12 - The Renaissance

Summary

There is no doubt in my mind that divorce is tragic, probably more so for the parents than the kids, but a large part of what makes it hell for the parents is worrying about how hellish it must be for those precious little ones. On the other hand, I truly believe that remaining in an unhappy marriage is even more painful and harmful for all concerned. I am convinced of this no doubt because of the good luck I had in my second marriage, a union that was grounded in a much more adult and reasoned manner than my first one. Not everybody is as lucky as I was in their second time around—Larry King, Elizabeth Taylor, Bluebeard, Henry VIII, and the like—but of course my good luck is the theme of this whole story, and my second marriage is no doubt the luckiest of my many good fortunes.

Like a lot of divorced guys, it was at the occasion of becoming single again that I began what I have to call my second adolescence. Pat and my socializing with other couples had already dwindled down to nearly zero in the early 1970s, and by the time of our separation she had been absorbed into the cadre of her fellow grad students in the Psychology Department, and I had already begun hanging out with some of the unmarried guys in our graduate program. I was a sort of naïve 35, and many of them were in their late 20s, so we had a good time as a bunch of single guys. That socializing only increased when I had fewer at-home responsibilities, a marginal advantage I suppose of being the one who had to move out. There was a lot of poker, drinking, and talking about women.