Cheryl’s solo backpacking adventure along the Pacific Crest Trail is a bold attempt to both escape from and find herself in the wake of losing her mother to cancer. Having sabotaged her marriage despite still caring for her husband, she determines to be alone. She changes her last name to “Strayed” and leaves her home in Minnesota as a 26-year-old divorced woman with no companion save the massive backpack she dubs Monster.

This is not a book about divorce, but anyone who has ever lost—or felt they had to leave—someone they love will connect with Cheryl’s story. Working through grief requires granting forgiveness on so many levels, and Cheryl describes this messy process artfully. In one of my favorite scenes, she walks along a beach on the Oregon coast and asks, “What if I forgave myself?” And, “What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do anything differently than I had done?”

While the book obviously has its heavy moments—the author’s description of loving and losing her mom makes the unimaginable painfully imaginable—it also offers gorgeous imagery, plenty of humor, and a touch of the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll (or bluegrass) one expects from a good coming-of-age story. I adored this book, and I think you will, too.

*****

Your Turn

• During (or after) your divorce, did you have the urge to pack your things and take an epic journey? Or maybe even a not-so-epic journey? Did you do it?
• If you could take a solo trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?
• Have you been able to forgive yourself about the breakdown of your marriage?

Cheryl Strayed is currently on tour, and I’m planning to attend one of her Twin Cities events in April. If you’d like to join me, let me know! If you would like to share your own divorced-before-30 story, please check out the submissions page! If you haven’t already, please visit Divorced Before 30 on Facebook and click “like!”

Disclosure: I received an Advance Reader’s Edition of Wild from Knopf in order to write this piece. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

The #1 way that divorce has affected my current relationship is that I see marriage as less of a “destination” and more as an ongoing (hopefully lifelong) process. It’s not about the wedding; it’s about the day-to-day life that you build with someone who is your friend, partner, and lover. You’re not stuck together—marriages can be undone, after all—but if you’re lucky and you work hard at it, the two of you can create something worth sticking around for.

Here’s what the rest of you had to say about how divorce has affected your relationship outlook:

“I’m more comfortable with me. I’m more willing to speak my mind.”

“I am desperate to avoid the same pitfalls, so I overthink everything I say to my boyfriend. I am overcautious not to be ‘unfair’ to him, and I obsess over making this one ‘right.’ He’s patient, but he does have to tell me, ‘Hey, I’m not him, and this is different.’”

“I was bitter for awhile, many months. I went to a wedding a month after my separation and I hated being there. I thought the whole ceremony was a fraud, and I was in an unhealthy mental state at that point. When it comes to dating, I’ve been very cautious. I’ve done my best to make sure I don’t have a ‘rebound,’ but I’ve met someone amazing. I was friends with him before my marriage fell apart, and after my separation, we became better friends. Suddenly, I realized he was my favorite person in the whole world. We are extremely compatible and mature. If anything, divorce taught me how to think rationally about relationships. I’m taking everything very slowly.”

“I won’t repeat the same mistakes twice. I have learned so much from my divorce and past marriage and I apply them all the time to my relationship with [my boyfriend]. It’s making us much more successful!”

“I don’t commit and cling right away. I am getting out there and meeting different people. I feel like you won’t know who Mr. Right for You is if you just bait and hook the first man who gives you attention. I try to work an equal balance between my career, son, friends and men! It is definitely a challenge. I admit, though, that I have been seeing someone for about five months now and he and I both feel ready to be a bit more serious. Fortunately, he also is divorced and understands why I want and have to be careful.”

“I appreciate all of the big and small things my 2nd husband does for me. He does such an amazing job of respecting me, and it’s wonderful. I ain’t ’bout to forget it!”

“I was told unexpectedly one day by my husband that he no longer wanted to be married. The next month of my life, he wouldn’t allow me to touch him, wouldn’t sleep next to me, “forgot” to answer his phone, and would hardly come home at night. Trust has become the number one issue for me. I was married to a man who was the kindest, most loving, considerate, and trustworthy man. My family and friends adored him. He had high morals, good values, and loving traits. I, nor anyone else, would ever have suspected him of cheating. However, he did. And it hurt very, very bad because it was something so unexpected. I never saw it coming. So, I have a very hard time trusting people in my life. I feel I always will because you never know when someone will just ‘switch.’”

“I have found that I crave physical connection, not sex necessarily, but just being close to another man. The last week, I realized that I am rebounding, hard! That thought made me realize that I wasn’t wanting another man; I was wanting intimacy. So now I am trying to cultivate intimacy (not of the sexual nature) in my important relationships (mom, dad, brothers, best friend). I don’t know when/if I’ll date again, but I’m determined to be happy regardless!

*****

I Want to Know

• Do you have any advice for readers who may be feeling insecure in a new relationship?
• How about advice for readers who feel like they’ll never be able to trust another romantic partner again?

Would you like to tell your separation or divorce story? Divorced Before 30 takes submissions! Visit me at my other blog, emmasota or find me on twitter @emmasota. And, if you haven’t already, please connect with Divorced Before 30 on Facebook!

Jeske hit rock bottom after her supernova, struggling with depression and anxiety. She provides some pretty sound advice to other recently-divorced people, pointing out that another person—a new lover—can’t rescue you from the emotional fall-out of divorce. Truly, it takes time to recover, and many people are probably better off waiting to date. I totally agree. And yet, I dove into what could have been a “rebound” relationship just six weeks after my divorce. I’d been on a couple of dates in the interim, but my first post-divorce relationship got serious almost immediately. Mistake? For me, no. In fact, this week marks five years with Mr. More-than-a-Rebound.

Why did it work? Maybe it was just dumb luck, but I think there were several factors that helped:

• I was the one who initiated my divorce, and emotionally, I’d been “done” for months.
• I was already friends with my new love interest before my divorce (and before my marriage, in fact).
• I wasn’t afraid to talk to my new love about my marriage.
• I didn’t talk about my marriage to my new love all that often.
• My new love was extremely understanding and didn’t feel threatened by my previous marriage.
• I didn’t pretend to be entirely over my divorce.
• I was proactive about taking care of myself and pursuing important personal goals like getting out of debt.
• I set boundaries about how often I stayed at my new love’s place.
• I made an effort to spend time with my girlfriends and my family.
• I went to therapy to work through my divorce and wasn’t afraid to admit that I needed it.

Sometimes, you fall in love with the right person at what seems to be precisely the wrong time. Maybe it will explode dramatically, supernova-style, but it could also turn out to be the real deal. I am grateful for the amazing five years that I’ve had with my Mr. More-than-a-Rebound, and I look forward to many, many more.

*****

I’d love to hear from you on this!

Have you had what Jeske calls a “supernova” relationship after your divorce (or a bad break up)?
Or, like me, did you dive into a new relationship that has since lasted?
How long did it take you before you felt emotionally ready for a new relationship after your marriage or serious relationship fell apart?

If you would like to share your own divorced-before-30 story, please check out the submissions page! Men are welcome, too! If you haven’t already, please connect with Divorced Before 30 on Facebook!

It’s entirely appropriate that a common type of computer virus is called a “trojan horse.” I have had the unfortunate experience of such an attack this week, and I haven’t felt so aggravated in a long time. I asked an IT guy at my office what to do, and he noted that while it’s relatively easy to keep viruses at bay with antivirus software, it’s often really tricky to get rid of them. Great.

Isn’t this what happens when a marriage gets sick? Some kind of problem—emotional distance, infidelity, dishonesty, etc.—plants itself in the relationship before one or both people realize it’s happening. Once everything comes to a head, it’s often too late to repair what’s broken. I don’t know about you, but I felt really stupid for not seeing the sneak attack in my marriage for what it was. And I am sure as hell going to be better about scanning my netbook from now on.

*****

I’d love to hear from you on this! Was there a “Trojan Horse” in your marriage?

If you would like to share your own divorced-before-30 story, please check out the submissions page! Men are welcome, too! If you haven’t already, please connect with Divorced Before 30 on Facebook!

That got me thinking: How do guys share difficult life experiences like divorce? I reached out to a twentysomething guy who is divorced to find out. Let’s just call him “Guy.” Here’s what he said.

Emma: Since your divorce, who have you talked to the most about your experience? Why do you feel most comfortable talking to that person?

Guy: Since my divorce nearly two years, I really haven’t spoken to many people about the experience. At first, my parents stayed involved in my life and provided support but it has waned as time has gone by. I’m an introvert by nature, so I wouldn’t bring it up with anyone; it had to be forced out of me.

Emma: Aside from talking about it, what coping mechanisms have you relied on to get through the experience of getting divorced?

Guy: I waited way too long to express my thoughts about the divorce. As I became depressed more recently, I took the steps to start seeing a therapist to help with my inner thinking. I think this is helping and I am more optimistic about my future, but the divorce and memories of it still do affect me to this day.

Emma: What did your guy friends do to show their support after you and your wife split up?

Guy: My friends gave me condolences and such, but they never really brought it up with me. I don’t know if they were afraid to, thought I wouldn’t want them to or what, but I haven’t had any deep conversations with any of my friends.

Emma: In your experience, what’s the biggest difference in how men and women process a divorce or other significant break-up?

Guy: I believe women are more open to expressing their feelings and having long conversations following a break-up. This may be genetic fact. Men do not tend to express their feelings openly using blogs/writing/etc. In the end, I think the way men and women handle a break-up is an intensification of their personality before the break-up.

The phrase “this may be genetic fact” really jumped out at me. In general, I’ve always felt that men who don’t open up are simply doing so to torture the women in their lives. Seriously. So it was serendipitous that I came across an interesting study this week. The headline, “Males Believe Discussing Problems is a Waste of Time,” caught my eye.

It turns out that even during childhood and adolescence, males see little need to talk about their problems, though sometimes it may be helpful. Females are often inclined to talk about their problems too much (no surprise there), and this can lead to depression and anxiety. The research suggests that males and females probably ought to meet somewhere in the middle.

*****

What do you think about Guy’s perspective? About the psychological study? Comments are always much appreciated!

BTW, one reader (named “Unsure of what to do”) left a comment on last week’s post looking for some marriage advice. Go check it out!

If you would like to share your own divorced-before-30 story, please check out the submissions page! Men are welcome, too! If you haven’t already, please connect with Divorced Before 30 on Facebook!