Live After Divorce: Community, and Who Actually Shows Up

It’s not uncommon for couples to share the same circle of friends. Nor is it uncommon for some of those friendships to fall away when the relationship does. People talk endlessly about betrayal by a partner—but no one warns you that betrayal by friends can hurt even worse.

I name this because the people I trusted keep choosing proximity to my ex and his affair partner while assuring me, privately, that they “have my back.” I’ve expressed my betrayal plainly, more than once. Nothing about that is unclear, yet the pattern continues. Somehow my anger is treated as the issue, rather than the ongoing choice to ignore my boundaries.

Betrayal from friends hurts differently because these are the people who watched the damage happen and decided it wasn’t their problem. (Sidebar: it’s wild how I’ve found more compassion and understanding from strangers than from people I’ve known for nearly a decade.) And if guilt by association can be legally evaluated in court, then consider me the judge. (18 U.S.C. § 2. Look it up.)

What’s even harder to swallow is who does the reprimanding.

Why are women who speak loudly about their pain so quickly labeled “too much,” especially by other women? And let’s stop pretending race doesn’t matter here. Women of color (particularly darker-skinned women) are far more likely to be framed as aggressive, unstable, or overemotional for expressing grief that would earn sympathy in a different body.

Please sit this this passage for just one moment from an essay by Audre Lorde, who wrote about anger as a Black woman responding to racism and the docility expected of her by white women:

…anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful proves of this translation that we identify who are our allies with who we have grave difference, and who are our genuine enemies.

Anger is loaded with information and energy.

That clarification matters—because it reveals who our allies are, who we differ from, and who was never truly on our side to begin with.

In my own circle, I became “reactive.” “Difficult.” Someone who needed to calm down. Yet, I’ve held space for others in their mess without moralizing it. No tone-policing, no character assessments. Just care.

The disconnect, I’ve found, is really just conflict avoidance disguised as neutrality.

And you know what?

This is what Life After Divorce is really about.

This isn’t just about losing a partner. it’s about realizing that fulfillment isn’t found by clinging to what’s familiar. It’s found by asking a harder question: Does this still align with who I’m becoming?

That question alone may have you reevaluating everything. It did for me.

And my truth is:

I’m not fighting to keep these people; I’m fighting to keep my last sense of normalcy.

I am clinging to familiarity; to shared history, to the illusion that if they stayed, then maybe my life hadn’t completely unraveled. But self-fulfillment doesn’t come from proximity, it comes from alignment.

What isn’t meant for you will disappoint you again and again until you stop excusing it. What is meant for you won’t drain you, won’t confuse you, won’t require you to shrink, justify, or over-explain your pain just to stay included.

Romantic partners, friends, jobs, even habits, will make you feel less than when they are not meant to fulfill you. Not immediately or even obviously, but through erosion.

My cup has felt nearly empty for years—even before my divorce. And that’s been the most unsettling realization of all. Because on paper, I was doing everything “right.” Career progress, long-term partnership, fitness goals. Check, check, and check.

And still—I felt hollow.

What’s finally clicking is this: maybe it wasn’t a lack of self-love. Maybe it was my environment.

Despite what people love to say (“just love yourself,” “you only need you,” etc., etc...) humans are deeply social creatures. We don’t heal in isolation: we heal through resonance. Through being seen, supported, and challenged by people who are aligned with us. It’s sobering to realize how long I kept people in my life out of convenience instead of care.

Out of history instead of honesty.

So, I’m done trying to be understood by people who are committed to misunderstanding me and start rebuilding a life that actually feels like mine.

I’m still prioritizing my fitness journey. Not for a “revenge body,” but as external evidence of strength and discipline. I’ve just signed up for creative writing education courses. Not because I “need a distraction,” but because my mind deserves expansion, not stagnation. I’ve booked a solo trip to Iceland this spring. Not to run away, but to prove to myself again that I can stand alone in vast, unfamiliar places and feel more whole.

This is what rebuilding looks like for me. Not loud, not performative, or rushed. It looks like choosing growth over familiarity. Motion over stagnation.

So, I challenge you—the reader—who may find themselves in this predicament of finding your new community:

Do you feel emotionally fulfilled? Intellectually challenged? Actively healing with the people you keep close?

And if your name were dragged, your trust betrayed, your boundaries crossed: would the people in your circle rally in your defense, or ask you to quiet down for their comfort?

That answer tells you everything.