Well, that was fun. Now what?

October 10, 2010 12:12 PM

I want to perform some sort of ritual to observe the finalization of my parents' divorce but have no idea where to begin.

My parents' divorce was hairy, to say the least. It dragged on for more than a year, and I, their youngish-adult only child, was dragged into the middle of it. In retrospect, both of my parents acted like jerks throughout the process, and I'd like to wash my hands of the whole thing. I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that it's over. I would like to perform some sort of ritual or have some sort of personal celebration, with the purpose of letting my little lizard brain know that it's time to let go of the stress, anger, and resentment that I've been harboring for the past year.

[To those of you who are going to suggest therapy, thank you. It's not immediately accessible to me at the moment, but if I continue to stew, I'll go in the winter.]

I had considered just buying a bottle of champagne, getting sloshed, and reciting Philip Larkin's This Be the Verse ad infinitum, but eventually decided that I'd like something slightly more symbolic and introspective, and less hangover-inducing.


So, any ideas for a closure ritual/ceremony/one-man party? I'm not at all religious, so that sort of thing is a no-go. Music, nature, water, fire, and words, either written or spoken, are the things I'd come closest to saying have spiritual significance for me.

Many thanks.

posted by coppermoss to human relations (15 answers total)

Since there is no traditional means of ceremonially observing a divorce, we are really free to invent anything. I have a very idiosyncratic suggestion. I would recommend listening to the album "Rehearsals For Retirement" by Phil Ochs, which combines sorrow and beauty in a way that lends itself to emotionally ambiguous situations. It's too bad that your parents marriage failed and even worse that their divorce proceedings were so bitter, yet it is also good that it is now over. So, it is both a happy and a sad occasion.
posted by grizzled at 12:25 PM on October 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

Get some really fancy, high-end stationary and a terrific pen.

Sit down and write a letter to each of your parents. In it, describe, in detail, how angry you are with them. Do not spare their feelings. Tell them in no uncertain terms every bad, angry thing you've wanted to tell them during this whole process.

Then, preferably at night, take the letters to some beautiful outdoor setting and (in a safe way) burn them. Watch the ashes and sparks and cinders float up to the sky.

Go home. Get out more of the stationary. Write a letter to each of your parents, in which you tell each of them what you love and admire about them. If you wish, feel free to give them the second letters.
posted by anastasiav at 12:28 PM on October 10, 2010 [21 favorites]

I, coincidentally, got married the year my parents got divorced. The big thing I did to "celebrate" was to officially never pass messages for them anymore. I decided I now was an adult, I had parents who were no longer officially related to each other except via me [and my sister] and I was going to basically no longer engage either of them on the subject of the other person, at all. This was a little easier since my parents had separated a decade before and were mostly going through the annoying motions [involving money and acrimony] years after their actual marriage dissolved.

So while I congratulate you on this finally being over, the whole mess is only as OVER as you decide it's going to be for you because your parents are probably going to be annoying about it for some time to come. So you can decide that it's over for you, good riddance to petty feuding [if that's what it was, with my folks it definitely was] and declare yourself a person with two parents instead of one family. If it were me, I think I'd send housewarming gifts to the two households you now have family in, or something that's more wrapped in grace than acrimony, and then go for a long walk in the woods and burn all the shitty email they sent you bitching about the other one.
posted by jessamyn at 12:30 PM on October 10, 2010 [7 favorites]

take your parents (separately, of course) to gender appropriate strip clubs.
posted by spacefire at 12:36 PM on October 10, 2010

anastiav's letter + fire on the beach + lay in the waves letting them wash away the past? The ocean is great for remembering how huge and ever-changing the universe is; water makes you buoyant and supported; and the coldness of the water brings you fully in the present moment.

Ah, you are in Chicago. Can you build bonfires anywhere near the Great Lakes? I would build a big bonfire near a lake, watch the wind whip the lapping waves, then run off a long pier and jump into the water itself.
posted by salvia at 1:49 PM on October 10, 2010

Get something of the appropriate material and then hit it with a hammer, or similarly appropriate destructive thing. While drinking champagne. Bring a friend, too - as you may find talking about what you're doing as therapeutic as actually doing it. Plus - less hangover if you share the bottle.
posted by Sparx at 1:51 PM on October 10, 2010

I like the metaphor of washing your hands of the whole thing, and I'd suggest making it literal. Any hot springs in your area? Soaking in warm water is wonderfully relaxing and cleansing, both physically and mentally. (Credits to beelzbubba and mollymayhem for recommending it to me.) If there are no natural hot springs around, maybe you could find a spa or communal bath where you could just hang out in peace and quiet for a few hours. Even a hot tub or sauna might work.
posted by Quietgal at 1:51 PM on October 10, 2010

Consider this AskMe question your cleansing ritual, and go on with your life? It seems like worrying about performing some sort of random cleansing ritual suggested by strangers on the Internet is just prolonging the pain. You get to decide when you are done with this. Decide you are done now.
posted by COD at 2:47 PM on October 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Bonfire. Bring friends. Watch your bad feelings literally go up in smoke and waft away.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:52 PM on October 10, 2010

What anastasiav says but give it a bit of time. Write angry letter, burn, rinse repeat; wait one week before even attempting writing that lovey-admirey letter. If it doesn't work, back to start (I once wrote and discarded four angry letters; even that might not be enough...)

But what I really wanted to write was walk a bit of the Appalachian trail or something (alternative, closer to home, row north along the lake). Just saying, nothing's quite as good as to be alone in nature for rituals of this kind.
posted by Namlit at 2:55 PM on October 10, 2010

If you're anything like me, you're not just mourning the end of your united family, you're mourning the loss of your childhood memory and safety net. Don't feel bad taking time for yourself away from them completely; cutting off contact until both parents decided to grow up and stop using me as a medium was the most therapeutic action I could take.
posted by theraflu at 3:37 PM on October 10, 2010

What anastasiav said, except I would write two letters, one to each of your parents. After re-reading them each a couple times, find a nice secluded stream, doesn't need to be too big, just a decent little current. Go there at night, fold each letter into a paper boat and light fire to each of them just before you set them asail. Say good bye to your anger and enjoy the dawn of the rest of your life.
posted by Rafaelloello at 3:51 PM on October 10, 2010

I've never been one for symbolic things, but I think Jessamyn's advice is perfect. My life would have been a hell of a lot less stressful had I been old enough to tell them I wasn't a go between. Hell, I had to worry about my parents' ability to get along together at my college graduation.

Let them know that they've made their decision, and that they have to deal with it themselves. You are not a prize to be fought over, you are not a messenger, and you love them both equally, but you are not going to continue to play out their divorce for their benefit. It's over, it's done with. You have a mother. You have a father. There's no problem acting in the parent/child relationship one-on-one, but that's as far as it goes.

And yeah, let them know if they can't handle being in the same place at the same time, even to celebrate a huge moment in your life, then neither of them can come.

(I realize that sounds quite bitter, but my parents hated each other for roughly 30 years of my life, and made it pretty miserable at times. I wish you better luck.)
posted by Ghidorah at 5:07 PM on October 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Lots of good ideas above. If you are a city dweller and the bonfire/stream options are a bit impractical, just go to a bakery that makes wedding cakes and buy the little "bride and groom" ornament for the top of a wedding cake. Bring it home, open the champagne, and when your mood is right, take a hammer and pound the hell out of the ornament. There. That arriage is no more.
posted by exphysicist345 at 7:08 PM on October 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

What Jessamyn said...
posted by chicago2penn at 7:19 PM on October 10, 2010