I was reading the book Iron John by Robert Bly and the following paragraph (pg. 74) on what divorce may feel like for men made me pause and reflect on the magnitude of the message.

Divorce feels for most men like a discharge, as of one had been fired from a task taken on the day of the wedding. And the agony of separation from a substitute mother figure, the sense of inadequacy among demands for more money, like a warmth or grace in the new apartment or house, felt rejection and isolation of the community withdraws some of its approval and support, self-doubt to change evokes all these up to a new sort of loneliness. If the man refuses to be cheered up, and considers all of the discomfort to be cutting expressions of an isolating wound received an early childhood, and Eman can use the divorce like any other serious collapse as an invitation to go through the door accept the katabasis (downfall), immersive self in the wound and exit from his old life through it.

Not sure what I’m looking for in response here but perhaps and opportunity to say wow these words elicit feelings of sadness and grief in me.