So You Decided to Get a Divorce. They Never Tell You About the Next Part.
Curious how to split your assets or tell your kids? I’m here to help. Submit your questions now.
Now That You’ve Left is a new Slate advice column from noted ex-wife Scaachi Koul, helping readers navigate all the big quandaries and questions that come after separation and divorce. Read all about it below, and submit your questions here or to scaachi.koul@slate.com.
Leaving my ex-husband was an easy decision. Nearly four years into our marriage and 11 years into our relationship, I knew that there was nothing left to try. Ending our marriage was the solution I had been searching for. I didn’t ask anyone else if it was the right choice; not my family, not my friends, and not even a handy little divorce advice column like this one. I made the decision quietly and worried about the details later.
But Jesus Christ, were there ever details. Process servers, notaries, finding a new apartment, splitting up our books, trying to tell our friends. My mother advised me to collect the gold I was gifted at my wedding as personal insurance, my sister-in-law reminded me to safeguard my green card and passport, and my divorced friends showed me how to navigate a no-fault divorce in New York without a lawyer. Leaving felt seamless compared with the mountain of decisions I had to make after I became single: where to put my engagement ring, how to boost my dismal credit score so I could find an apartment, how to depuff my face in the morning so it didn’t look as if I had been crying all night (which is exactly what I was doing between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. daily). For months, I woke up with a long list of tasks and duties and decisions to make about my life, my finances, my career, my friends, and my relationships. I had thought my troubles began and ended with a visit to the county clerk.
Divorce, common though it may be, remains one of the most taboo and emotionally complex topics in almost every culture. Now, as a divorced person, I feel armed with a plethora of knowledge I never thought I’d need, a database of information helpful only to the wide swath of people who will get divorced at least once in their lifetime. What I wanted most in the immediate aftermath of my breakup was a map for my first year as a divorcée, something to help me doggy-paddle through the choppy waters of heartbreak. I knew that ending my marriage was the right choice, but I didn’t realize I would have to make so many ancillary decisions and untangle so many tethered knots. Breaking up or divorcing is only ever the first solution, and it brings on a host of new problems. OK, you leave, but then what? How do you decide how to split your assets? How do you tell your kids? How do you talk to your mutual friends about it? Who should keep the signed copies of your (shared) favorite albums? How do you best describe your split to new partners without sounding as bitter as you actually are?
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Now That You’ve Left is an advice column that starts at the end. Not everyone has a recently divorced friend with all the answers, but you can have at least one advice columnist in your pocket willing to find a helpful answer. My own divorce taught me plenty about the tangible parts of divorce (getting your own accountant, telling your boss you need a few days off) and the intangible parts (learning how to date for the first time in a decade, deleting the Instagram posts that remind you of your old life). But for topics out of my personal grasp—custody, child support, mediation—there are countless other experts, lawyers, and divorcé(e)s with guidance to share. The internet is full of advice on how to keep your relationship together, how to reconcile, how to meet someone new. Now That You’ve Left is, instead, about how to change course, in ways both radical and practical.
When I started to tell the people around me that I was getting a divorce, some of them responded that divorce wasn’t the answer. They were right: Instead, it was a question that unspooled more questions, that forced me to look at myself as a whole new person who was still midtransformation. It offered me an abundance of freedom, a blank page to write on, a terrifying amount of potential. I left, but there was so much life after leaving.
If you’ve recently ended your long-term relationship and need some advice on what to do now that you’ve left, you can write to Now That You’ve Left anonymously, or email us at scaachi.koul@slate.com.