I am Single

It was a physician who, while looking at my intake form, stopped her finger on the word divorce, looked at me and pronounced that I was now single. And she changed the box that I had checked from Divorced to Single. That felt SO much better than being labeled as divorced. First and foremost, I am now single. Yes, I have been married three times and yes, divorced three times. But I am now single. I might have been widowed or divorced, but that is irrelevant to the fact that I am now single.

Sadly, divorce carries with it a stigma, often one of judgement and blame, ostracism and marginalization and negative language. It’s all based on outdated beliefs, societal expectations and personal bias. No one ever got married and said that they’d love to be divorced one day. You didn’t ask for it to happen and yet there you are one day facing divorce and decoupling. Tragically many divorces end not only in the dissolution of marriage but also of the complete relationship between the two people. In cases of abuse this is a gift. But in cases of evolutionary disconnection or the growth of the parties in two different directions, it is a loss. For many there are years of happy times and good memories, often including the arrival of children, that get washed away in the destruction of divorce and replaced by pain and grief. 

The day the physician changed my status on the medical documents, I felt all of that drift away and I stepped fully into the role of simply living single. And to be fair, being single comes with its own stigma. Being single is not synonymous with being alone. Ask yourself why society puts the romantic relationship on a pedestal, as though it is of higher value than all other relationships in our life. Is it not your “ride or die” friends who have outlasted every romantic relationship you’ve ever had? Whether or not we are alone is determined by all the other relationships we have in our life. My life not only dispels the stigma but also redefines and embraces it, challenges and all, allowing me to look forward leaving the time of divorce in the past where it belongs. For now, I am proudly single!