Danica McKellar's divorce is an incredibly sad thing. It's a family tragedy, if you will. It's many, many things, most of which are sad. But it's also something she can get through, something she can recover from, and something she will get past if she does it right. Death is none of those things. So when McKellar, who played Winnie Cooper in the iconic series Wonder Years, talks about it being like a "death in the family," it does raise some interesting issues.
How much is divorce like a death?
As someone who has been through a death (but not a divorce), I can't say I completely understand. I know that divorce is painful as I have seen many people go through one. But a death? I am less sure how I feel about that.
Look, pain is pain. And the pain Olympics isn't a sporting event I would choose to attend. I understand McKellar is under great stress and my heart goes out to her and all people who divorce with young children. But losing someone to death? It's forever.
That is the big difference. Sure, every divorce is different and some are uglier and more painful than others. The same is true of death. But when you get into whose pain is worse or comparing pain, you do end up in a bad situation.
Divorce is divorce and death is death. Both are painful and both cause grief, but they aren't the same thing.
When a person divorces and they do it amicably, it's something that can be traversed. A person can "get through" the pain of a divorce, remarry, and get on with their lives. Losing someone is forever.
Maybe to the people around you, divorce is like a death in the family. But the grief that comes from divorce, while in the moment may seem acute and awful, isn't the same as the grief that comes from death. That never ends. Trust me, I am here 18 years after losing my mom and there are days it hurts as badly as the day it happened.
Obviously every death and every divorce is different and every person's pain tolerance is different, too. But a friend of mine who has been through both a messy divorce and losing her mother says the pain isn't even comparable. The pain of the death is far more acute.
My heart goes out to Danica, but as long as she does her divorce right, she will get through it and her child will be OK and he will have both his parents. People who lose someone? They aren't that lucky.
Do you think divorce is like death?
Photo via Splashnews
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Comments 22
The author's lives in a tiny little bubble where empathy and good writing don't exist.
Very easily a divorce can be like a death in the family!! Especially if SHE still had hope for the relationship and he wanted to be done with it...then her hopes, dreams, everything is gone - just like it died. The "thing" that they once had is now dead. I don't seem to have any problem understanding what she means, must just be you.
I say it depends on the situation of the death or the divorce/breakup. As someone who has experienced both a death (my mom) and a breakup of a relationship (we weren't married but together for 6 years and lived together), I can honestly say that handling my mother's death was far easier than handling the breakup, because as Bubbs put it, you know why the former is gone but with the latter, the door is left open for what ifs and what might have beens and often times there's no proper closure. With the death, that person probably didn't die wanting to willingly leave their friends and family (depending on circumstances, of course). But with the breakup, that person chose to willingly leave and that for some reason hurts far, far worse for me. Death is final and that for me was much easier to cope with. As much as a breakup or divorce is permanent, there isn't the same feeling of finality as there is with death. I'm not sure that I can articulate those feelings adequately or properly, but I hope others who have experienced both a death and divorce/breakup understand what I mean and am trying to say.
I feel the same way to Danica. My own divorce I lost a lot more than just my marriage...my home, friends, a church I dearly loved, my kids lost a lot of stability despite my attempts to maintain as much normalcy as possible. Every situation and person is different. I never imagined divorce being so painful and unless you have experienced it firsthand you could never understand.
My parents divorce was so ugly and so nasty and mean that it really was like a death. Sometimes I still feel the pain from it if I allow myself.
Yes. I can relate to what she said.
But, I would say that it does depend on the divorce and death... I've lost 2 grandparents and moved on from that much more easily than my divorce. Although, my divorce was probably "easy" compared to many (no kids, complete agreement on property division, done in 3 months)... But I was an emotional wreck - when you suffer emotional abuse for years, try to keep things together because it's the "right" thing to do, and then still get treated like a dog... It takes along time to recover your self worth. I think a death has little effect on self esteem because it isn't usually related to our personal actions.
I loved my daddy. He was my hero. But when he died, I wasn't alone. My family grieved with me. My friends grieved with me. We celebrated dad's life together and mourned losing him together. I was never alone in my grief, and that made all the difference.
The worst part of both? They both happened in the same year. My dad died 6 months after my husband and I separated.