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Carolyn Hax: Her husband isolated her. Post-split, will friends welcome her back?
Dear Carolyn: I am getting divorced; my husband walked out to move in with his girlfriend. I was totally blindsided.
During the early stages of our relationship, he asked that I cut off communication with almost all my friends from high school and college. I regret that I complied, and I also never set up Facebook — again, at his insistence.
Now I want to get back in touch with people — I am lonely as all heck — but I was the one who cut them off. Trying to explain sounds like I’m a bitter divorcing woman. Any ideas?
— Lonely
Lonely: 1. I am so sorry.
2. Please look into therapy. I understand it can be expensive, tough to schedule or both, but you’re describing years of serious and damaging emotional manipulation, and a trained guide can help you sort truth from gaslighting.
3. Pick your closest and/or most open-minded ex friends, and send them this: “I am so sorry I cut off contact. I was in an abusive relationship and I am only beginning to understand how isolated I became.” It was abusive, and you were isolated; I hope you can see that now. Asking you to cut ties to all your loved ones is what abusers do.
4. Please also see the deeply internalized sexism in your fear of sounding like “a bitter divorcing woman.” You are a real and whole person with real and whole feelings, and expressing them does not make you a stereotype.
Your friends may not be receptive to your return; that’s a risk you take, and that won’t mean your attempts will have been a mistake. You have work to do on many fronts right now to build a healthy life for yourself. Counseling is an important part of that, but so is reaching out to old friends; putting things on your schedule to help you connect to new people and senses of purpose; and finding ways to use your alone time to rebuild emotionally. It will be tiring, but it’s important to do.
Maybe I should change No. 1 to “I’m so relieved and happy for you”? Obviously your husband’s walkout was a shock, but it was also a gift.
Readers’ thoughts:
· If someone I lost contact with reached out to me and described a situation like yours, I can’t imagine not wanting to bring them back into my life. True friends will be understanding, even after all these years, and will want to do whatever they can to help you. This is not your fault, and I hope they will all understand that.
· Odds are your friends knew you were in an abusive relationship and knew they couldn’t do anything about it until you were ready to. They may still harbor some hurt at being cut out of your life, but that is not incompatible with the happiness I’m sure at least some of them will feel to hear from you and catch back up. For what it’s worth, I’ve disappeared on friends for other reasons, and none of them were anything other than delighted when I finally had the emotional wherewithal to reach back out. Good luck!
· It can be daunting to find a therapist who fits your needs. There are a lot of nonprofit groups that deal with domestic abuse that could help. You can also visit thehotline.org.
During the early stages of our relationship, he asked that I cut off communication with almost all my friends from high school and college. I regret that I complied, and I also never set up Facebook — again, at his insistence.
Now I want to get back in touch with people — I am lonely as all heck — but I was the one who cut them off. Trying to explain sounds like I’m a bitter divorcing woman. Any ideas?
— Lonely
Lonely: 1. I am so sorry.
2. Please look into therapy. I understand it can be expensive, tough to schedule or both, but you’re describing years of serious and damaging emotional manipulation, and a trained guide can help you sort truth from gaslighting.
3. Pick your closest and/or most open-minded ex friends, and send them this: “I am so sorry I cut off contact. I was in an abusive relationship and I am only beginning to understand how isolated I became.” It was abusive, and you were isolated; I hope you can see that now. Asking you to cut ties to all your loved ones is what abusers do.
4. Please also see the deeply internalized sexism in your fear of sounding like “a bitter divorcing woman.” You are a real and whole person with real and whole feelings, and expressing them does not make you a stereotype.
Your friends may not be receptive to your return; that’s a risk you take, and that won’t mean your attempts will have been a mistake. You have work to do on many fronts right now to build a healthy life for yourself. Counseling is an important part of that, but so is reaching out to old friends; putting things on your schedule to help you connect to new people and senses of purpose; and finding ways to use your alone time to rebuild emotionally. It will be tiring, but it’s important to do.
Maybe I should change No. 1 to “I’m so relieved and happy for you”? Obviously your husband’s walkout was a shock, but it was also a gift.
Readers’ thoughts:
· If someone I lost contact with reached out to me and described a situation like yours, I can’t imagine not wanting to bring them back into my life. True friends will be understanding, even after all these years, and will want to do whatever they can to help you. This is not your fault, and I hope they will all understand that.
· Odds are your friends knew you were in an abusive relationship and knew they couldn’t do anything about it until you were ready to. They may still harbor some hurt at being cut out of your life, but that is not incompatible with the happiness I’m sure at least some of them will feel to hear from you and catch back up. For what it’s worth, I’ve disappeared on friends for other reasons, and none of them were anything other than delighted when I finally had the emotional wherewithal to reach back out. Good luck!
· It can be daunting to find a therapist who fits your needs. There are a lot of nonprofit groups that deal with domestic abuse that could help. You can also visit thehotline.org.
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