divine angst

Over the holidays, Mr. Angst and I discovered that one (well, two) of our friends are getting a divorce. It was a weird revelation. Before Mr. Angst and I started dating, he was in a close circle of friends that consisted of a couple and two other guys. Then he started dating me, and the other two guys started dating seriously, and, within a matter of months, we were a circle of four couples. A few years later, we all got engaged and then married, also all within a matter of months of each other. The divorcing couple was the first to get engaged and the first to get married. They’re quirky and fun and I always thought that each was probably the only person the other could ever be with. Their quirkinesses matched.

We visited Our Old City in October, and they were still quite happy. They’d been married just over two years. He was working on his degree and had a great internship. She was working in a good job and preparing to finish her own degree, once he was done. But a month later, they started talking about separating. And by Christmastime, they were talking divorce. (Very amicably, though–he’s still on her insurance, and he didn’t move out until after the new year.) Their interests, I guess, had just diverged too much. They had different friends, different goals. And I guess they felt that being married was only going to hold them back or keep them from growing.

I admit that I don’t quite know what to think about it. As I said, I always thought they were really perfect for one another–I still think they match pretty well. For them to split up now, too, seems so strange, since things are going well for both of them. But instead of the bright future making their marriage stronger, it’s pulling them apart. Maybe they fell into together on the basis of shared angst, and without that angst, they don’t need each other anymore. But what about the other elements of a marriage? What about love, companionship, a shared life?

A lot of marriages fall apart when the going gets tough; it seems like this one did when things starting looking up. Something each of them thought was foundational to their relationship is different now and so the marriage doesn’t make sense to them anymore. And I have a hard time accepting that.

This isn’t a post about The Importance Of Fidelity And Loyalty In Marriage. I think divorce is too easy and an overused option, but heaven forbid I make any sweeping pronouncements about what reasons for divorce are Good and which ones are Bad. It doesn’t change the fact that I just don’t get it in this case. As a matter of comparison, another friend of mine got divorced a few years ago–interestingly, also right after the two-year mark. They had no change in financial circumstances and there was no adultery, but one of them did lose interest in intimacy (I believe it was pharmacological in origin). A basic assumption of their marriage had utterly changed. And while I didn’t necessarily think divorce was the best option in that case, either, I understood the decision.

Arguably, a change from dire financial straits to flushness could be a change in a basic assumption of my friends’ marriage, but what does that say about relationships today? I know that the thing most married couples fight about is money. That seems to extend even to improved finances. People are entering marriage because of shared dependency and, when they become less dependent on one another, they are walking away from it. And that’s a sad thing. Because what does that say about the emotional and psychological benefits of marriage, the love and companionship? That they are secondary? That they are unnecessary? Is a spouse fungible?

I wish my two friends the best, and I’m glad their breakup is amicable, if only for them. But it’s almost worse when a divorce is on good terms, because it suggests that other options might have been available and that divorce was simply the easiest means of solving whatever problems the marriage had.