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I would have preferred death to divorce at one time. I used to fantasize about what I would wear to his funeral, how I would act sad when I was secretly glad he was gone.
But now, more than 20 years later, the hatred and anger has dissipated, and I am glad he didn't die. He became more of a father to our daughter after I divorced him, and we became friendly after a few years had passed and were simply parents together, no longer enemies.
At our daughter's last graduation ceremony, he caught me up with the goings-on of some of his more colorful family members, and I was laughing so hard. Then I overheard him call the woman he has been with for the past 20 years, who was recovering from cancer, and he seemed to genuinely be concerned and caring about her. I know they had some strife along the way because of the same issues that split us up, but I was happy to know he had become capable of caring about another person to that extent.
This past year he needed a quad bypass, and I truly wished him well. According to our daughter, he is doing OK, and I was glad to hear it.
If he had died as I'd wished, I might still probably remember him with anger and hatred. It is nice to not carry that.
Both are awful, IMO, but in different ways. Divorce is a protracted kind of pain with many aggravations and can last years from the beginning of problems until final resolution and being able to move on to a new relationship as a milestone. I think a lingering death has some similarities in that it is protracted and has many burdens. Sudden death is devastating emotionally but often for a short time, but the aggravations come afterwards, mostly dealing with all the paperwork of inheritance, etc.
I've seen people move on from the sudden death of a partner in a matter of months - it's been less than a year before they are dating again, and while they may remember their lost spouse with love and miss them greatly, the trauma has been overcome and they can move on. Divorce often takes longer and may have lingering issues for over a decade what with child support and custody concerns.
Sometimes even before. I have a friend who was very close to a woman neighbor and her husband. The woman succumbed to cancer after a number of years, and the man began to date shortly after and remarried within a year. My friend was horrified that he seemed to move on so quickly, and even more so when she learned that he had met the woman on a dating site while sitting by his dying wife's side in her last months. He knew she was terminal and did not wait until she was gone before seeking his next relationship, told my friend about it freely, and then seemed perplexed when she ended her friendship with him. She was still grieving for her friend, but apparently he had finished grieving while she was still alive.
Of course, there are also people who are never able to let themselves into another relationship after losing someone to death.
As for who gets the kids, while I definitely feel for many men I have known who don't feel that they can exit an unhappy relationship out of fear of losing access to their children (men who actually actively parent, and really love their kids), I also have encountered more than a few situations where:
- The father didn't actually want them. He wanted to go build a new life and if he wasn't attached to his previous partner, he didn't really want to put his energy into the raising of their children, either.
- The only or main reason he even was interested in custody is so that he wouldn't have to pay support (which really seems to be the main complaint.)
- The only or main reason he wanted custody was to "win" and hurt his ex spouse by taking the children away from her, when he had not meaningfully participated in their upbringing and had been blind to her work in raising them all along. (I had one of those...he didn't want the work of parenting them, he just wanted to hurt me and avoid support. He talked about trying to get custody and then shipping the kids off to live with his Mother in another state. It was spite for the most part, speaking.)
Also, as the breadwinner of MY household, I agree with the other poster who mentioned life insurance...you're a pretty irresponsible breadwinner if you don't have yourself pretty heavily insured to cover your spouse's needs in the event of your death.
I have multiple large policies out of concern for the needs of my husband and my young adult sons, who still often need my help, if something were to happen to me.
But hey. If you don't understand that people would make decisions or react to situations because of how they FEEL for someone, not only out of calculation of financial impact, then it is probably best if you're as anti-marriage as you sound. 'Cause I think you might be missing the point a bit.
The only situation in which I could imagine that divorce would be worse is if it was like a sudden death, meaning that the spouse had NO indication that it was coming. This would be like a situation where one spouse comes home from work and just announces that s/he wants a divorce and is moving out -- and this would be so much worse if they had young kids and/or s/he was leaving because of another man or woman.
(Btw, although this has not happened to me, I personally know two women who it DID happen to, and they had both been married for about 20 years. Both had absolutely NO clue that their husbands were dissatisfied with their marriages; one had youngish kids, and in the second case, the kids were college age.)
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stormgal
I’ve always wondered which is worse: finding out your spouse was cheating and then going through a sudden divorce or having your spouse die suddenly.
Death includes a lot of grief and emotional pain - plus everyone supports the surviving spouse, whilst divorce can be painful, expensive and humiliating. But which is more stressful and/or painful?
What do you think?
Having your spouse die suddenly is worse and I don’t even think it is close.
At least during a divorce, there is time to adjust, change the dynamics of the future relationship between you and the ex to be, especially if you have kids to coparent, and that person is still alive.
Death; that person is just gone and it hits you like a gunshot. You have to take care of their affairs, tell your children their parent has left the earth never to return, etc.
I’ve always wondered which is worse: finding out your spouse was cheating and then going through a sudden divorce or having your spouse die suddenly.
Death includes a lot of grief and emotional pain - plus everyone supports the surviving spouse, whilst divorce can be painful, expensive and humiliating. But which is more stressful and/or painful?
What do you think?
So many levels here. Where to begin?
Having your spouse die suddenly might be about a cheating spouse
Both end with game over. Sudden death (not associated with the afore mentioned) is way easier hands down.
Lose long time line & all the legal stuff - expenses, court, attorney, pain scorn the list is endless.
It depends honestly. If you fall out of love and grow apart divorce really doesn’t seem that horrific and can actually be a relief. In my case I still cared deeply for my wife, but we just fell out of love and were living like roommates. We had an uncontested divorce (I left her like 90% of our assets) she had been a pretty loyal wife up until the very end. Lol and overall we had a pretty good life together so I felt like she deserved some security. I was off starting a whole new career anyhow.
So in my case death would’ve been much harder. I did have a child with her, basically grew up with her, and knowing she still alive and out there even though she’s not mine anymore still gives me some peace. Death is final, the person is gone and you’ll never see them.
Also, I know lots of couples who have gotten divorced and then worked out their differences and got remarried. With death that option is no longer there.
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