I started this blog as a place to get some of the rambling thoughts in my head out although most of what has been written is to do with my professional life, today’s blog is personal.
I considered for a while whether this was an appropriate blog post but sometimes the difficult subjects to talk about are the ones which we really do need to share. People say that you should separate your work life and your home life however I’m not sure that I agree. What happens in your personal life will have an effect on how you are at work and if we’re interested in our people then surely this is part of it – part of what makes them tick, their vulnerabilities and weaknesses as well as those things they have overcome to make them into the people they are today. This post explains why I've not blogged for a while!
In December 2012 it was estimated that 42% of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce. (Office for National Statistics www.ons.gov.uk). I have just become part of the statistics – I’m getting divorced. It still feels like I’m talking about someone else when I write those words. I got married 17 years ago to a man I thought I would be with forever! Yet, four months ago he told me he didn’t want to be married to me anymore and had feelings for someone else. My world shattered, my dreams died, my hope vanished and I was completely stunned and shocked that this was happening to me. We didn’t have a perfect marriage (who does?) but I honestly never expected this to happen.
So why write about this now? Well, despite it being four months ago, some days it feels like it has only just happened. People around me try to say the right thing and I know it is all meant with good intentions but it’s similar to how we can react when we see someone who has lost a loved one – you don’t know what to say for the best but want to provide some words of comfort and encouragement. Comments such as ‘you’re better off without him’ or ‘you’ll meet someone else’ are so unhelpful – I don’t feel better off without him and I don’t particularly want to meet anyone else right now. The most popular one, once finding out he is with someone else (who incidentally is half his age) is ‘oh, it will never last!’. It doesn’t really matter if it lasts or not – he’s still left, he still wanted to be with her more than he wanted to be with me and the rejection and feeling of not being worth fighting for is crushing. The range of feelings is vast – typical for dealing with loss, grief for the loss of what could have been, for the death of a dream and that doesn’t have any timeframe on it of when I should have ‘got over it’ or ‘moved on’. I’m going through a major life change – no one to share the day to day stuff with, having half a week with my children and the other half on my own, and the clinical process of legal paperwork - a couple of signatures, a few hundred quid and in a few weeks I’ll be divorced!
I still have the odd wobble and, although they are less, they can happen quite unexpectedly. The overwhelming feeling of guilt that I could have done more which would have prevented this, the intense loneliness and insomnia. I miss not having someone there to talk about nonsense with – something odd I saw on the way home from work or that I bought ‘such and such’ from the shop as it was on offer – real nonsense but conversations you perhaps don’t realise you have or take for granted that suddenly there’s no one there to tell. My sister told me I could phone her to ask her what I should have for tea but I have resisted so far!!!
I have some amazing friends and my family have been so very supportive yet, when they are all married (and I don’t have any close friends who have been through divorce with children – and I think it does make a difference) it’s very hard to feel you can ‘bother’ them. They often tell me that I’m doing ‘really well’ – I don’t know! I don’t really know how I should be and most times I don’t feel like I’m doing very well. I had to take my daughter’s Brownies uniform out of the washing basket and spray it with Febreze last week because I hadn’t got around to washing it – I told a colleague thinking we’d have a bit of a giggle and a ‘nevermind, we all do that sometimes’ but she promptly told me that it wasn’t good and gave suggestions on how to run my household – that really piled on the guilt!! I have to remind myself that I’m not a bad person, just in a bad situation right now. I have to be patient with myself that this may take some time to overcome, that I need to give myself a break, take care of myself and despite not always understanding how I feel, allow myself to feel the way I do without worrying about what other people think. There is no timeframe for recovering from grief.
How can you help? You might not know me personally and that’s fine. These are my tips for how you could help me right now and maybe some of them will be things you can do for your own friends who may be in the a similar situation –
1. Don’t bash the ex – yes, he’s been an arse; yes, what he has done is awful; yes, it may not last; yes, I do deserve better – BUT, these things are for me to say. Please don’t bash him – he is still the father of my children, the man I have spent nearly half my life with and I do still care for him.
2. Give me a hug – physical touch is good for us.
3. You don’t need to give advice or offer answers – listening is just fine.
4. Still be friends with M if you want to be – I’m fine with that and I think he may just need some friends in the future!
5. Don’t gossip – I was gutted to have people I hardly know coming up to me saying ‘I’m sorry about you and M – x told me!!!!!!!’ – that’s not your news to tell.
Why am I sharing all of this? I think it’s important to share real life experiences. I hope that, one day, I’ll be able to help someone who might be going through something similar to me – to stand by them and say ‘I understand’ and ‘it’s ok’. I know that I will be ok, that this struggle is just temporary. I know life will be different (it already is) but I will be fine. I will be more than fine, I will thrive, I will succeed, I will be happy again.
