The thoughtless divorcees who can’t stop belittling their exes — in front of widows

JEANNETTE KUPFERMANN identifies a bitter new divide among her female friends

ADmITTeDlY, it was about six months after my husband Jacques died and I was still feeling pretty forlorn. But I was putting on a brave face, particularly as a friend had invited me out to my favourite garden centre with another friend of hers, a colourful character she thought I might find interesting.

We sat in a charming little cafe with our slices of carrot cake and coffee, looking out on an idyllic courtyard garden bursting with spring blossom. So why did I feel like getting up and leaving or, worse still, hitting them both?

The fact is, the minute we’d sat down both women, seemingly oblivious to me, had started to exchange stories about their exes (both having recently divorced). Their voices got louder and louder — as did the conspiratorial laughter, the derision and the bad-mouthing.

The minute I heard one of them say: ‘You know the day I divorced was the happiest day of my life and I’ve given thanks every day since ... ’ I pushed my cake away and wanted to leave.

Their carping went from bad to worse with their stories of their exes’ bad habits, meanness, money disasters, thoughtlessness and ineptitude in everything from the bedroom to DIY.

Neither had been abandoned for another woman, both men had been hard-working, good fathers, and had provided reasonably well for their wives. One of the men I had known personally and had found to be kind and decent.

For these women, it was more a case of ‘the grass is always greener’ as they boasted about ‘ finding new exciting interests’ and compared notes about the male model at their ‘life class’.

I am not anti-divorce. Nor do I believe in someone being chained to a cruel or abusive partner for life. But coming so soon after losing the man who’d been not only my soul partner, my best friend, lover, mentor and father of my children, and the man I’d always thought I’d grow old with, it felt positively galling.

I’d been married to Jacques for nearly 24 years when he was so cruelly struck down with pancreatic cancer and taken away from us. He was 61, I was 46 and our children were 21 and 19. I thought we had years ahead of us. An exciting future.

Yet these women were not only disparaging their exes — demeaning them at every turn — but rejoicingin the fact they’d got rid of their husbands.

‘ Selfish, selfish, selfish,’ I thought. It wasn’t as if their husbands had been wife-beaters, alcoholics, gambling addicts or sleazy womanisers — just ordinary decent men whose biggest sin — as far as I could tell — had been growing a paunch, and falling asleep in the armchair.

But, sadly, the rise of these ‘silver splitters’, women who get divorced in their 50s and beyond, means that widows like me find ourselves having to socialise with women who are disparaging about men — and marriage.

I’ve met many widows who’ve felt equally offended for the same reasons — pining for their lovely husbands as they listen to the spiteful and mindless sentiments expressed by divorced women. ( Divorced men who denigrate their exes are just as unappealing, as I know from dating one or two. Hearing a man tell me he would like his ex-wife to contract a terminal illness is probably the greatest turn-off of all time.) It’s also unfortunate that, as lone women, widows and divorcees tend to get lumped together socially and will often find themselves in each others’ company. At weddings and on cruise ships, you will be placed on the same tables, the tables for guests that no one knows what to do with. In theory, widows and divorcees should have much in common: after all, both have experienced a loss (a marriage) which has required a period of mourning. This loss has often affected their sense of identity, their futures, their relationship with their children, their social status, their income and other practical things — causing enormous distress and even depression or other illness.

Both are facing the challenges of living alone on reduced incomes, single parenthood or feeling like a social pariah. Yet despite many similarities, as I have discovered, finding common ground is almost impossible.

I remember actually running out of the ladies’ at a Woman Of The Year lunch when I realised a high-profile recent divorcee was about to pounce and regale me with tales of her meek and mild ex-husband’s many ‘crimes’ — chief of which was not enjoying his wife’s continual recounting of his bedroom failures to anyone who’d listen.

It’s common for the divorced to claim that their suffering is infinitely greater than that of the widowed because the hated ex is ‘still there’, and so they are forced into some kind of uncomfortable and endless relationship with him via their children.

Death, on the other hand, is final. But it’s the finality of it that makes the carping of divorcees seem so petty. It makes me want to shake these women who dwell on the most insignificant failings of their exes.

In the words of psychologist Cynthia Kapelus, herself a widow in her 70s now re-married: ‘When a couple split there’s always some idea of failure involved, some culpability or some internal interrogation as to what went wrong. When you lose a husband to death, you generally don’t believe it’s your fault.

‘Often in divorce one person doesn’t know why it’s all gone wrong and this “not knowing” makes it hard for them to let it go. Their bewilderment turns to anger, anger to bitterness and bitterness to corrosiveness.’

Of course, the bereaved can feel this, too, especially if you find out hidden and unpleasant things after a husband dies, but whereas so many divorcees demean or demonise an ex-partner, most widows — at least initially — tend to romanticise, idealise and remember only the good things.

THemost extreme case was Queen Victoria, who spent a lifetime putting Prince Albert on a pedestal, though the marriage had never been less than turbulent.

‘With widowhood you often have a long illness involved, which was my own experience,’ Cynthia continues. ‘By the end of it, any earlier anger has dissipated, making it easier for you to remember only the good things.’

Widows and divorcees may find it hard to show mutual sympathy in the early days. In my experience, conversations often become a ‘ competition in suffering’ and, though no one admits it, there’s some envy on both sides: the widow envies the divorcee that the man is alive and, even if all else fails, he can still be there for the children.

Whereas the widow really alone — struggling as she tries to be both mother and father.

The lesson here on both sides is that we need to be more sensitive to how the other feels: it’s also important to realise that, over time, everything can change.

But while I’ve had a few love affairs since Jacques died, I’ve never found that combination of soulmate, intellectual companion and great love again, so I’ve never wanted to re-marry.

I appreciate how lucky I was to have found it at all, to have had so many wonderful times and a husband who brought so many good things to me.

Others have not been so lucky, but all their moaning and griping shouldn’t drown out the joy of the marriages that do survive.

Do you think widow sand divorce es have difficulties socialising?