The divorce particulars won’t break new ground in the genre, and I don’t pretend my experience is any more or less painful than what others have gone through.
But in the era of Facebook, Twitter, Google, e-mail, and blogs, this literally isn’t your parents’ divorce anymore. Thanks to the Internet there are things we never before had to worry about confronting, and no roadmap on how to get through. The essentials of divorce may be the same, but the digital landscape new divorcees confront is new and deeply strange.
A Life Lived Online
Lest you think the peculiar challenges of getting divorced in the Internet era are limited solely to the highly connected, I should say I’ve never really lived my life in public. My Internet presence is devoted almost entirely to my professional life, and while I might peel back the curtain to flaunt my horrific taste in television shows, my day-to-day life has mostly been off-limits.
But my personal life inevitably crept onto the Internet, whether I wanted it to or not. I never even told the Internet I was getting married in 2008, but when I announced on my blog that I would be featuring guest posts for a few weeks, one anonymous commenter guessed that I was going on my honeymoon. Then another managed to find (and link to) my gift registry, which I hadn’t even realized was online. I deleted those comments, but shortly thereafter “Nathan Bransford Wedding” became the second most-searched term involving my name, a position it has bizarrely occupied ever since. (“Nathan Bransford Divorce” has risen to #3 on Google, despite my never having mentioned the divorce online.)
Shortly after our marriage, my then-wife started a blog that chronicled and photographed our real life. Despite being uncomfortable blurring our public and private spheres, I linked to her and mentioned her by name.
My private life was creeping online anyway. It seemed futile to resist the semi-public nature of the Web, which was fine until my marriage unraveled.
That Awkward Moment When You Run Into Your Ex on Facebook…
Post-divorce, the Internet has become a personal minefield. There was the time shortly after the split when LinkedIn suggested I connect with my ex’s new boyfriend. There was a time when Facebook kept surfacing “remember this moment?” photos of me and my ex from my mom’s profile. I hid and changed my relationship status in the dead of night so as few people as possible would notice the change and ask me about it.
Worst of all is Gmail, which has one of the most maddening “features” to confront anyone going through a breakup. Nearly every time I wrote an e-mail to friends this past year, Gmail oh-so-helpfully suggested I include my ex-wife in the e-mail. And you can’t turn this off. It still happens, despite my pleas to Google to make it optional. (Google obviously doesn’t employ enough divorcees.)
That awkward moment of running into your ex can happen virtually at any time, even when you’re comfortably sitting at home. Every mutual friend’s Instagram feed is an encounter waiting to happen. Every search through e-mail to find an address or a phone number is a danger zone of old conversations and memories.
Blog readers and interviewers still ask after my wife, questions I have become increasingly skilled at dodging. Uncomfortable as it is, I can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
When my ex and I split, she adopted a scorched Earth approach to social media. She deleted her Facebook profile and blog entirely and started new ones. (Facebook dutifully suggested I befriend her new profile.)
I didn’t have the luxury of starting over. I had four years of posts devoted to writing and publishing, and discarding all of that because of a few mentions of my ex wouldn’t have made any sense. I could have gone back and scrubbed all mentions of her, but who has that kind of time?
It’s all out there anyway. It’s my life, I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. The Internet makes it impossible to cover your tracks.
The Web Doesn’t Forget
To move on emotionally after a divorce or a breakup, you have to forget. You gradually move on from the pain, the particulars of fraught conversations fade, your memories of being together become hazy, and you reconstruct your life. The relationship eventually feels like a strange dream you once had, and you move on. That’s how we heal.
But the Internet doesn’t forget. It has a perfect memory. And, what’s more, it’s constructed to force memories on you with the assumption that the experience will be pleasant.
Most people don’t have a photo album of themselves and their ex sitting on their coffee table, but Facebook Timeline shows your past to all your friends unless you go back and spend a lot of time revising your past. My ex’s new life isn’t entirely out of view — it keeps popping into my social media feeds and Google Reader.
I’ve had to draw up new blueprints with mutual friends to figure out how to navigate parties I’m not at that will be mentioned online. I’ve had to get used to the weirdness of commenting on the same friends’ Facebook photos as my ex and living a strangely distant parallel life that sometimes can also feel way too close.
Our natural coping strategies can’t compete with Facebook and Twitter.
There is one big benefit to divorce in 2012, though. Now when I date new people, I don’t have to have a painfully awkward conversation where I break the news that I’m divorced. Anyone who is a halfway-decent Google stalker has already figured it out.
This is My Life
I debated whether to write this post for a very long time. Telling everyone I’m divorced on the Internet isn’t really my style. I’m a naturally private person, and a children’s book author at that.
But there’s barely such a thing left as a personal life anymore. Your life is preserved in Facebook status updates, Google searches, public records, and it’s impossible to erase the past. Whether that’s a good or terrifying thing is beside the point. It just is.
I could keep it ambiguous online, or just clear up the mystery. I could continue to dodge questions about my wife, or I could just come out and say I’m divorced.
I’m divorced. There’s no hiding from it in the social media era.
Ugh…it just sucks that you have to deal with these things in addition to the pain that goes along with divorce.
Social media has been tough for me as well. I'm a publicist for a publisher so I'm in the public eye promoting my authors everyday. I've had a few weird experiences on FB that have caused me to remove pictures of my family and I'm considering removing my personal FB page all together. Apparently, you can look at pictures on FB without actually being someone's friend.
The lessons we learn I suppose. Good luck Nathan. You're awesome and I enjoy all your posts.
I'm so sorry to hear about your divorce. Wishing you all the best for the future. I hope the Internet doesn't make this TOO much harder.
I'm sorry you've had to go through all this, Nathan. Rough times are enough to weather without an internet-fueled anchor tied to your feet. The idea that Google, FB, etc have stripped you of your choice in how much of your life to share is sickening.
I'm not the sort of person who goes looking for information on people without a reason. I can't imagine why someone would go to the amount of trouble required to first out your marriage in '08, then locate the gift registry (which is just plain stalkerish, IMO)
I never liked the idea of FB's timeline, but I hadn't actually considered it could impact someone this way.
Nathan, you're awesome. Thank you for sharing with us something you really didn't have to. Your honesty is admirable.
Now, on to being insensitive…
NATHAN BRANSFORD IS SINGLE, BRILLIANT, HOT AND IN SF SO LADIES GET IN LINE!!!
😉
I know where you're coming from, Nathan. My divorce was before the net existed, but my ex-wife eventually found me on Facebook. It was awkward.
I understand your grief, but a divorce is not something you should have to hide from. It's something you accept and move past. There's plenty of life yet to live, my friend.
Stay strong.
*silent support*
Although I'm a follower of your blog,regretfully, I seldom get the opportunity to read it (sorry). I tend to isolate myself in my writing cave. However, your post caught my attention today. I had no idea that you were going through such a painful ordeal (not much on celebrity gossip).
FWIW, I'm so sorry for your loss. Divorce is very difficult to deal with in the best of circumstances. I can't imagine how painful it must be to deal with such a personal matter under public scrutiny. I think it's smart to address the issue here. Now the gossips have nowhere to go.
If it's any consolation, I can tell you from experience, there is life after divorce. Stay strong and best wishes in the future.
I had to end a relationship with a family member this year – someone who has been in my life since I was born. Gmail still "reminds" me to invite that person into every single conversation. They really need an off button for that. Fortunately that individual is digitally clueless so I won't run into him elsewhere.
It sucks, but as Ann Landers once said, it's better to BE alone than to WANT to be…
This is the kind of "stuff" that makes me wary of social media. I dove into it (not in the deep end mind) because I wanted to do everything I could to develop a platform of sorts for writing in the hopes that I will someday be published.
But when I started looking up words in the online dictionary and saw my facebook profile stalking me–daring me to comment about why I was looking up that word–I freaked. Then I saw it bugging me other places.
Apparently, if you don't want your facebook shadow following you onto every search engine jaunt you must:
A. dress in a Columbo-style trench coat and head to the nearest library computer to do your searches (don't forget sunglasses–your profile might recognize you)
B. Log out of your facebook account and pray it does not find you
Yes, I'm making some jokes, but I really am serious about my worry of the ease the internet has to access my information. My habits. My life.
And you're right, once I put something out there, it's permanent. It is scary.
I'm sorry your personal information was so publicly displayed. I think it was brave of you to write this post using something so personal to share a lesson with us blog readers.
Oh, Nathan! I am so sorry for both you and your wife. I've been reading your blog for quite some time now, and this comes as such a shock and surprise. Some people look at divorce as failure. I think it's anything but. The worst thing you could have done would have been to *not* marry your (ex) wife at all. You took a leap of faith that a lot of people are afraid to take.
Thank you for sharing with us.
(Also divorced — twice)
Dear Friend,
I've loved your blog for a while now. I'm so sorry to hear about your divorce. I wish you well.
Ok, here is a tip that worked for me. Block the person's name from Facebook. It will help it from popping up in your timeline at all. I am not divorced but I do have a next door neighbor who hates me and we have the same circle. I no longer see his name or posts; Facebook never asks me to remember him or his family members, who are also blocked. It has made social media less painful.
I love your honesty. This is the side of media that we haven't been talking about and I presume many of us are having similar experiences. I read your blog regularly though I never comment. I hope you have fun creating a new life for yourself and have fun dating. Meanwhile, we'll be here to continue reading your blog!
I'm sorry to hear about that. I am not divorced, but I know it is hard enough without the complications.
The only good thing I can think of is that if people see your status change, at least it won't come up like, "How's your wife?" when run into them and then you awkwardly say, "Oh, my ex-wife?"
Maybe that's small comfort, but there you go.
You are obviously smart and talented and handsome, so you're golden out there in the dating world. 🙂
First off, I'm very sorry to hear about your divorce. I went through a very painful break up with my fiance of six years at the end of last year, and I went through everything you mentioned. Even though we unfriended each other on Facebook, even blocked each other at one point to avoid the pain of accidentally "bumping" into each other, it was pointless. Mutual friends had pics of us both that would pop up in the side bar,like: "Remember this?" Uh ya, thanks. Well meaning friends would fill me in on his status updates regarding his new girl friend thinking I needed or wanted to know. I finally took a month long hiatus from FB just to stop the pain and resorted to using the FB messenger app on my phone to communicate with a few select people. The auto-fill feature on my email would almost always default to his name. And despite opting out of all the wedding-related newsletter type emails, I still get them in some form or another.
When I got divorced over 7 years ago, none of this was an issue. I had never even heard of FB and only used the internet to play card games and window shop on e-bay. How much the world has changed in such a short time…
Yikes. I'm so sorry to hear this. If it's any consolation, you had at least one blog follower who had no idea.
Welcome to the club nobody wants to join! I'm divorced as of 2005, separated since 2003, and remarried as of this past St. Paddy's Day, 2012.
I ran into my ex on dating sites. That was the worst! We were perfect match on Match, and she saw my nutball profile on Yahoo and I saw hers. To make things worse, we still live in the same town (child together).
There's no getting away from it, ever. Til death do us part is not a promise to each other, it's an observation about marriage.
Stay sober and keep away from those clubs she never let you go to, and for god's sake don't get addicted to online dating!
That's advice I wish I had followed!
– Eric
If your books are nearly as well written as your blog posts, I think I shall have to purchase copies for my local middle school library. My kids are a little old for them and my grandson is still too young.
I'm sorry to hear about this, Nathan. However, I've learned I don't stalk agents before submitting a query to them nearly enough (back when you were an agent). 😉 (I didn't know about the wedding, much less the divorce.) *removes "internet stalker" from list of careers that would be a good fit*
For a while, people could easily go through a "starter marriage," where they could marry and divorce with no long term effects as long as no kids were involved. The true clean break where they'd never have to speak to each other or think of each other again.
In the age of online connections and social media, I think that era has passed. Thanks for the reminder about online privacy (or the lack of it). I hope you find a way to heal.
I always list you as my favorite writing blog. There has been so much helpful information that you have given me for free. Hang in there. It get better with Exes, or it can. Keep being brilliant. Thank you for a great blog.
Wow. I'm shocked, too. I think the reason for that is because you still gave your very best to us, your readers, even while you must have been going through an incredibly painful time. And that says way more to me about who you are than your marital status.
I appreciate your bravery and honesty.
Best of luck to you, Nathan, as you start this next chapter.
As you know, I went through this last year too. After twelve years writing online, it's been a blow to see the divorce supplant everything else in the search box suggestions.
Like everything related to divorce, how you handle it online is a mark of character. From behind a screen, it's so much easier to tear down your ex, or present a one-sided narrative, or even erase history. The divorce process is so painful, and the Internet is an ever-ready ear even when you're at your weakest.
This post is a high road, and it's no surprise to see you there. Low fives, Bransford; beers on me.
Nathan, divorce is a sad fact of modern life. Your well-balanced report here is a model of "holding it together" post-divorce. One of the most common reasons that divorce happens is that we simply grow in different directions as we get older, and hence we grow apart.
To add humor to a sober topic…
One of my favorite bumper stickers of all time: "Ex-wife for sale. Take over payments."
And now you get to use that most brilliant of pick-up lines, "Hello, I'm looking for the next ex Mrs. Bransford."
I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your divorce. I always thought you looked like a really nice person (plus you seem to love orange) and your blog has always been a great source of laugh, inspiration and guidance.
I will avoid the usual "time heals all wounds" rhetoric and simply wish you a speedy recovery on your road to single life. There might be a lot of new excitement and pleasure to discover there, too.
La vie n'est pas que rose… elle a toutes ses couleurs, ses peines et ses joies.
(I slipped)
I wish I had found something like your post to help me when I was in the midst of my divorce. I have learned some things on my own:
It feels better to refer to yourself as "single" than "divorced". Try it on.
Blocking exes and their families doesn't mean your block them from memory. It doesnt need to be a mean, heartless thing, and it may be helpful closure for both of you, especially if discussed beforehand. She's probably annoyed with the suggestions and reminders too.
Stop torturing yourself. Check your gmail through a third party application, like Apple's Mail.app. No suggestions, ever.
The time will come when you begin to date and get serious about someone, and you may find yourself removing all traces of your marriage under the cloak of night, when you really should be writing.
It feels better to remove the content of your marriage after the divorce has been final for at least a year, and you have begun seeing new people.
One in every two of your Facebook friends has been, is currently or will be divorced. With social media, divorce has become less a dirty secret and more of a cool kids club. Talk to more divorcees. Connect with a new circle. Try Meetup.com. And look at all these lovely single ladies leaving comments. You're in good company.
Me too. I understand your words all too well. Thank you for writing this. I don't have any better answers, and yes the helpful "recommended friends" etc is a constant reminder that I am sometimes ready for, but sometimes not quite prepared to deal with…
Thank you for this post. I have never been divorced, never been married either, but I've had my share of relationship hurdles and it's good to hear the internet isn't working out so well for other people either.
What a mess.
Thanks so much for sharing this, Nathan. I know it's painful, but it's always appreciated when you give your readers a glimpse into your personal life. And this is a good lesson for everyone out there using social media to be aware how difficult it is to erase the past from the Internet.
I am so sorry you are going through all this, Nathan. This may only help a little, but I had no idea. Sometimes when you feel like the whole world knows something you'd rather keep quiet, it's kinda nice to hear about the people who were clueless!
I'm also sorry you had to write this blog post. I am rather private myself, and I know this post would have been incredibly difficult for me to write. But as you said – so much of your life had crept online, and now, trying to keep your privacy was only imprisoning you, preventing you from moving forward. I hope your post has helped to lift some of that weight off of you.
I'm sure you know this, but I'll say it anyway — there is NO shame in divorce.
Best of luck to you, Nathan. Keep moving forward!
No where near the struggles of divorce, but when my last bf and I split, and I changed my facebook status, ppl that hadn't even been around during the relationship crawled out of the woodwork. Since then, I've kept my status hidden. Who should know, knows.
Pictures and friends and the like are more difficult to navigate. I'm okay, because I'm friends with all my ex bfs. (Like real friends, not just on FB.) But I imagine it would be really hard on a divorce.
The best defense is just living well, being yourself, and telling the truth. Then you've got nothing to hide, and no one can hold it against you.
I think you've done the right thing, Nathan, but I'm sure it's still hard. We've got your back.
Nathan, thank you for writing this post, even though you were under ZERO obligation to do so. I hope others who need advice when navigating these waters can turn to this for help.
You are brave to be so honest. I wish better days in your future. Like, next week in particular… 🙂
I've read your blog for several years now. I rarely comment. Today's post was definitely brave and well thought out. But, what I always notice about you is your tact and diplomacy. It is a rare trait in this day and age.
Dude, check out all the support! We are so proud of you for your courage and honesty. Best of luck to you!
Btw, if you put a filter on gmail against all emails from your ex, then the "suggestions" box won't list her every time you compose a new message. Also, if you block her new profile on facebook, she won't come up anymore, either.
Yes, that is from personal experience. 🙂
Hugs!
Like many of the other posters here, I had no idea. I had a vague inkling that you were married, but it was …. vague.
Divorce is not a failure. Over the course of a marriage, people change and sometimes grow apart. It happens; it isn’t easy, but it bears no particular reflection on the people involved. I wish you the best of luck as you begin this new chapter in you life.
I'm sorry for all the hardship, but I think you've struck exactly the right note in this post. A little transparency now will hopefully mean you can take back some of your privacy in the long term.
Also, I "know" you as a person who doesn't quit. This announcement will in no way change my impression.
I'm sorry you have to go through this, and go through it all so publicly. Thank you for putting yourself out there and reminding us all that our private lives aren't really so private anymore. It's a painful, but important, lesson.
What a wonderful, heartfelt post, Nathan. And, increasingly relevant.
The social media in the face of divorce and blended families gets even more complex when your kids and your husband's kids are on Facebook as well.
My husband's ex got remarried over the weekend, and it's hard to know the etiquette. For instance — do I "like" the myriad photos of her and new new hubby when they appear in my feed via my step-daughter?
Then there's my father, a randy multiply-divorced 70-yr-old who is always suggesting I "friend" his latest girlfriend, only to have his status turn back to "single" a couple of weeks later. Do I "unfriend" them then? My 12-year-old recently announced, on the wall of his facebook (yes, I know he's not legally supposed to have a facebook for another couple of months), that his grandpa is a "player," a notion my father found publicly brag-worthy.
Oy. Someone ought to write a book, right?
Hang in there.
So sorry that you had to go through this so publicly. I think you handled it well. Now you now what all those Hollywood-ites go through…. aaack. :O(
My younger brother went through this with his divorce, and he has three kids he fought to get 50% custody. It sucks. It's emotional. It leaves people with scars. But it gets better. Unfortunately, you're right about social media. I still keep seeing connections and photos to my ex-sister-in-law I'd rather not see. So I can only imagine how hard it is with an ex-wife.
You get hugs for being so adorable anyway. And I've watched how you keep it honest and real all the time and I've admired it and even mimmicked it.
What about when your wife is having an affair, you discover it and do everything you can do to cut off communications, your sister-in-law is playing middle-man in their (now long-distance) communications, she is friends with said d-bag on Facebook, and since you are FB friends with your sis-in-law, your wife's lover is suggested as a friend by Facebook? Ouch.
I'm a firm believer that in this minute, I am the total sum of every one of my prior experiences. That's what, collectively, makes us fascinating and complex individuals.
Thank you for sharing your life with us all, Mr Bransford.
I can't believe I've been reading your blog since 2008! Where does the time go?
Ugh. I hate that feature on Gmail. At least you didn't have any children with your ex! My husband has a 5 year old son from his first marriage. We've had quite a few email dialogues with his ex-wife and her fiance recently (custody battle! that's fun) and now when I write an email to my husband, his ex-wife and her fiance both show up as someone I might want to include on the email. YEAH F-ING RIGHT. Okay. When I get upset about it (and about his past in general), I remind myself that the present moment is the only moment that truly exists. It's almost as if dissolved marriages cease to exist at all…
First of all, I'm sorry you had to go through such a rough time.
It's kind of scary that there's really no such thing as anonymity anymore, unless you become a hermit. Even those of us who are very private about what we put online should be aware that there's no real hiding from someone determined to learn about us, even if we use a pseudonym.
That said, you don't owe anyone any explanations or details, of course. Hang in there.
Nathan, let me begin this by saying I'm so very sorry you have to go through this. As others have stated, you're young, talented, and a good-looking guy, so I don't shed too many tears for you (lol).
However, your post, for me, highlights some EXTREMELY disturbing changes in how we live our lives. But what's REALLY disturbing is how sheepily we accept it.
As outgoing as I can be when in the mood, I am no mood for my private life to be invaded, even by some non-thinking algorithm that some tech at FB or Twitter or wherever came up with.
To this day, I staunchly refuse to get Facebook; and I likewise shut down my YouTube account when Google bought them and instituted their Gestapo-like tracking tactics.
I'd like to remind all that privacy is a right, not some perk or privilege. A right. And like most rights, keeping them is as straightforward as demanding them. Digital invasiveness is actually NOT a given.
There's nothing wrong with contacting your friends and telling them you're not comfortable with certain pictures being online. There's nothing wrong with saying you don't wish to discuss certain business online. There's nothing wrong with closing an account because you refuse to link to your private profile.
And no, you can still conduct business without it. I follow your blog because you talk good sense and we share a common horrible taste in TV. I couldn't care less about you and your ex's honeymoon pictures or if you "friend" me.
Look, I'm not trying to rant. I'm just trying to say that it's more than a few 'paranoid nuts' who feel that this online thing is starting to overstep the bounds of etiquette and privacy. And I think it's time we remember it's okay to say "Enough."
Bill
Nathan, I'm sorry. But, I am happy that you are healing.
*hugs*
Nathan, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that you had such a painful loss.
And thank you for letting us know in such a courageous and poignant post.
I hope it doesn't feel intrusive to confirm that I realized it fairly early on, simply because you took your marital status off your biography here. Obviously, it was not appropriate to say anything, but I want you to know that I thought of you, and tried to send you silent support and good thoughts through the internet. We only know each other through this blog, but I care about you and my heart went out to you.
Please take care and be gentle with yourself.
I'm sorry that you've had to go through this, Nathan. A big hug for you. It will get better.
I've been divorced for 19 years before the internet went public. After reading your blog post, I am very glad that we didn't have the internet, blogs, and facebook back then. Still it was a bit of a shock when my ex posted on my wall a few months ago. A fairly innocuos posting, still a bit of a shock. I can imagine that it is much worse for you, and I do sincerely empathize with what you're going through.
Hang in there. You deserve to be happy.
You're in good company, Nathan. I'm a divorced stepmom who writes for StepMom Magazine. I couldn't begin to count the number of wonderful people I know who simply didn't match well with their ex. Anyhow, divorce is crazy hard. Sorry you're having to deal with it!
BTW– Facebook really wants me to friend my exhusband's new wife. She sure looks sweet in that wedding photo. Also, thinner than me and like she's better at making him laugh….