Friends really make or break your divorce recovery

The loneliness after divorce can be piercing. The first year of Saturday nights on your own is hard. Friends can make or break recovery: they either gather you up, or leave you for dead, writes Angela Mollard.

Tina Fey (main picture) and (inset with co-star Steve Carrell) showcases the fallout of divorce in friends groups in The Four Sreasons. Pictures: Supplied

Damn Tina Fey. Damn Steve Carrell.

There I was, 11 years on from the break-up of my marriage, and that cute little duo come along with a show that opens ALL my wounds.

Not with my ex. He’s fine and we’re lucky to share ongoing kindness and respect.

Rather, Tina and Steve’s new show, The Four Seasons, has reminded me of one of the worst things about divorce.

Of course, the very worst thing is the impact on your children but they can survive with care and good guidance.

Colman Domingo as Danny and Tina Fey as Kate in The Four Seasons. Picture: Supplied

No, it’s something else that makes divorce truly awful years – decades, even – after it happens.

And that, my friends, is friends.

Because nothing shakes up a friendship group like divorce as Netflix’s The Four Seasons so brilliantly explores.

It’s about three middle-aged couples who holiday together every year until one of them – Carrell’s Nick – announces that he’s leaving his 25-year marriage to Anne.

Predictably, he takes up with a younger girlfriend prompting Fey’s character Kate to question: “Why does he have to bring his midlife crisis on my vacation.”

And that’s when I became so traumatised and triggered (or whatever this week’s new therapy words are) that I wanted to shout at Tina Fey.

Fact: Few of us depart this planet hand-in-hand with our loved one. Picture: Supplied.

Because whatever discomfort the Smug Marrieds (thank you Bridget Jones) are feeling about having a newcomer in their cosy gang, I can assure you the divorcee and their new partner are feeling worse.

I get it. Divorce not only disrupts the status quo but sparks fears it could be contagious.

It can also force otherwise comfortable couples to question the health and solidity of their own marriages, especially if the divorcee suddenly has a new lease of life.

But the loneliness that follows divorce can be piercing.

It’s not something you foresee when you’re dismantling a marriage because there’s more pressing considerations.

But that first year of Saturday nights on your own is hard.

THE LIFESAVERS AND THE COWARDS

In my experience, friends either gather you up or leave you for dead.

The former are lifesavers – wonderful, empathetic people who set aside any awkwardness to invite you to their table even if seven settings doesn’t have the symmetry of six.

The latter are cowards who clearly think life’s slings and arrows are not coming for them.

They’re often the ones who welcome the widowed — because death is a palatable, no-fault loss.

In the end, a year after my separation, I got fed up with the girl dinners of hummus and crackers and the evenings spent in tracksuit pants and decided to throw a dinner party of my own.

I invited three couples and casually mentioned that the bloke I’d recently started dating would also be joining us.

The text I received back from one friend cut so deep it still makes me wince a decade later. “We’d love to come to dinner and meet — but only if he’s going to be someone significant in your life.”

Then she said something about being “traditional”.

About 40 per cent of marriages end in divorce.

I tried really hard to understand, to rationalise that everyone is time poor and they don’t want to invest energy in someone who’s passing through.

But it hurt.

Because in coming along, without judgement, she and her husband were investing not in him, but in me and our long friendship.

Life is not supposed to be comfortable but expansive.

What if my date turned out to be cracking company?

Even if he wasn’t, surely we could laugh about him in years to come?

Incidentally, they did come, the evening was strained but the date turned out to be a keeper.

The other theme explored in The Four Seasons — an adaptation of Alan Alda’s 1981 film of the same name — is whether you can remain friends with both partners once a couple splits.

Of course you can!

With 40 per cent of marriages ending in divorce, that’s a lot of mates you’ll jettison if you can’t embrace them both and their reconfigured lives.

Most marriages end because two people have been unable to make it work.

There’s rarely a victim and a perpetrator, just two aching individuals without the skills or the love to see it through.

My advice to the coupled?

Don’t make decisions for your divorced friends.

If there’s a special birthday, invite them both and leave it up to them how they handle it.

In my experience, the newly-separated are the best behaved of all guests because they know eyes are on them.

Granted, it’s also imperative the divorced stick to some house rules: in short, don’t bitch about your ex or their new date, and don’t reveal the very personal reasons why you split.

Finally, there’s two more reasons why you shouldn’t socially shun the divorced.

Firstly, few of us depart this planet hand-in-hand with our loved one, so have some curiosity about what an uncoupled life might look like.

Secondly, single guests typically bring their best selves to every occasion because they have no partner to cover for them if they’re feeling a bit off.

Got it Tina? Great show, btw.

ANGE’S A-LIST

AUTUMN EATS: How good is rhubarb? Every year at this time I start gently poaching armloads of the stuff to have with yoghurt, cinnamon and nuts for breakfast. A tip: stir some of the gorgeous red liquid into a gin and tonic for a treat

MIX IT UP: I loved DJ CYRIL’s remix of that Chris Norman and Suzi Quatro classic Stumblin’ In and would appreciate if some of our musical talents put their mind to repurposing some other classics. First up, that Joan Jett belter Crimson and Clover and Fleetwood Mac’s Second Hand News. Any other suggestions?