“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” (Anais Nin)

In 1989, a Costa Rican fisherman named Gilberto Shedden rescued a crocodile that had been shot in the head. After nursing the crocodile back to health, he released it into the wild. The crocodile, however, whom Gilberto had now named “Poncho,” refused to go back to the riverbank where he was found clinging to life, and instead chose to go back to his rescuer, where he set up residence in a pond near Gilberto’s home. For over twenty years, Gilberto and his jagged-toothed snouted friend would swim together in a river nearby, playing, talking, kissing, and hugging, and a deep, abiding bond was formed. After too many years of this curious devotion, Gilberto’s wife, frustrated by the fact that her husband was spending more time with Poncho than her, refused to play second fiddle to a reptile any longer and left the marriage.  Gilberto claimed to be unbothered by her departure and shrugged it off by saying he could always find another wife, but Poncho was irreplaceable.  

When your husband chooses a predator who can swallow a whole pig with two chomps of a jaw over you, your marriage is over.

YouTube has become my favorite source of continuing education with its smorgasbord of insightful videos; a diverse catalog ranging from “How to Send A Birthday Greeting with an A.I. Enhanced Voice of Johnny Depp” to “Releasing Trauma from Your Past Life, the One before the Last.” I’ve immersed myself in the genre of self-help videos that explore every aspect of the human condition and have been delighted to discover that the more entertaining ones often add a touch of lore. I plan to update my CV to reflect my newly acquired doctoral degree from the YouTube School of Behaviorism, Hogwarts Campus.

A few days ago, a video popped up in my algorithm entitled, “Your Husband Hates You | Here’s 8 Signs He Can’t Stand You.”  I’m not sure why it popped up in my feed, as it’s been many years since I last had a husband hate me, but algorithms derive satisfaction in keeping us off balance.  As I listened to this respective coach, who specializes in narcissistic abuse recovery, detail one abhorrent behavior to the next, I felt uncomfortable, if not a bit haunted by flashbacks.  What felt more pessimistic was reading the viewer’s comments beneath the video, where broken hearted individuals spilled the guts of their loveless and painful marriages, trapped in their own personal hell. With admitted discrimination, I found it easier to judge the spouses who choose to stay rather than to dismantle the reasons why they won’t leave.      

Perhaps just as painful but more natural is the arrangement of the “silent divorce,” where an emotional separation of the marriage occurs, but a legal ending does not, leaving a communal living environment and joint finances to remain. Couples who are engaged in a silent divorce rarely spend time or communicate with each other, instead choose to live as roommates who share kitchen utensils.  I’ve often wondered if any of these couples who happen to live in a large house reach for their phone in confusion to call 9-1-1, thinking a prowler may have broken in during their estranged spouse’s midnight raid of the refrigerator. 

Another phenomenon, the “gray divorce,” experienced a rise in popularity over the past decades and kept divorce attorneys busy hammering out settlements for their gray-haired clients and their retirement funds.   Gray divorce, when empty nesters who have been married for 30 or 40+ years come to the realization that they no longer want to spend their remaining time on earth with the person they once promised to love and cherish until death do they part, can be inflamed by the last hurrah of a new love interest, or the contempt bred by familiarity, but the pursuit is the same: To shed the weight of a love that has since died on its vine and feel free again.  

George Washington once said, “I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event in one’s life, the foundation of happiness or misery.”

The real death of love is indifference.  Choose the right person and nourish your love.  It will give thanks by blooming eternal.