I’m trying to contain my excitement. I feel a profound sense of joy, liberated: I am officially divorced. I’m officially financial broke more details below) but my spirits are very high. Though I have some regrets throughout this process, mainly on my lack of assertiveness, I am very happy with now and what the universe has in store for me.

This last year has been one of the most challenging experiences in my entire life. I have blind spots, often giving people too much the benefit of the doubt.

Despite those shortcomings, this experience has shaped me into a stronger person. I’ve learned a lot — not only about other’s behaviors and intentions, but also learned about which areas of my life — in terms of beliefs — I want to grow. However, throughout the entire challenging and contentious process, I can honestly say to myself that I am proud in the way I comported myself, treating myself and my ex with what I consider respect and honor though I don’t believe that intention was reciprocated.

For some context, my ex wife and I “officially” separated November 2023. It’s now November 2024. It’s been over a year of mediation and lawyers involvement to get this finalized.

I’ll eventually write a separate, more comprehensive post on this, summarizing lessons learned (boy have I learned a lot not only about other people, but myself as well, my shortcomings, my beauty, areas of growth) but for now, here’s a brief summary of what I learned:

• File a court application sooner than later – until I filed to go to court, we were just sitting ducks, making little no progress, draining finances.
• Relegate control to the universe – for the first 3 months of the divorce process, I was sick with a chest infection, coughing up phlegm daily. Despite doing all the “right” things to take care of myself emotionally, mentally, and physically, I’m certain now (in retrospect) that the sickness was caused by stress. It was not until I had a conversation with my close friend, when he shared that his sister developed breast cancer during his divorce, did I instantly wake up and file to go to court to nudge the process along (see next point on meditation)
• Mediation MIGHT NOT be the right mechanism – on average, it takes about 1-3 mediation sessions to resolve matters, when parties are amicable. I learned the hard way (after 10 sessions I attended) that mediation would’ve never worked for us, in terms of financial settlement, especially when the other party feels entitled
• Become aware when operating out of fear or anxiety
• Entitlement and greed stem from a fear of frustration – though I don’t justify my ex’s behavior, it was helpful for me to understand that her what others might call “greedy” and “entitled” likely stems from her inability to sit in the pocket of frustration
• You see people at their worst in the midst of a divorce – growing up, my mom would always harp on looking at people’s actions, not just their words. I resisted this advice for many many years and ultimately, she’s right. My take on it now is: look at BOTH words and actions. I’m aware of my own blind spot here, over-indexing (according to feedback from others) that I “buy” people’s words too much. Lessons learned.
• Some friends can support you emotionally, while others cannot – this was a hard lesson for me to swallow. I learned (only recently) that despite good intentions, some of my friends (and family) are unable to hold space for me in a way I’d like (e.g. validation, non-judgemental) and so, I learned to radically accept the dynamics and limits of our relationship and lean on others for emotional support.
• Feel very grateful for people in my circle – too many to name but to start: mom, sister. My friend Mateus. Despite being estranged once again (for reasons I won’t get into here), my other friend Ahmad. The dance community
• When someone is “greedy” or feels “entitled”, consider a “clean break” divorce – it may sting earlier on (in my case, I gave my ex 100% of our post marital assets, equating to $300,000.00, me walking away with $0.00) but because I value freedom and independence, I opted for pain earlier on (now) versus later (until my daughter reaches age of 18).

Upwards and onwards