<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/2717512788_339983d33e.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-384" title="2717512788_339983d33e" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/2717512788_339983d33e.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/rattodisabina/">Mirko Makari</a></h5>
When I started sharing the news that my now ex-husband and I were getting a divorce, back in 2003, the responses could have been the makings of a fascinating dissertation.

Unfortunately, I was too emotionally wrought then to be fascinated, let alone to embark on a graduate degree in psychology. But time heals. Lately, I've been able to more fully contemplate what was happening during that period of my life.

There were a full range of responses or non-responses (I wrote about some of them in <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=300">this post</a>), but <strong>the most surprising, upsetting, and perhaps even most common response was this: You're getting a divorce? Wow, that sucks for <em>me</em>.</strong>

OK, it was never said quite that plainly, but that was the sentiment. <em>You're</em> making a decision that is messing with <em>my</em> nice life.

I've really struggled with that response. Many of the people who reacted like that are no longer my friends. With a couple of others, our friendship went through a rocky period or took a sabbatical before finding a safe enough place to begin again.

<strong>I'm not saying I don't get how my divorce would affect the lives of others.</strong> I was able to step outside of my own turmoil enough to see that those people had valid, personal reasons to mourn the end of my marriage, and I can understand it even more fully now than I could then.

But the divorce was hardly a cake walk for me. Yes, I came to the conclusion that I wanted a divorce, but that doesn't mean I was embracing it joyfully, without struggles or setbacks. <strong>My entire life had changed. To have the response be "that really sucks for the rest of us" was maddening.</strong>
<h4>What I'm starting to get about people (including myself)</h4>
Understanding more about how people work always helps me let go of my frustration and anger. It also helps me see more of myself in others. I'm starting to more fully understand at least a couple of things:

<strong>1. We're inherently self-centered creatures.</strong> It doesn't matter how badly we want to think we're <em>not</em> self-centered beings, or how diligently we work at being less self-centered. We still are. It's our nature.

Before I'm sorely misunderstood (I realize it might already be too late), let me be clear about this: I don't believe for a second that we should just sigh at the brokenness of the human race and give in to all our shortcomings. <strong>We can and should work hard to fight those selfish impulses, every day.</strong> Some people have clearly figured out how to do that better than others.

But we should not, in the process of our hard work, make believe that we're others'-centered. Like all deceptions, it can be dangerous.

<strong>2. Self-centered responses to bad news are largely rooted in this internal realization: "If it happened to her, it could happen to me."</strong> When someone gets a divorce—especially someone we know and associate ourselves with and even respect—suddenly we're forced to question the health and security of our own marriage.

<strong>The same goes for all sorts of messy life scenarios that we'd rather not be forced to face.</strong> When someone we know loses their job, we suddenly see how the recession might touch us. When someone we know gets cancer—particularly if it's someone our age, who was living a similarly healthy life—we realize all the not-smoking and broccoli-eating in the world can't completely protect us from that possibility. And of course, when someone dies we are left staring our own mortality in the face.

These are completely normal reactions, of course, but it's good to be aware that we're having them, and to see how our internal responses might play out for the person right there, hurting at that very moment. <strong>It's good to be forced to set aside our own "what-ifs," and attend to "what is" for our friends.</strong> I'm not saying I'm at all skilled at this, but I'm going to try to be better.
<h4>Conquering fear so you can see what's right there</h4>
Next Monday, June 22 at 7:30 pm, I'll be participating in a reading at Powell's Books in Portland, along with several other women whose essays were also published in the book <a href="http://www.askmeaboutmydivorce.com/">Ask Me About My Divorce</a>. I can't deny that I'm excited to read at the famous Powell's, but I'm even more excited to meet the other women who share the pages of this book.

<strong>Being with people who understand something of what you've gone through is always comforting. It makes you feel less alone.</strong> I've always thought that was just because of the shared experiences, but now I'm beginning to think it's something else, too: <strong>They've already faced this particular "what if" that worries and distracts others who haven't faced it. More importantly, <em>they know they survived it</em>.</strong> It's no longer a <em>potential</em> fear, it's a <em>conquered</em> one, which frees them up to look outward, at whatever's right in front of them.