It began as a gray cloud. I wasn't sure what it was but in time I could name it. It took me a year and a half after we separated and nine months after the finalized divorce to name the feelings: guilt and shame. Guilt for "throwing him under the bus", as he called it. And shame for having divorced him. 

Telling my husband to not come home from a long visit with my eldest son was the most difficult thing I ever had to do.

Lots of guilt. 

Piles of shame. 

But I was even more miserable in my marriage.

My ex was not abusive from a traditional sense. He never laid a mean hand on me. For all intents and purposes, he was just an odious, entitled man. To paraphrase what he told me, "I did my thirty years to go to work for you and the children. Now you can..." As if caring for the house and the large brood wasn't doing my part during those same thirty years. Even before that he found ways to avoid finding paying work. What's more, he made no secret that he was basically counting the days until he was qualified to take social security. Mind you when he did take the supplement, we still had two minors living at home. 

I'll let you do the math.

Someone had to bring income home. I had to find work to continue to live at, what is still considered by government statistics, below the poverty level. And of course he resented that I, the wife, took a job.

You can imagine, the best part of my day was leaving for work. I enjoyed my job - still do. But I dreaded coming home to the heavy darkness that was ever present.

What's more, I was manifesting poor health, at least according to my doctor and some tests indicated. All of me wanted to die.

So, as I mentioned above, in late spring of 2020, I asked him to stay with our eldest son who lived in another part of the same state. I needed a trial separation. He agreed. (I believe now that he agreed solely because in times past I'd leave for two or more weeks to get away.) Besides, since I was the one working it was logical that he leave.

Once he was out of the house, there was a definite lift in my spirit. I felt a kind of freedom like I'd never known. I didn't dread coming home after work. The bitterness for him not contributing to the household wasn't there anymore. The resentment for him not caring for his health or more on point, his plaguing me to take his temperature every 15 minutes with two different thermometers (during the early COVID-19 months) which drove me up a wall, was gone. (Don't get me wrong, I am a professional caregiver. I get paid to help people take their temperature. I just couldn't come home to it anymore.)

Gone. Peace. Calm. 

Now what? 

Lots of gals in my peer group get divorced and at least outwardly appear completely at ease with leaving their ex. I think it's possible that at least some of them are like me and at least from time to time experience guilt and shame.

Society, more particularly my rigid, conservative religious training, taught me that to divorce was sin. And like any sin, it eats at you. It eats and eats like a cancer unless you face it and name it and deal with it.

It wasn't until just now that I could put it all into perspective. In life there is pain. And with pain there is always some form of suffering going on. But with pain, one can choose to suffer or not. Buddhism teaches that all of life is suffering. 

In life we make choices. Some choices can bring pain as a consequence. When there is pain, suffering follows. But how you suffer is optional - you can wallow in it or you can rise.

What occurred to me is that I was going to feel the pain brought on by a miserable marriage or feel the pain of the guilt and shame of divorce. The one would last the rest of our life together - the  day in and day out, daily reminder of misery and bitterness. The other involved dealing with the guilt/shame of divorce. 

Now that I am divorced, the choice is made: dealing with the pain of shame and guilt. For me, coming to the realization that the reason I feel shame is brought on by an old belief system that came from an archaic and patriarchal religion. It no longer serves me.

How to deal with those feelings that don't serve me 

Whenever I get triggered about that, I have learned to get quiet and, in my mind, to sit down with that religious part of me that is accusing and that younger child-like part of me that feels accused and let them have a conversation. In time it became rather manageable after laying it all out like that. 

And the gray has lifted. When I feel the cloud of shame, I know what it is and know how to deal with it. 

I hope this helps...