By Jackie Baker
When I was 18 years young, I did an incredibly stupid thing at the court house. No, I didn’t get arrested for streaking down the hallway, I didn’t slug the judge in the face for a bad call, I didn’t even try to para-glide off the side of the building. It was worse. Much worse.
I had a little marriage ceremony with no thought or consideration of how incredibly stupid this would or could be.
Here I am, 22, reflecting on this incredibly stupid thing I did. I have been divorced for a year, we have two children together, and he is married again already. Luckily for me, I learned a few things that I would love to share with the world.
10 Facts about Getting Divorced When you are Way too Young to be Married:
1) You will be judged, probably even worse than when you got married at 18.
You were way too young to get married. You probably have already come to this conclusion, and now you are way too young to be divorced. This is also most likely something you already know. I’d say take people’s judgments with a grain of salt; they will always have opinions, so do what you have to.
2) Learning from divorce is something that comes naturally.
The thought will cross your mind at least once: “What in the hell was I thinking?” Use this to your advantage, because, seriously, what in the hell were you thinking? All of this havoc in your life is probably not worth a measly piece of paper that you signed in 10 seconds. This is a life lesson and a hard one at that, so it better be burned into the frontal lobe of your brain for eternity.
3) People — married, divorced, single, dog owners, men, women, your divorce lawyer, your divorce judge, this lady writing this blog, everyone — will have advice.
Some of this advice you may take and learn from — flourish from. When it all comes down to it, you are an adult. You did make the adult choice to get married. You got yourself into this situation; now you better trust yourself to get out of this situation.
4) Being young means your little group of people won’t be able to relate to your situation.
Great. You have friends. Most of them are in college, some of them are dating, some of them are in a fairly serious relationship, fewer are engaged, and even fewer are married. That leaves you the big outlier on the graph of life — the divorced one. This makes you the pioneer. Go forth on your journey. Kick ass while doing so.
5) Please, no matter what you are feeling, don’t cut out your support system.
Even if no one understands your situation and not a single person is telling you what you want to hear, do not drop them from your life. You will need people to lean on. Bottom line is, divorce is hard; it is mentally draining, so having ‘people’ is a must!
6) There will be sad, pitiful, hurtful regrets.
Looking back on your short adult life (generally right before the “What in the hell was I thinking?” stage), you will begin to wonder why you couldn’t fit all the broken little shards of your very short, pathetic marriage back together. Go ahead: sulk, drink a glass of wine, cry a little, but get yourself back to the “What the hell was I thinking?” stage before you pick up your phone to send any type of text message to your ex. There is that giant blinking road sign burned into your frontal lobe with all the reasons you are divorced to help with this grieving process.
7) Don’t use Facebook or other social media as a crutch.
It is annoying. Yes, I did it. I have since then gone back and deleted every negative stab at my divorce or ex. Facebook is just not the place to broadcast your divorce. Side note: It is still funny when one of your buddies finds a meme and shares it on your timeline. Hey, you can’t control what others do, right?
8) Dating is really fun.
Okay, well, kind of. My one piece of advice on dating is make sure you aren’t jumping in too quickly. Apparently, cleaning someone’s house and doing their laundry for them is more of a “wife” thing than a “girlfriend” thing. I had no idea. It is just what I am used to.
9) Chances are, this will be the first time you have had your own place.
Embrace it. Do the dishes on your time. Leave your makeup on the counter. Walk around naked. Watch Dexter all day and all night long. It is the little things in life.
10) You will make new memories.
Good for you. It will also really suck when you see your ex making new memories. It will be like a kick in the stomach at times, and you will pity yourself, but hey: when it all comes down to it, nothing that your ex is or isn’t doing is any of your business anymore, so suck it up, buttercup.
Life after divorce, even when you’ve married young, can and is good. You will get there. All you need is time and faith in yourself.
**********
About Jackie Baker
Well, my friends, I suppose you are reading this insert to find out about the person behind the post. Honestly, there isn’t much to tell. I am a spunky, young 22 year old mother of two and self-proclaimed step mother of another. My life is constant chaos. I never keep up with housework, my kids hardly ever have matching socks, and my dog is lucky to get a bath once every three months. That being said, I will keep wasting time writing because it is much more fun anyway. The better the blog post, the more wine I had while writing. Cheers!