I’ve been working on an essay this week for my forthcoming book, Midlife Magic: Becoming the person you are inside.
To properly remember my past, I’ve been taking myself back emotionally to those weeks and months in 2001, when I finally left my husband’s house, bought my own small place, and transitioned back into the single life again.
I saw “Under the Tuscan Sun” (2003) again last night. One line really struck me this time: “It’s amazing that divorce does not kill you.” I first saw this film in 2003, two years after my own divorce, so I was past the most vulnerable and painful times.
Two things amazed me about the death of my own marriage. One was that I could feel so badly at the breakup, even though I was completely sick and tired of the non-stop blaming and shaming from my husband.
Part of my process was to acknowledge that we hadn’t been all that close during our marriage. When we wed, we were both 39, and I realize only now how we both kept our distance to some extent, unconsciously expecting or preparing for the demise of our relationship from the very beginning.
The other surprise was my husband’s apparent lack of emotion around the entire experience. He was always very practical and a “money man” (entrepreneur, MBA). The death of our marital partnership seemed to him to be a time to reorganize his money, period. No show of any emotions whatsoever.
The greatest revelation I had from my divorce, was how inappropriate our pairing had been to begin with. We learn so much more from divorcing a person, than we could have ever learned from marrying them. When divorce starts to rear its ugly head, the gloves come off, and we all stop playing nice.
How could I have ever imagined, when I first saw “Under the Tuscan Sun” five years ago, that in just a few short years I would finally find the man I’ve been looking for my entire life, one who was willing to commit completely to our future together. No one could have convinced me back then that I would someday become a professional writer, my fantasy profession.
This is the deeper lesson of divorce or any painful transition in our lives. With time the wounds do heal, we learn so much about ourselves through the process, and there is always hope that a much better life is just around the corner.
Hang on, it all changes!
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Transformation often asks for something to die so that something new can be born.
Some transformations seem to require the kind of vulnerability that accompanies extreme loss or grief. Nature often reveals new self-knowledge to us and thus serves as a catalyst for transformation.
It’s a lasting change for the better that springs from a radically shifting your perspective of who you are. Meaning and purpose become more clear to you, and things that are out of alignment in your life gradually fall away. But the most fundamental change is within you; it is a profound shift in where you direct your attention and your intention.
The new self-awareness reveals a more expanded world of relationships than you previously perceived while you gain new perspectives and definitions of self. Seeing with new eyes allows for a new understanding of yourself and your unfolding. This most essential change, the one from which all other changes spring, is a change in your worldview and your perception of what is possible.
Source: “Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life”
Thanks John! Well said!
I agree with so much that you say here. I had read “Under the Tuscan Sun” but only saw the film recently when a friend gave me a VHS version she’d picked up in a local charity shop here in the UK. And yes, that line about divorce not killing you resonated powerfully with me too – I think it must have provoked a collective intake of breath amongst divorced women in cinemas across the nation!
What you said about his lack of emotion and your discovery of how unsuited you were as a couple – how true for me too.
“Under the Tuscan Sun” is an interesting “Hollywoodized” take on divorce, but parts of it definitely ring true. Glad to hear from you in England Susan!