Divorce, once rare and stigmatised, has become mainstream – 42 per cent of marriages now end this way, meaning nearly half of us who get married can expect to experience it in our lifetime. Just as every marriage is different, so is every divorce. In this column, divorcees reflect on their life-changing experience. Helped by the benefit of hindsight, they’ll share advice and reflections.
I met my ex-husband at a family party when my aunt’s young partner brought along a friend. They told us after that it was a set-up. They knew we were both single, the same age, and they thought we’d get along well. They were right. One week later, we went on our first date.
We’d only been dating for six months, at the tender age of 22, when he told me he wanted to marry me and have babies. I remember it so clearly. We went for a walk and he said he’d never thought about getting married before, but since he met me, he did. Another afternoon, I was lying on his bed and he playfully stroked my tummy and said: “If there was a baby in there right now, I’d be the happiest man alive.” It was music to my ears. Now my wild teenage years were over, all I wanted was to have the wedding of my dreams and start a family. Yes, we were young, but it seemed our wants and desires were completely aligned.
My family were quite working class and his were more middle class, so there were a few issues with how we each fitted into our wider families. I had the feeling his parents thought I wasn’t good enough for him, while mine thought he was a great catch though perhaps not really “our kind of people”. None of this phased me at all. He had chosen me and I had chosen him and we wanted to be together.
I watched him play with my half-sisters, who were eight and six years old at the time, and I thought about what a great dad he was going to be. He had a good job, earning enough for us to buy a house, which meant I could settle down with him, and as all my ex-boyfriends had been layabouts, I felt like I’d hit the jackpot.
He proposed to me on holiday in Italy two years after we met, and one year later we were married. It was a whirlwind romance, and I was swept up in it – everything felt so right.
He was very caring and sensitive back then, and we were so in love, I never questioned if we were really right for each other. But the signs were there all along.
On our honeymoon, one night we were in a bar where a local band would be playing later in the evening. I love music and said, casually, it would be great to see the band. He dismissed me pretty quickly and said, “No, we’re not doing that, I hate noise, we’ll go somewhere quieter.” So, we finished our drinks and left, finding an almost empty bar down the road. I let it go because it seemed like a minor thing, but I should have paid it more attention.
Not only did we have different interests and like different things, but he also wasn’t prepared to bend for me at all. If he didn’t want to do it, that was the end of the discussion. I was too laser focussed on what I saw as the bigger picture to notice the red flag. I knew this was a man I could start a life with because everything seemed to have fallen into place perfectly. Ultimately, we wanted the same things, and he could give me the life I so desired.
Exactly two years after our wedding day, our first daughter was born. Being new parents is always hard. You’re navigating so many unchartered waters. You now have this small human to take care of and the dynamics of your relationship with your partner change completely. You have less time for each other, your focus shifts from them to your baby, and being a first-time parent is so stressful. I wasn’t worried about it at first because he had been so happy when I got pregnant and he’d always wanted kids.
But, despite being so vocal about wanting these babies, when they actually arrived – we have two in total – everything changed. He barely shared any of the parenting duties at all. He never changed a single nappy, instead reacting loudly about how disgusted he was by the contents. He didn’t bath them; he didn’t even play with them like I’d seen him play with my half-sisters. He barely interacted with them at all. Instead, he started working long hours, sometimes including weekends, and taking work trips that saw him gone for days, sometimes weeks. When he was home, he ignored our kids and acted like they were an annoyance to him.
I felt like a single mum most of the time, and I wondered how I could have got this so wrong. This wasn’t the family I’d expected to build. In some ways, I felt it wasn’t the family, or the life, he’d promised me. I felt cheated out of the future I should have had and I blamed him for leading me to believe in a fairy tale.
It wasn’t all his fault. I began to realise that I’d married him because I thought he was husband and father material. I thought he would give me the things I wanted – marriage and babies – instead of because he was right for me. We had married for the wrong reasons. And once the pressures of family arrived everything unravelled and he wasn’t the father I thought he would be.
We stayed together for a whopping 18 years in total – by the time our youngest daughter reached 10 years old, I’d had enough. When I told him how unhappy I was, he seemed astonished. He said I had everything I’d wanted, and my life was comfortable, so how could I be unhappy? His reaction confused me. To me, we were living a lie, but he appeared to want to keep the family together while having very little to do with us.
I couldn’t live like that. I was still young at 40, and I knew there was a better life out there for me. We divorced and these days I barely speak to him. I realise now we never really had anything in common, except a shared desire for a family unit.
Five years on, I met someone else and I’m in a relationship with them because him and I make a good team and we fit together, rather than because of a role I think he can fill. We aren’t getting married either. I’m not looking for someone who is husband material and I don’t need a father for my children. I just need a partner in life.
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