JC’s Interview; Part Two
By Angela
When we left off, in Part Two of JC’s Interview, he had just told his family that he had gotten a divorce from his wife. It only took three months for he and his now ex-wife to get a divorce. Though their divorce was quick his pain and feelings of devastation and betrayal were not. The emotional toil was long lasting. His story continues.
You said you were devastated by this divorce. Describe that feeling for me.
At the time, I was a truck driver. There would be times when I would be on the highway and I would be so hurt (I don’t cry, I’m not a crier) …. and my stomach would be so tore up, and my whole body would hurt and I would have no energy so that I couldn’t shift gears. I would literally have to force myself to shift gears. I couldn’t function. It was almost like when I was little and my mother would have to leave me somewhere and I didn’t want her to.
That was how I felt. But I was no longer five. I was thirty-something years old. I couldn’t sit in a corner somewhere and cry. I had to just deal with it. I had to man up because I was a truck driver. I was supposed to be a big guy, tough. Yet there would be days when I would be just that crushed. I don’t even know how I got through the day. I don’t know. I just know that I did and when that day was over, I wasn’t going home because we still lived in the same house. But, I wasn’t going to leave because I was the one paying most of the bills.
Instead, I would go to the bar. Sometimes I picked up somebody and sometimes I didn’t. I didn’t
care one way or the other. Sometimes I’d end up in a hotel. Sometimes I didn’t. It didn’t matter to me. I really couldn’t have cared less.
What do you think of everything that happened, now, when you look back on it?
Again, I should be dead or locked up. I just didn’t care about anything, one way or the other. And at that point, unfortunately, I was not dealing with my emotions. I didn’t start dealing with my emotions until later on. Even then, I didn’t know how to deal with them properly. I guess I just sort of …. went with the flow.
But looking back on it, I don’t even know how I got through it. It was that bad. You know; your son, the boy you raised to be a man, is incarcerated, the woman you loved since you were in your early twenties is with another man, you’re now middle-aged and …. you don’t know what to do with yourself. So, you’re vulnerable. And, even though you think you are strong, you’re not. You’re just totally vulnerable. I guess between October and when we finally said our last good-byes, in April, that’s where I was. I was vulnerable.
I know what happened between October and January. But, what happened between January, when your divorce was finalized, and April?
We sold the house and she got engaged, so I had to deal with watching her with an engagement ring on her finger, in my house.
How was that?
You. know, you always wonder what you did to deserve it. I mean we’ve all done stuff in our past that we think ….. well….. I mean, you wonder what you did to deserve it. You think, ‘it must have been something in my past because this is just not fair“. Most men would have choked her. I told her, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen with you and this next guy, but if you do to him what you’re doing to me …. I don’t know how he’s gonna react to it, but I think some men would try to hurt you.”
What things did she do to you? Other than want to divorce you?
She was belligerent, verbally disrespectful. One minute she’d wanna play the divorced role and then the next minute she’d try to be the wife. I was like, “let’s not be confused.” Because at that point, I was really finding things out. And I don’t know if she was doing it to make me angry on purpose, but….
For example, I’d ask her about the engagement ring on her finger and she would say, “oh no, that’s nothing”. but, I’d be like, “a big diamond ring on your hand. It means something”.
How did you feel about that?
I didn’t have much to say to her. I was just hurt, angry and I didn’t care. I didn’t really have a plan. I just got through it, day by day, the best way that I could.
Did you try to get her to stay?
My whole thing is, I didn’t want to be divorced. But, I’ve never been one to force anybody like “you’re gonna stay” or make threats. Everybody is a free agent. So I felt I had to suck it up and just deal with the fact that she was making a choice.
If you didn’t try to get her to stay, what did you do?
The only thing I could do was respond by being a husband ‘til the end. Which is crazy but I had a friend of mine tell me to. This one day, when I had decided I was gonna be a real jerk to her, he told me, “just don’t. If she asks you for things like to change the oil in her car or to do this or that, keep doing it. When it is all said and done, she can never say you denied her“. So, on top of everything and while watching this woman, who was supposed to be my wife, become engaged to someone else, I still did my husbandly duties.
So now, it’s April; you are divorced, your wife is engaged and the two of you have finally said your good-byes- if someone had asked you if you were optimistic about your future, what would you have said?
I would have told them yes. But inside, I didn’t think there was a future for me. Outside I would have been like, “yeah, I’m good. I‘m gonna do this. I‘m gonna do that.” But inside, I had no motivation to do anything.
And your ex-wife?
She moved out and moved in with him. He lived in a different state. And a year later they got married. We haven’t seen each other since she moved and I haven’t spoken to her since last August. Also I have changed my number so if she needs me, she has to get in touch with me through my mother. I‘m, now, just trying to keep it moving..
You said earlier, you put on a front of normalcy. Why?
I think you put on a front because you don’t want to look soft or less than a man. Also, society does force you into a category. If you don’t look like you are going to pick up the pieces, society is like, ”oh, wow, he’s not doing good“, he’s devastated” as opposed to, ”hey, he’s doing alright,” ”he’s bouncing back”. With society, it’s almost a type of peer pressure. So you’re like, “okay, let me act like I can pick up the pieces”, “let me act like I’m moving forward”. When actually, I’ve moved backwards. When actually, I need some serious, serious help.
Why do you say you needed serious help?
When you are divorced, it’s like a death. But it continues over and over and over because that person is still around, somewhere. And, if you put years into it, that is all you know. That adds a burden. It is devastating. You have trust issues. You’re, emotionally, a wreck. A total wreck. With me or maybe with men, it doesn’t manifest itself the way it would with a woman. Maybe we put on such a front that it makes everything even worse and makes it harder for us to deal with life and relationships. But, it’s done! It’s over when it comes to having a healthy relationship. So I needed help.
If you felt emotionally devastated why did you not reach out for some kind of help?
I didn’t want help because I didn’t want the stigma of mental illness. I come from a family of law enforcement and one of the things you are asked during the interview process (to get a position in law enforcement) is whether you have a history of mental illness. Sometimes, in those fields, they don’t distinguish between actual mental illness and therapy for other reasons. They see therapy and they assume mental illness. They assume medication and mental problems. And, because I am a black man, I already have a strike against me. Now, they have that and that I have sought therapy. I refuse to have that on my record. I refuse to have to deal with that stigma, on or off the record.
So, do you think the divorce process was harder for you to deal with because you are a man? Because you are a black man?
Yes, I do.
In what way?
As black men, there are issues that we have with each other and with our families that have not been addressed. So, when it comes to a divorced, middle-class, black man’s issues, those really don’t get addressed. Nobody addresses those issues. I come from suburbia. I’m just a regular man, in a middle class situation, with a family and a home, who’s divorced. Who’s devastated. I hate to say it but nobody really cares. Nobody cares about a thirty-something man with divorce issues. And particularly a black man. That’s how I felt.
Was there no one you could talk to? No one you could turn to?
I had no way of articulating how I felt. I had no one, professionally, I could come to - another black man, that is. I didn’t know any professional black men who could give me some help. I didn’t have a religious leader I could turn to. I didn’t know anyone who had gone through it, been divorced some years, and come through to the other side. The people I knew, the people I leaned on, they were going through the same things I was going through. There was no resource that I knew of. So I just dealt with it on my own.
Did no one offer you help?
The people that offered me help, the people that wanted to help me, were women. They all had ulterior motives. For example, the women that I met and talked to, a lot of them were just waiting for me to get over it, so they could move in and be the next wife. But they had no clue what I was going through. I found that most of the women I met had never been through what I had gone through. They had never been married or had only been married for a short term - some one year, some two years.. They had never had that steady husband in the bedroom, around the house, helping with the household, raising kids. They had no clue as to what I was dealing with.
As you can see, JC truly loved his wife and was devastated by his separation and ultimate divorce. What I find sad, he was unable to turn to anyone for help, comfort, support or advice. What I find sadder, people actually believed because he was a man, he should be able to, in effect, take it on the chin and keep steppin'. What I find even sadder, he accepted that assumption and so never truly reached out for help and had to deal with this alone. Next time, part three of JC‘s interview.
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