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We separated over the summer and have been slowly working through the practical stuff since then. On the surface everything looks calm and fairly amicable, but one thing I didn’t expect to struggle with so much is telling people we’re actually getting divorced.
Close friends know, our families know, but beyond that I keep finding ways to avoid the conversation. Work colleagues still ask how my ex is. School parents assume we’re just “having a rough patch”. Even when people mean well, I freeze when they ask questions and end up minimising it or changing the subject.
Part of it is not wanting to deal with the reactions or the awkward sympathy. Part of it is that saying it out loud makes it feel more real and final than I’m ready for. I also worry about being judged, even though I know logically that happens less than we imagine.
Has anyone else found this strangely hard? How did you decide who to tell, and when? Or did you just let people figure it out over time?