I sit in my marriage counselor’s office.

I tell him a woman I know once told me that she buried one husband and divorced another and divorce is worst.
She had lost her first husband to cancer at a young age. She remarried and is still many years later in the middle of a contiguous divorce. A long, drawn out battle.

My marriage counselor explains that he used to counsel a group of women at his church. All of the women had either divorced or lost their husbands. He goes on to say that the women often discussed who was in greater pain.

The women who had lost their husbands or those who had divorced them?


He sits and ponders the question himself. He tells me that divorce lacks closure. You can still run into that person in many places and have to interact with them.

I understand of what he speaks.

The wounds of divorce can have difficulty healing. The full cycle of grief can be incomplete.

When you divorce a person it is an imperfect ending to a relationship. The person you are losing no longer loves you. No longer cares about losing you.

They just move on without you.

You don’t grieve a wonderful love. You grieve an imaginary love. One that no longer exists.

One that has run its course absent of a true goodbye.

The problem? A goodbye takes two.

Hence, one person may keep living the grief waiting for the opportunity to wave just one final goodbye that receives a wave back.

(Photos courtesy of Pexels)
Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist
on Twitter @colleenorme
on Pinterest @colleensheehyorme
E-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com
www.colleensheehyorme.com