how to support a friend through divorce

a tribute to friends who have loved me at my worst

This creation is dedicated to my best friend in the whole world, Kathleen Oh.

Eleven months ago, when I was sleeping on the carpet in my bare living room that smelled like mothballs, with just three kitchen utensils in my bare cupboards and only a pack of Northfield tobacco for company, it would’ve been impossible for me to name a single way that anyone could help me. 

I was lucky to have a tenacious best friend who loved me enough to figure out how to support me, who refused to let me disappear in my cold and damp basement, buried in blankets and crying until I was blue in the face.

Me and my bestie

What you will read here is really just a list of things my friends, family and lovers did that were helpful and things that were not. Most of it revolves around food, which is the most reliable way you can help a divorcing person.

here’s are some ways to support your friend

Do not under any circumstances ask what happened

Your divorcing friend does not owe you or anyone else an explanation. A better question to ask is “Have you eaten today?” or  “Can I make you a sandwich?” 

It doesn't matter much what kind of cook you are. There is a low chance your friend has had anything other than cheeseburgers and coffee in the last three days. 

Remind her that her emotional stability requires calories, probably a lot more than she’s eating, and preferably not all from McDonalds or Starbucks.

Keep inviting her over to eat, even after she refuses you four times in a row

Offer to pick her up if necessary. Let her know it’s okay not to bring anything, that she can just show up and then leave whenever she wants, even if it’s in the middle of dinner. 

And if Moses will not come to the mountain, just show up at her door with food. Make sure at least some of it is deep-fried if you don’t want to be denied entry. 

Anytime you can pick up the cheque, do so.

Your divorcing friend is guaranteed to be haemorrhaging money. On top of that, she is facing the most ruinsome financial transaction of her life. 

I lost sleep over the dizzying pace with which my bank balance dwindled for the first ten months of separation. I cannot tell you the relief that washes over me every time someone else picks up the cheque.

Let her pick up the cheque if she offers but don’t make a big deal of it. If she’s feeling confident enough to buy another human a meal - in addition to all of her husband's meals, the meals her children eat including when they are not with her, plus all of the bills in all of the houses - that sort of confidence should be encouraged. But just say thank you and change the subject. 

Do not give your friend legal advice unless she specifically asks your opinion

She is probably paying a bunch of qualified people a bunch of money to help her navigate her divorce. 

Just because you don’t like the sound of the deal she’s working on doesn’t mean she picked the wrong lawyer, and insinuating as much will only make her feel like a loser who failed at marriage and is now failing at divorce. I promise you she does not need any more reasons to feel like a loser. 

Divorce agreements involve painful compromises on both sides. No one waves around their agreement after and says, “Everyone look what a great deal I got!” It’s basically guaranteed to suck, and your pointing out how badly it sucks doesn’t help. 

Even if you have piles of extra money laying around, do not offer her any

That would be disempowering, not to mention embarrassing. Your friend has to solve her own problems. You cannot solve them for her. She got herself into this mess and she will get herself out.

That said, if you can sneak a case of ramen noodles into her kitchen or help her get a sweet lawn mower half-off at Canadian Tire, you will earn your place in her good books for life.

Do not accuse your friend of having a drug problem just because she is often withdrawn, greasy-haired and falling asleep in the middle of the day

Those are all just routine symptoms of divorce. Nothing to see here, people.

If she disappears in the middle of dinner, you can probably find her crying in bed. She will be back when she is ready. Or not. Either way, she is not going to be the version of herself that you wish she was or know that she could be. Not for a while, maybe never. 

This might be uncomfortable for you but if you really love her, then work on loving this new person who is emerging. Let her be wild and messy and kind of annoying. 

Let her be late for everything. Let her show up to dinner empty-handed for the tenth time in a row. Better yet, let her call you five minutes before she is supposed to be there and say, “Can you please pick me up? I can’t drive because I’m on drugs.” 

Just pick her up and don’t even mention that Wednesday afternoon probably wasn’t the best time for MDMA. She will figure that out for herself, eventually.

Answer the phone if she calls at quarter to midnight

It’s one thing to say “call me anytime, I’m here for you” but it is quite another to answer a late-night call when you’re already in bed with your face washed and your jammies on, only to have to lace up a pair of fur-trimmed boots and brave the frigid temperatures and slushy driveways of Canada in March.

Please get in your car and drive to her if she asks you to, no matter how inconvenient. And if you’re noticing a theme here, thank you for being the kind of friend who knows that seeing your car in her driveway makes her feel loved and supported. 

It takes a lot of courage to ask for that kind of support. More often than not, us divorcing people don’t have a clue WTF we need. If she is actually asking, it can only be because she is at the bottom of a well and the risk of drowning is acute. 

Loan her a goddamn vacuum

Taking care of an entire house and yard by yourself is daunting if you’ve never done it before. Until she gets the hang of it - and you can rest assured she will -  your friend will need help completing even the most basic tasks. 

She has precisely none of the household items that are essential to everyday life. If you have an old Hoover in your basement or a set of sheets you haven’t used in years, consider loaning them to her. 

If you have the strength for it, put the loaned-out item to use one time on delivery, as an added bonus.

Acknowledge that it’s happening and that it’s hard

The pressure to appear normal is immense. She is trying to keep her shit together while solo parenting for the first time, juggling twice the financial responsibility and showing up to work every morning looking like somebody’s boss, as opposed to some asshole who hasn’t showered or eaten in three days. It’s a lot.

Avoid platitudes like “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” and think twice before lecturing her on gratitude or surrender. In her mind she might actually die from this, and painting over her grief with a useless thought-terminating cliché or some other Pollyanna bullshit will only make her feel guilty for doing sadness wrong. 

It’s fine that you don’t know what to say. She knows that people who have never been divorced really don’t have a clue how hard it is. But don’t say nothing and don’t make her coach you on what to say. (“I’m not sure what to say, erm, sorry for your loss, I guess?” That’s just making your discomfort her discomfort, and she is already maximum uncomfortable.)

Just be honest: “I can see that you are going through a lot. I don’t exactly know how to help but I trust that you know what you’re doing and that you will get through this. You can be as messy as you want to be. If you need something, I will be here. And you get a free pass on calling me for the next two years.” 

Do not congratulate her when she announces she’s going to do less drugs

If you think it’s cause for congratulations, you have missed the point entirely. The thing to do is acknowledge how hard she has been working, even if it’s not the way you would’ve done it. She would’ve preferred you to acknowledge that before she announced her little drug sabbatical btw, but there’s really no wrong time to confirm that you trust her to make good decisions and manage herself in whatever way she sees fit.

This list is now complete but I invite any divorced or divorcing people to make additions via the comments section. 

Divorcing people can be hard to love. We know this.

That’s what makes your love and support so meaningful.

As you can see, it’s mostly about bringing your friend food, driving her places, and not judging her or making her explain herself. A single portion of frozen lasagna or a kind, honest word might be the thing that gets her through one more Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in the life of a new divorcée. 

I hope one day I will be able to pay forward all the kindness my friends have shown me. I could write a dozen pages about my next-door neighbour who so often came over to chase my children around the living room while I lay curled up in a foetal position in my room, who spontaneously nailed a handmade wooden mailbox to my front door just below the porch light just because I said I wanted one, then brought his drill back to install my compost bin in exactly the right place under the kitchen sink, and who, when I was briefly on sabbatical, would sometimes appear in my driveway to take me along on his morning errands while sharing a single cup of crappy roadside coffee.

To every name on this list, and the many whose names do not appear but are no less dear to me, please accept my humble gratitude.

If you think you might’ve inspired some of the “do not” items on this list, please do not call me to apologise. That would be awkward for both of us. It is enough work managing my own feelings. Please don’t ask me to manage yours, too. 

Oh, and one more thing. 

Tell her who Kanye West is.

This will be the single most important musical introduction of her life, and she will live lifetimes face down on her sheepskin shag, her heart bleeding out to the sound of Ultralight Beam.