Whether you’re Jenny from the Block or a suburban matron, divorce is not a spectator sport

Six weeks after my first husband and I broke up, it was the first time I felt like I wouldn’t die if I put on a dress and left the house for dinner with friends.

The dress hung on me and needed a belt. I had to grip the restaurant door. Such a weird juxtaposition. My body felt light and untethered from the earth, like I might spiral up and away forever. My heart was as heavy as a Panzer tank. But I put on a social clinic. Made jokes, asked questions, did not sob. Nobody at the table knew my husband had moved out, so there was a temporary buffer from reality.

Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from Ben Affleck after two years of marriage.Credit: Getty

For the time it took for a steak to come out, wine to be shared, I could be my normal old self and not a suddenly single middle-aged woman who was in agony not just because of the loss of my present, but the future I thought I’d have.

Then one of my mates leaned forward. “Kate, it is true?”

“Is what true?”

“Has your husband left you?”

Imagine a cartoon anvil hitting you, bong. Pretty bad. I felt stricken. Not even my parents knew then about my 22-year marriage being on the rocks. I just couldn’t work out the mechanics of saying the words out loud. It was a closely held secret.

Or not. There was a supergrass in the ranks, to this day not discovered. “Where did you hear that?”

“It came up at the father-daughter school camp. Is it true?”

The friend asking is still a friend, still treasured. I got why she asked. Basic psychology, but we’re naturally drawn to other people’s divorces and dramas because they make us feel better about our own lives.

It’s a guilty pleasure. Watching someone else’s chaos unfold, with twists and juicy details, comes with the odd comfort of knowing it’s not ours. There’s something fascinating about the raw, real emotions involved. And it’s human nature to compare. Puts our challenges and joys into perspective.

It’s not always about schadenfreude, though. Sometimes, it’s about wanting to empathise, wanting to get a glimpse into the kaleidoscopic complexity of human relationships, wanting to feel connected through shared experiences. Wanting to help.

So I didn’t think the worst of my friend. But I didn’t answer her either and geez, I was blindsided. The fragile emotional armour I’d wrapped around myself before heading out shattered. I felt exposed and vulnerable. Wanted to go home and be in darkness to regroup. Soon after, I did.

That was 11 years ago, but I still feel sorry for the woman stripped bare at that moment. It’s why the one thing I will never, ever gossip about now is divorce. Even though I love gossip enough to have been a celebrity gossip writer for decades.

It’s why I won’t be seeing Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s divorce news as my business, certainly nothing to dissect or give advice on.

Christ, anybody who’s done it knows divorce is humiliating and excoriating enough. Whether you’re Jenny from the Block or a suburban matron it’s terrible, not comforting, when everyone wants to know what went wrong. When some random school mum puts an arm out in aisle five: “So sorry to hear what happened.”

Really? Then shut up. Only our most beloved should be privy to our breakups. They’re a vortex of pain, sadness, guilt, shame. Chuck in personal failure and loss, judgment, misunderstandings and how talking about it picks off the fresh scab of hurt, and yeah, back off before you get socked.

I can’t imagine being Affleck and Lopez and anyone else famous who divorces. Sure, they traded privacy for fame, made a deal that for us to be interested in them on screen or stage, they’d have to interest us off it.

But I’d rather revel in their clothes or babies or weddings, not the death of something that mattered enough for them to have believed it was forever.

Actually, I am going to dish out advice. Divorce is not a spectator sport.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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