Moving to Mexico After a Divorce
A change in scenery after a divorce
For good or ill, marriage has a way of defining your life. It determines the neighborhood you live in, when you go to bed and wake up, how you spend your holidays, and how far you can go in looking your worst in your own home. After years of forced colonization, divorce puts you in charge with setting up a new independent government. It’s bewildering, exhilarating (and scary if you do it right).
Counselors frequently advise people to initiate a change of scenery after a divorce. It can be as simple as changing the decor of a room or as complicated as moving to a new city. Many women relocate. I don’t have any statistics, but I am willing to bet women move more often than men do. In the dozen of divorces I’m familar with, if a spouse moved it was the wife doing the moving.
Most people emerge from a divorce or the death of a spouse with the fierce desire to live life on their own terms After years of compromise, the feeling is “Now, it’s my turn.. It’s one of few positive things about divorce - the freedom it gives you in deciding your backdrop, whether its pink walls in the living room, a different city, or different culture.
Getting used to more alone time
Life after divorce shifts a person’s focus to friends. The quality of friendships becomes more crucial than ever. It takes more people to take up the space than had been taken by one conveniently-geographically-located person, your ex.
Even ten friends can't take the place of living with a partner every day. Divorce means learning how to make the unavoidable extra time alone work for you. Living in another country as an expat is a great framework for learning to be quiet in a room.
Most expats report that living in foreign country puts them more at peace with themselves and comfortable being alone. There’s so much to learn and explore living in another country that you can do on your own, it takes your mind off the most difficult phrase of separation very quickly.
Maintaining friendships at home
I spent five years in Denver after my divorce building a new social network before deciding to move to Mexico part-time. The big concern for me was keeping new friendships alive in the US while I was gone. How could I continue to strengthen relationships should that day ever unexpectedly arrive, as it does for many expats, when I had to return to the US? Would they resent my absences?
Over the years of living in Mexico, I realized that the fear I’d once had of iiving a meager life if I stayed in the US put more pressure on my friendships than extended absences ever would. As it happened, the thing that friends want for us, expect from us, is that we take charge of our life, not cower or cling to a life that not working for us
Our friends have active lives.They are often in route themselves, traveling or visiting their families and children, especially grandchildren when the time comes. Part-time expat life kept me from being disappointed when they had other priorities.
I’ve seen the the folly of basing decisions on factors one can’t control, the actions of others; retirees who uproot lives they loved to be near their grandchildren only to have their children move to other cities for career reasons. The same friends who swore for decades that they weren’t going anywhere suddenly move to Seattle. No factor is safe from change.
Making the most of the when you are at home
If I had to count hours together with friends, I would venture to bet that the number of hours spent in the US is roughly the same as it was before I started coming to Mexico, just in more compressed periods. I’m not shy about insisting on getting together more often than I did when I lived in the US full time.
Now that I have departure deadlines, we put more effort into making plans in the time we have. In Mexico, expat/snowbird lives are made up of joyous reunions and bittersweet partings. Gone are the days of taking for granted that you can see friend any time.
Changes in scenery and context, the periods of settling in and then pulling away shakes up your complacency. (A friend of mine wrote a poem about that phenomenon once, how everyone wants to see you...especially when you’re leaving.)
Making friends in Mexico
Making friends in Mexico might be easier that you expect. Expats are a community. They seek each other out and are more accepting of differences in the altered context a foreign country provide. Certain class markers such as neighborhood or type of car you drive disappear (single expats often don’t have cars and expats tend to live in the same neighborhoods).
Living in Mexico off-season gives you more opportunities to bond with permanent residents, as you aren’t competing with snowbirds to get into their social calendars. A multitude of Facebook groups and special interest groups exist to help you find your tribe.
Most expats would prefer to have Mexican friends in the mix. I’ve found that Mexican have less “fear of the stranger” than Americans. Mexicans crave new experiences and novelty. As I describe in my book, I recommend to anyone seeking native friendship break out the wallet. Any Invitation to a meal or an event really makes you stand out to your Mexican hosts. Gestures of grace such as these are delightfully affordable in Mexico.
Setting up a two-country lifestyle that optimizes your life both in Mexico and at home takes work, a perfect distraction for anyone coming off a divorce or loss. You have a second language to learn, ongoing logistical tasks such as securing housing in Mexico, travel arrangements to make, and expending the extra effort required to compensate for extended absences.
I’ve found that people usually have certain creature comforts to maintain which have their complications and costs. It might be bringing a pet, or (as in my case, buying two guitars). Working all this out makes a new phrase of life an adventure to look forward to.
About the author:
Kerry Baker is author of "If Only I Had a Place," a new book on renting in Mexico.. Her second book is, “The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico.”
Both entertaining and a how-to, something you wont find anywhere else in the genre. Most recently she released The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico a cookbook for expats, travelers and snowbirds who want to maintain a healthy diet in Mexico (You must cook.)