Not that splitting up the sofas, chairs, and artwork isn’t hard enough in a divorce, but having to figure out who gets the friends is downright tragic.
If the friends were yours prior to your marriage, most likely they will be afterwards, too. But what about the people you met as a couple? Maybe you were great friends with your neighbors, or another couple at church, or you volunteered with a few people working on a political campaign in your area. You may have been close to the parents of your children’s friends. What happens with those friendships, especially if some of them are still couples and you’re not?
It can feel really awkward to be around friends who are a couple when you’re single. Sometimes, painfully, those friends just fade away. I’d been great friends with my husband’s brother and sister-in-law for decades; our kids played together, we’d spent 20 years worth of Easters, Thanksgivings and Christmases together. Not surprising I suppose, they never spoke to me again after my husband and I divorced. (The odd thing was, years later, my former sister-in-law reached out through my son and said she wanted to communicate with me. I sent her two emails and one snail-mail, and never got a reply. I guess she wasn’t that serious.)
When I got divorced, I had no friends from my pre-marriage days partly because we had moved across the country, but mostly because I didn’t stay in touch with anyone. My husband expected us to do everything as a couple, so we didn’t stay in touch with anyone we knew prior to marriage.
If you find yourself in the same predicament, I have some ideas for you, the biggest of which is Get Out Of The House! Being alone can feel really good, but it is too easy to fall into a habit of isolation. Look for a balance here. Don’t sit around binge-watching Netflix (as tempting and entertaining as that can be sometimes...like watching Virgin River season 5!).
So, what do you like to do? I mean, what do YOU like to do, not what you enjoyed doing as a couple. Often, spouses pass over the activities they enjoyed while single to engage in different adventures as a couple. I encourage you to go back, make a list if you need to, but spend some time looking back at what you did before you were married. You may find you’d like to reengage with those activities, or find something new but similar, or just plain new! The possibilities are endless.
Some may be activities you did alone, others with friends or a group of people. The individual ones will be easy enough to resume providing you have the ability and space to do them. Finding other like-minded people to interact with, especially if you haven’t looked around in a while, may feel daunting.
Start by setting a goal. Choose one or two from your list of activities and set the goal to attend two meetings in the next month. The idea is to get out and meet people.
You could enroll in an interesting adult-education class through a community college (our city Parks & Recreation department offers all sorts of things to do from classes to field trips...in fact I’m going to see a play tomorrow night with a group).
If reading is your thing, look for a book club that meets regularly; often libraries sponsor these, and independent books stores, too. Libraries and book stores also offer talks by local authors or on locally-important topics; you may opt to attend one and meet interesting people. Also, please keep in mind, YOU are an interesting person, too! People want to meet you, too!
You can often find activities happening at your church, or – especially in election years – volunteer working for a candidate you support. No doubt, you’ll meet some like-minded people there!
Once you’ve met a person or two who seem like a good friend choices, invite them to go walking, biking, hiking (I’m all about the outdoors!), or dinner and a movie, or just dinner or just movie. Make opportunities for the two or three of you to get better acquainted. You’ll have great new friends before you know it!
Have fun!
Michelle