Comparing the Death of a Spouse and Divorce

Can We Compare Death of a Spouse with Divorce?
Elaine Williams ©2008

I’ve been asked if the pain of divorce is comparable to the death of a spouse. Having experienced both scenarios, I can say yes and no.

Is there a difference in the emotional quality of life or the emotional devastation that occurs? Both are equated with feelings of abandonment, pain and emptiness.

Some widows and widowers will argue there is no comparison. Death is not a choice. It is life interrupted. Death leaves us with no options in the final round as compared to divorce. Divorce is a choice not to love the person you were married to – but in my opinion, “not always.” In divorce, there is one leaving and one left behind. Whether divorce or death, both situations involve distressing circumstances, equally divergent set of emotions, running on parallel lines, sometimes intermingling or converging. Neither situation is easy or quick.

From my own experience with divorce, I married young, but after two years the relationship became suffocating. I sought counseling, but nothing seemed to lift me from my despair. I was torn by the traditional values that were ingrained in me; that marriage is a commitment and sacred trust. The union I’d entered so hopefully and willingly two years before was slowly killing me emotionally and mentally. It came down to survival. I chose to save myself, and after six months of painful indecision, I left.

Even though I chose to leave, I suffered at hurting the person I had once loved, and no doubt I left devastation in my wake. It wasn’t until some 20 plus years later that I actually made contact with my ex-husband. I felt sympathy laced with sadness to learn he was dying. In our small town I had avoided him in the intervening years, and in the last months of his life, I acknowledged his presence, our past, by sending him a get well card that I truly meant. This minor contact let him know I forgave him for the past, and I forgave myself for closing all thoughts of him from my heart and mind. Did it change the decision I made to end our marriage years before, or open the way for any regrets? No.

A few months before he died I dreamed of him. We were both in water, but he was drowning. I pulled him out, got help and resumed what I was doing. He came back a short time later and thanked me for helping him. When I awoke, I realized that all our relationships leave a residue in our lives, imprinting us with their memories. Whether we end a relationship or someone walks away from us, there is pain, a sense of loss, a questioning of ourselves. Could we have been better, smarter, more loving?

We could avoid pain by not loving anyone, close down life and become angry and bitter. We might as well lock ourselves in a dark room and never emerge to experience life’s joy.

Life is filled with incredible loss and devastation after the death of a spouse, but there is an equally big hole when a divorce takes place, on both sides, whether we consciously choose to acknowledge it or not.

Is the pain of divorce and the loss of a spouse on equal footing? They each carry incredible pain and repercussions, abandonment issues that blast a hole in the heart. Why do we even need to compare? Both scenarios involve a death of someone we loved, a loss that is irrevocably seared on our hearts.