5 Reasons Why Married Women "Defriend" Their Divorced Pals

I came across an article recently: "Why My Married Girlfriends Defriended Me.  It got me to thinking.  Had I ever "defriended" a divorced pal?  The answer I'm embarrassed to admit is . . . well . . . "yes."   I read more essays on the subject and could tell by the tone, that they were written by divorced women. The reasons they gave for being kicked to the curb ranged from married women seeing them as husband-stealers to such erstwhile friends envying the divorcée's free, exciting, single's lifestyle. But I'll tell you my reasons for letting one such friendship go:

1.  The divorced friend's unresolved bitterness towards men prompted her to constantly make snide, belittling remarks about my husband or other married couples.  

2. I could no longer confide in her.   All relationships have their tough moments.  But any  transgression on the part of the husband was met with: "Well, I wouldn't put up with that. Divorce his -ss!"   Whereas married, family life once constituted a sisterhood for women, the opposite has become the case in contemporary America.  Divorce has become a powerful communal meeting place for women seeking nonjudgmental support.  But now that the demographic of married women (gauged at any single instant in time) is close to becoming a minority, we also need loving, female support systems and the healing energy they provide.    

3. My divorced friend's horror stories about the men she was meeting on dating sites began to get old.   I didn't want to turn my back on a friend's misery.  But what irritated me was her complete lack of introspection.  She couldn't see the absurdity of having divorced a man because he bored her and "surely I can do better than that," and now she was left to sift through dozens, maybe even hundreds of  photos on match.com, depicting male models whom prospective dates had pinched from GQ Magazine.    

4. The almost fanatical obsession with finding her  "soul mate,"  seems. . . well. . . silly.   Picking and discarding men, while they do the same to her, achieves little other than bitterness.  We create our "soulmates" within the sometimes boiling cauldron of marriage itself.  The yearning to find a perfect partner "out there somewhere," is no different than embarking on the elusive and mythical search for the holy grail.      

5.  Our "religious" differences could not be bridged.  I'm not, however, talking about organized religion.  Marriage is a spiritual journey, made by two imperfect, flawed human beings, who make a vow to grow to emotional adulthood together.  In these turbulent times and given the growing individualism of American culture itself, this promise made by two struggling, competing, grasping egos demands transcendence.    

As for the woman I "defriended," she is still lonely, still refusing to compromise her high standards, or let go of her insistence that she find a man who does not "play games."    My ex-friend can apply pop psychology with eloquence and brilliance to everybody, with one exception.  She has not yet realized that we cannot see others any clearer than we can see ourselves.