTAL ILLNESScalled depression,and some compassion. for not just me but the millions of other Americans who are currently battling this disease. Just as a handicapped person cannot simply will themselves to walk, a person suffering from a mental illness needs a little bit more than positive thinking to pull themselves up. I am not weak because I can’t get over this, I am NOT being self-destructive, I am doing the best I can.
And solidarity to my fellow sufferers of depression, we will get through this and we will be stronger for it. One day people will understand that we can’t just simply “be happy”.
I wanted to add an an epilogue as it were to this post. I left my husband nearly two years ago, because he was gay and every aspect of my life much completely collapsed immediately afterward. Emotionally and financially I was a mess. If my financial life had been in order, or if I had steady employment that was not tied into what my husband did for a living I would have been much better off. That being said, I can honestly say that I’m much better off now. It takes serious time to get over something like a divorce. I have never gone through anything as torturous in my life, and I really hope I never have to go through it again. There is hope on the other end of whatever hell is causing your reactive depression. If you’re suffering from clinical depression due to a recent crisis, please seek help if you feel you need it. There are so many resources out there, and if you feel like your life isn’t worth living anymore, that’s the biggest warning sign. Get help. Depression is not just feeling blue. I had no idea until I went through it myself, but it’s an actual mental illness that will take over your life. If you’re experiencing most or a a few of these symptoms seek professional help.
Lack of appetite
Lack of desire to do anything, get out of bed, shower, eat, drink,
Isolation – Refusal to go outside, see friends, etc.
Suicidal thoughts – This is not a joke, get help as soon as possible.
Waking frequently at night, not able to sleep for more than a couple hours in a stretch
Sleeping way too much
Poor concentration
Overwhelming feelings of guilt and despair
Crying ALL the time
Clinical depression is often coupled with anxiety. And in my case the anxiety was so bad, that is why I knew I had a serious problem I had never had anything like it before in my life.
Panic attacks
Anxiety attacks – Panic attacks that go on for hours, my worst was 8 hours long and absolutely terrifying.
Overwhelming panic and fear
Waves of depression followed by waves of anxiety – this is actual textbook depression, and not at all unusual.
Inability to sleep that goes on for days.
I’m not here to sell any drug. Medication doesn’t work for everyone and isn’t always the best option. I was only on meds for a short period of time, but I believe strongly they saved my life. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and please get help if you need it. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, don’t give up. 🙂 If your first therapist or doctor isn’t working for you, find another one. Keep looking until you can get the help you need. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a great resource that I’ve tried and highly recommend.
Also try to find distance from anyone who doesn’t take your illness seriously. They probably are trying to help, but some well-meaning friends or relatives can actually cause more problems. As much as the lover or friend will also help you out, there is a limit to what they can do. Having someone around who is objective and doesn’t know you or want anything from you will really help you in finding the right course to help you with your healing.
Try as much as you can to not self-medicate with alcohol or recreational drugs, they will just make things worse, and could kill you. Substances are just stretching out the process. They numb you temporarily, but in the long run they will just make things harder. The same thing goes for sex, or food, anything that can be used in a self-destructive manner should be avoided. No one is perfect and you will make mistakes, just try to pick yourself afterward and not beat yourself up too much.
Just my two cents of course, you don’t have to agree with me on any of it. I just know what helped me. Good luck to anyone finding this blog, may you get stronger and healthier each day.
I wanted to add this brilliant Lecture by Dr. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University. The first time I listened to this it blew my mind, I found out I was suffering from a textbook case of clinical depression. His explanation of the inability to sleep through the night and weight loss was EXACTLY what I was going through. It was a PHYSICAL manifestation of my depression, it wasn’t something I could control.
This is a blog post from another blog that I used to write, that due to confusion with this blog I am shutting down and moving my better articles over here. 🙂
So I was sort of acting as impromptu counselor for a friend who is facing a separation/divorce. And I will repeat what I have said numerous times. Divorce is much different from a regular break up. You stood before your entire family, you committed your life to another person, you had legal and financial obligations, you had to go to court to actually break up, you have a wedding ring, and on and on and on. There is just such a perceived permanence to marriage, even with a 50% divorce rate. If you were betting on a horse, a 50% success rate wouldn’t be so bad, so thinking you might stay together forever isn’t really that far-fetched.
Divorce is hell, I am still over a year from separating from my husband and I still have dark nights of the soul, crying fits for no reason, insomnia, and the occasional panic attack. I am doing a MILLION TIMES better than I was just a few months ago, but it is still a daily struggle.
But I try to live by these very basic rules every day. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don’t, but I try and, trying is half the battle. This is sort of what I was telling my friend tonight (who shall remain nameless) and I thought it would be good to write it down. I get a lot of “Think Positive“ and I think that is a lame way of saying “Be Happy“ for me there is a bit more to it, and I am breaking it down.
1. Don’t Dwell on what You cannot control – Like it or not, we cannot control other people. I can’t control the main factor that lead to my divorce, so I have to let it go.
2. Get Rid of Crazy People in Your Life – Not exactly crazy people, but people that make me crazy or encourage crazy behavior, especially self-destructive behavior. Sometimes this is impossible if it is a family member or a roommate but if you can avoid people who make you do crazy things, do it! They might not even know they make you crazy or are actively trying to make you crazy…..but it doesn’t matter. People that put you into CRAZYTOWN, should be avoided.
3. Do Not Hurt Yourself – Avoid the trappings that seem like an easy fix to a complex problem, drugs, alcohol, sex with people if it is in a self-destructive way, lashing out at loved ones and friends. I don’t do any substances and for the most part have avoided dating, but I definitely find ways to mess up my life…..trust me.
4. Surround yourself with supportive people – This one is hard with my crazy schedule but I try, I wish I could do this more often.
5. Focus on the Future not the Past – I think it is important to know your past, but not to dwell on it. This is HARD especially while in therapy, because in therapy a therapist is usually trying to find a cause to the core problem. I actually saw my future as a black hole when I left my husband. I am still extremely uncertain what lies before me, but it is a little less black and more gray now. 🙂
6. Forgive yourself and others for past mistakes – This one is also very difficult for me especially. I won’t get into it, but because of childhood issues, I have difficulty letting go of things and especially with forgiveness. My biggest problem is forgiving myself. I tend to beat myself up over things that I cannot go back and fix.
7. Ask for Help when you need it – This one is beyond hard for me. It always has been, but I tell myself that I am a weaker person when I DON’T ask for help. No one is perfect, everyone needs help sometimes.
8. Stop Saying “What if?” – What if I had not dated so soon after leaving my husband? What if I had left him earlier? What if I had never married him in the first place? Do these questions really do me any good? NO, they just make me crazy. And they will never stop, so I have to stop them…..I will never know the answer to WHAT IF? So I have to stop asking!!!
9. Don’t ignore reality – When I start to spiral I say to myself, I have a great apartment, I am working, I am healthy, I have the best friends, supportive family, and the two world’s greatest cats, and compared to how a lot of people live in this world I have it pretty good.
10. It is going to get better – This has become a mantra I say to myself nearly nightly, although it is usually “It is going to be OK, It is going to be OK” Life has a way of constantly changing, and even though things are bad now, they could very easily get better soon.
11. Find something that makes you really happy and do it – For me that is performing and more specifically singing and music. One good thing that has happened through this whole mess is that I have re-found my love for singing that studying music had sort of beaten out of me. 🙂
12. Try to throw away the bad advice and take the good – I can’t tell you how much well meaning bad advice I have gotten. It is extremely difficult at times to just let this stuff roll off of me, especially comments about my Ex-husband and judgments on myself and my marriage when the people giving the advice are uninformed.
13. When in doubt find my cats – They are pure love, they are furry, they purr, and they never let me down.
I still remember my wedding day, vividly. Any day planned and fretted about for months is going to stick in your brain for a lifetime. Any day built up as the beginning of the rest of your life will burn into your psyche, in the same way horrible trauma sears its pain and anguish deep into your bones. Try as you might, you can’t shake it the pain becomes a part of your very foundation. Few positive memories have the same effect. For whatever reason, our bodies, hearts and minds tend to cling to the negative memories such as: being humiliated in front of your class, not being able to get jeans off in time due a broken zipper and wetting myself at girl scout camp, seeing my father lash out at me in a yet another blinding rage, losing a job or role for reasons unknown, having a voice teacher tell me I would never be a singer, seeing the face of a lover suddenly go cold and distant, having no one show up to my 13th birthday party….and on and on and on. The traumas and disappointments get inside of you like a bad virus you can’t shake, but the good memories fade quickly. The memories replaced instead by just vague emotion. Instead of specific images they blur into shifting colors through a window. Instead of the detailed sharp piercing prongs of negative memories happy thoughts become reduced to feelings. I can’t remember holding my cat for the first time, hugging a friend I haven’t seen forever, the first kiss from a person I adore, winning a competition….they drift, they fade only warm pretty shadows remain in their place.
The memory of my wedding day is now traumatic but still beautiful in my mind, so like the crazy nuanced event it has become, it is now a hybrid of negative crystal clear clarity and blurred fuzzy happiness. The one image that keeps coming back is the walk down the aisle. I used to have PTSD style flashbacks of the very event. I would be sitting on the train or reading a book and for no reason it would flash into my brain as clear as it was actually happening. The cathedral, with his family on one side and mine on the other, the organ music, with all of these faces turned towards me. It was so overwhelming, all I could do to get through the ritual was to focus on my soon to-be husband and move closer and closer to him and the rest of my life. I knew that if I turned to look at people on either side I would start crying and I didn’t want to cry on my wedding day so I kept focusing on the task at hand and that was to get down the aisle without shedding a tear. My husband was now my new family, the scars and damage from my old one were over and I had chosen this new man to start over and help wipe away the darkness and pain of the past.
Since my divorce, I have had recurring nightmares of being outside of my body trying to run up to myself in the moments while screaming
“Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it”
The sound of my screams echoing through the great hall of marble, but no one looks up, no one even flinches and I still just keep moving forward. Nothing I can do can stop me, it is like looking at ghosts re-enacting the same scene in a play over and over.
I hate it when people say,
“Well at least your husband was just gay, it could have been a lot worse”
Or anything to the effect of that I have somehow had it easier than a typical divorced person.
I guess in some ways I have, in that the end was so absolute. There was no reason to second guess why I was leaving my husband, no amount of couples counseling, no amount of therapy or listening skills that would have made anything better, no horrible act of betrayal that I would regret for ending everything. But on the downside I felt cheated. I got cheated at a chance at a normal marriage, with a man of the same sexual orientation who loved me like a man is meant to love a woman, in mind, heart and body.
I was cheated of the chance of having children and being a mother. I know I _might_still have time left, but dating at age 38 is difficult as half of the eligible men already have children and don’t want more. And in my current state I couldn’t afford to raise a child on my own, as I can barely take care of myself. There are times on the subway or in the park that even the sight of a young mother with her child will send me spiraling. Suddenly tears come from nowhere and I can’t make them stop. Why is she so lucky to have the one thing that I will never get to experience? I am constantly told that I shouldn’t give up hope but I haven’t been able to sustain a relationship for any length of time and every other man who I find compatible is already a father and doesn’t want more children. I had to end therapy because literally every single session was the same conflict, the same fear, the same resentment over probably losing the chance to be a parent. When my therapist suggested I go back on medication, and then tried to get me to justify what I consider a fairly innate human desire to procreate I couldn’t take it anymore and ceased the sessions.
I was cheated of the dream that everyone has when they get married, that despite the obstacles in life and arguments, fights, and petty annoyances I no longer have a partner for life. I was cheated on the intimacy of an adult human sexual relationship. It seemed normal at first but it quickly became dysfunctional but because I loved my husband I stuck it out, and now I beat myself up for not leaving sooner.
So over two years have passed, but I am still not right. I am still not healed and I don’t know if I ever will be. I am suspicious of every man I meet, and I trust no one, it is so debilitating that I actually stick around in relationships that aren’t fully formed, that aren’t as scary, that aren’t as real…I am scared to have a real one.
But my shattered life has in some ways made me stronger, like a piece of metal cracked and then welded back together, or a bone broken and then reset. I am no longer the same shape, my insides, my skeleton is not the same, and I don’t react to pain the same way. I am far more empathetic to another person’s pain especially anyone divorced. I feel deeply for them, and I cut them a lot of slack for self-destructive behavior or lashing out at themselves or others. I know they are in a ton of pain and that most of their actions are not directed at me or anyone, but instead directed at the emptiness inside of them. I have also learned that I have to heal myself before allowing anyone else in. I no longer have my husband to unload my emotional baggage on. And friends get tired when I repeatedly do it to them, so I am now forced to deal with it on my own, with just my broken heart and damaged soul to mend myself. These things have definitely made me a better friend and a better person, but the lack of trust and emotional scars have made me more skittish and more apprehensive about letting anyone new in. I have become damaged goods complete with certain memories playing repeatedly in my mind. Hopefully I will one day be able to replace the photo sharp negative ones with more blurry happy thoughts. But until then, I try to ride the nightmare of the memory of walking to my new life of fraud, deception and loss. Two years ago I was pushed off a cliff and I survived, now I just need to figure out how to pick of the pieces and start climbing again.
I had been writing this blog for a while and it was slowly but surely becoming more and more popular. On the advice of a friend, I decided to take my most popular post and submit it to the divorce section of the Huffington Post. I had been published numerous times in the comedy section but always in the form of satire videos. This was my first attempt at getting anything I had written published online or elsewhere.
I had no idea of the insane amount of popularity the post would generate. I didn’t know the editor beforehand, and she took a couple of days to get back to me. She thought the article was well written and she liked my voice, so she decided to run it as the lead story for labor day weekend. I don’t think either one of us had any idea that it would cause such a fervor.
Most of the feedback that I have gotten has been positive, and my twitter account went from about 260 followers to over 650 in a matter of a couple of days and is still climbing. The article got picked up by a number of news sources on the internet and the readers kept rising. Right now the story has been favorited almost 5,000 times on Facebook and has over a thousand comments. I have received personal email, subscribers to this blog, fans added to my youtube account, and fans added to my facebook account.
The criticism has been so diverse I have to break it down in sections. I find it stunning that so many people had such different reactions to the piece.
I am misrepresenting polyamorous people – I honestly don’t know much about the lifestyle but I really don’t have a problem with people who are openly polyamorous
I should move to another city
Several people have told me they have the exact same problem in their city
I am somehow Christian or pro-Christian – I am staunchly non-religious and identify as agnostic
I am fat or unattractive – I am 5’7″ and a size 4, I am nowhere near fat, unattractive is in the eye of the beholder I guess but I am not even close to being overweight.
I should have stayed married – Well my husband was gay so that wasn’t going to happen
I was somehow spoiled by my ex-husband and now I am bitter – that is so far off the mark it isn’t funny.
I am whiny and negative – Well I guess but if it was an article that just stated how happy I was I doubt anyone would have read it.
I have had numerous people give me dating advice – some good, some crazy
I need to lower my standards and date older men, younger men, or less attractive men
I have also had several men ask me out, or want to start a correspondence with me online
I should love myself more
I am attracting the wrong kind of men because of something I am doing
I deserve to be alone because I am a bitch
But I have gotten a tremendous amount of people saying they are going through the exact same thing, and that they completely agree with me!!!!!!!
I obviously struck a nerve or it wouldn’t have caused so many people to respond. My general response to anyone who gets seriously worked up over this article or anything else that I write is this…
Write your own blog and try to submit it somewhere and see what happens.
I only glance through the comment section as there is no way I could or would want to read all of them, so it is honestly wasted energy on anyone making a comment. But I do find it hysterical how people literally project their own agenda on to a fairly straight forward article.
I basically say, I don’t like feeling pressured to have sex with a virtual stranger, and that if people like that behavior and it works for them then great! I also point out that both men and women and people of all sexual orientations engage in promiscuous behavior. I never say my way is better than another choice, nor do I tell people how to live. But that doesn’t stop the comments.
So thank you to all of the people who have supported the article, and to my detractors well there is no such thing as bad publicity so keep it up! HA!!! 🙂 Oh and if anyone knows of any PAID writing assignments send them my way! HA!!! I am an unpaid blogger for the Huffington Post, I am not a reporter, I am not a published author. I make very little money as a performer, but I do perform all over New York city. Since leaving my husband my income has been devastated as I used to work with him, so I am just looking for a place to land. Will write for food! HA! 🙂
I didn’t want to get into it with the article that I just posted on the Huffington Post, but I am so tired of all of the “blame the victim” comments in regards to my divorce. Maybe 5% of the readers will end up at my website and then actually go to this blog, but I still want to print this as the Huffington Post doesn’t let me respond to comments.
I plan to take this post down in the next couple of days, as it really doesn’t serve much of a purpose but I would like to clarify one thing before everyone jumps down my throat about how I should have stuck around and tried to make my marriage work. First off, you don’t know much about me and you don’t anything about my marriage, so it is extremely presumptuous for you or anyone to tell me what I should have or should not have done regarding my divorce. But I have the absolute best reason to have terminated the marriage. Drum roll please….
My husband was a closeted homosexual. I had no idea and he was in denial when we got married, and after nine years together I found hard evidence to the fact and left him. We are on good terms, all things considered, and he lives openly as a gay man now. He is much happier living as a gay man, but it has been hard on both of us for obvious reasons.
So to the strangers who feel compelled to lecture me on “giving up on my marriage”…you don’t know enough about my situation to tell me that. And I mean that with the deepest sincerity. If the hell that I have been through for the past two years has taught me anything it is to be less judgmental of other people’s divorces. Because no one ever really knows what goes on in another person’s marriage, and I am living proof of a marriage that most people deemed as ideal, was in reality a total fraud.
