Cutting Loose by Ashton Applewhite

Author:Ashton Applewhite [Ashton Applewhite]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061741012
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

When Closure Takes Longer

Feelings of attachment may linger, and while it’s important not to get bogged down by them, denying them can impede emotional progress. Karen, the sculptor, thinks maybe she’ll feel a sense of closure when she has another relationship. Sharon didn’t feel closure until six years had passed, when her ex-husband Charles initiated a Christmas visit. Another factor was that Sharon no longer felt the need to offer any excuses or justification for what she had done. “We were finally able to communicate as intelligent friends again, as opposed to ex-husband and ex-wife.” Happy that the original kernel of friendship has survived, Sharon in retrospect thinks that marriage was a completely inappropriate venue for it, and that she and Charles “should have stayed best of friends.”

Though long established in her career as a cookbook writer, Wendy didn’t feel a sense of closure until several years ago, thirteen years after the divorce. That’s when Frank, her cardiologist ex-husband, got married for the third time, to a woman who Wendy says happily is absolutely perfect for him. “Now that he’s in the hands of a competent woman I don’t have to worry about him anymore. Brenda [the new wife] has been the best thing that ever happened to me.” She laughs.

Just as self-reliance is crucial in building self-esteem, self-esteem is necessary to achieve closure. Until a woman feels good about herself, she may well stay stuck in anger, bitterness, and depression, or at the very least take much longer to come to terms with her divorce. Self-esteem was completely missing from Violet’s marriage, and physical and verbal abuse took such a toll that it was a full twenty years before she was able to put the marriage behind her. “I used to be like a really soft person,” she says. “Through my experiences going through the marriage and with the divorce, I got stronger, and I think it’s for the best. You can’t be too soft, because people, men and women, will take your kindness for weakness.”

Work was the key, giving Violet the courage and the means to rebuff her ex-husband’s custody threats and to begin to see herself as a competent, worthwhile person. She’s always worked with children, and now provides day care in a shelter for battered women. When the shelter was featured on a television show about domestic violence, the director put Violet on the air.

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