Member-only story
The Day My Marriage Ended
The messages of hope that I wish I could share with my former self
It was a March day in 2006. I sat in the driver’s seat of a hired truck, my share of the marital possessions loaded meticulously in the back of it. My wife and I had just locked the door of our former marital home for the last time and were about to go our separate ways in life, metaphorically and literally.
We said our final farewell (albeit in a symbolic sense) and a few tears were shed. Having jointly resolved that we’d play an active part in raising our two daughters, then aged 6 and 3, we knew we’d be seeing each other regularly in the years that followed. Nonetheless it felt like the last goodbye.
She drove away to hand over the keys to the real-estate agent ready for collection by the person who had bought our house; perhaps it’d be a happier family home for them than it had been for us.
It was over.
We’d decided to part late in the summer of 2005 but it had taken from then until now to part. Since agreeing that our marriage had reached its natural end, we’d been living together (but apart) while gradually figuring out how to disentangle our lives fairly and equitably. I’m forever grateful that it was a no-fault split, and that acrimony and anger were limited. It still hurt though…