Divorce. The Aftermath

I was talking to a friend this week. She has been married for years, has two school-age children, and is miserable. She’s counting down the days until her children leave for college, and she can finally leave her husband, who I’m pretty sure she hates. They haven’t had sex in three years. She dreams of star-fishing in a bed, solo. Of holidays with girlfriends, drinking lots of rosé, not having to think about what to make for dinner, or when the washing needs to be done. “Fuck it,” she says. “I’ll just buy more knickers.”

I talked to another friend, married for the past ten years. She loves her husband, but is going through menopause, and lately they have started to feel like ships that pass in the night. They both travel for work, and of late it has started to feel like they have less and less in common. They recently sold their big family house in Hampshire, and have downsized to a flat in London, the idea being they would be closer to friends, to culture, to restaurants and art; to life. But in fact, the rhythm of their life has changed, and she is lonely, and when the two of them are together in their much smaller flat, in the heart of Marylebone where she knows none of her neighbours, she feels as if she can’t breathe.

Three of her friends have got divorced in the past couple of years (me being one). They tell her that life alone is so much better, that they have never been happier. As a consequence, Instagram has been listening, and her feed is now filled with middle-aged women celebrating their new-found independence, all of them saying life is better.

As a woman who left her marriage two and a half years ago, I want to say this: life is indeed often wonderful, and certainly less hard than being in a marriage where I felt consistently diminished and controlled (even though I recognize I gave up that control myself, did not know how to keep my voice, or my boundaries. This is not my former husband’s fault. This is mine - I did not know how do anything other than lose myself in a marriage). I needed to spend the last two and a half years on my own. Yes, they have occasionally been peppered with the odd adventure, but I have been happily single, knowing I had to heal my own childhood wounds in order not to repeat the same mistake in the next relationship.

And, eternal romantic that I am, I do believe that there will be a next relationship, even though I love being single. My life is very wonderful, rarely feels as if there is anything missing. I love having autonomy over my choices, my money, and my life. I love that I don’t have to ask permission of anyone to do anything. I can hop on a flight to visit friends at the last minute, have many nights where I eat a piece of cheese for dinner, then crawl into bed at 7.30, with cats, books, and a phone. I have other nights where I dance all night, joyous at this newfound freedom.

But over the last couple of months, a longing has crept in. Everywhere I go I see couples, and I watch them in fascination, having completely forgotten how you do that. Coupling. I don’t remember how it happens, what it feels like, and am astonished that so many seem to have figured it out.

I can’t quite imagine doing it again myself, and yet, there is a part of me that longs for it. Not enough to ever settle, not enough to entertain the idea of good enough, certainly not enough to waste time with anyone who doesn’t treat me well, but this newfound longing is unexpected, this wish for companionship perhaps.

Even though I adore my independence and alone time. I have no wish to dive into a full-time relationship, to live with anyone, to merge lives, not at this stage, but the aloneness is sometimes hard. And, the aloneness sometimes veers into loneliness, which is not as lonely as being lonely in a marriage, but at this age and stage of life, can feel overwhelming. Especially on weekends. There is no-one to talk nonsense with at the end of the day, no-one to help navigate things I am very bad at like taxes, and admin, and the logistics of life. There is no-one to take out the rubbish, or help put the mattress cover on. There is no-one to do nothing with. Except the cats, who are pretty good company, but it isn’t quite the same (although granted, they are perhaps less irritating).

None of which is a reason to keep a husband, but there is no such thing as a perfect life, with or without a husband. I am very aware that the inter web is currently celebrating women leaving at midlife, and whilst I am a woman who left in midlife, and whilst I have never had a moment’s regret in leaving the particular marriage I left, it hasn’t put me off romance; it hasn’t closed my heart to possibility, to a healthy relationship, to finding a partner. Breaking up a marriage is a seismic thing, but life isn’t always what the algorithm tells you it will be when you leave.