Friday 4th March 2022.
I am in the study. Not because I want to, but because I have to.
My divorce finalised in Dec 2021 after 3 long years of litigation.
I am in the study to face the accumulation of papers that was required to put forth my case.
2004 to 2018–14 years of being together boils down to a mountain of papers to prove my life — my word, my lifestyle and my experiences
More precisely, that my word was real and true.
At the moment, I have only gone through 3 large folders. Receipts, bank statements, Insurance documentation, household and living expenses receipts — all of this document my life with the man I called husband.
Is this what love in matrimony becomes when it fades?- it turns into a “proof of life”? Not a mourning of love lost — no, not at all. It has to be clinical, direct and as emotionless as could be mastered.
The irony of the end of a marriage is not the love lost, but the division of assets that was once considered ours.
Vows, old fashioned, do not linger here. It is no longer for richer, for poorer… it is the exact opposite.
In the folder that my lawyers have returned to me, I found a letter written by Mark as my last Christmas present in 2018 after we have, or more accurately — he had, decided on divorce.
Reading his words, I saw for the duration of the letter, through his eyes what life was. His words brought me down countless memory pathways that have been closed a long time ago. In the last 3 years, I had forgotten who he used to be, who I was, and the family I had that was whole.
It was upon my request that he wrote the letter to me as a Christmas present. I wanted a memory as a present. I had anticipated the ugliness of divorce having been through that once before. My request has now served it purpose , as I read his words once more.
In previous years we have always bought everything we thought the other would want, forgetting that it was the non-material that mattered the most. Reading the words, my heart softened with the memories of days passed.
Going through the contents of the folders — I saw once more my life as a married woman. Receipts and bank statements reminded me of where I was, what I did.
It is Ironic that I cannot remember the dates of what I have done, the details, until a receipt reminds me of the day, the place and what I did? Why are we not able to recall what we have done? Especially since it meant so much? Even if it did not a hallmark make, why do we have no recollection, but instead leave traces found in documents that are meaningless in the life span of love?
Are our actions of so little consequence that we often do not remember? Why is it that we don’t remember the lives we have lived? Why are we not allowed to mourn the end of a marriage, akin to death because the person that you once loved is no longer the same.
Again, the irony of divorce — proving your life via means of paperwork when in marriage, it was proof of love that sustained it. Yet in divorce, which always boils down to money — a documentation of expenditure and lifestyle.
Who gets what, and how much is the fight. Like beings with no sense of give, kindness, forgiveness: we turn into monsters against the one we once declared we loved the most, sworn in sickness and in health to protect. How does love turn?
In my tidying, I came across email exchanges, short messages we had shared. Some loving, some not. How did we become this way?
The heart break now is no longer mine. It is my daughter’s — a child of divorce, caught in-between.
When she was born, we swore to protect her, love her, never allow pain to harm her yet it is us that have hurt her the most.
The people who have brought her into this world broke what she knew as safe haven and home, making her the child of a broken home.
I remember the day so clearly, the day she came home from school asking if her parents were getting a divorce. The heaviness in my 10 year old child, the fear, the heartbreak as she asked me quietly before laying down in my arms on the sofa.
I did not expect it. Even when months before she said to me “ mum, I am 10 now. Hugo was 5 when you divorced his dad, I am twice that age and so you don’t have to worry about me”
That memory is unforgettable and heart breaking. Bravely said to me, almost too causally as we exited the elevator of our flat on our way out as if it was a passing thought. Little did she know, even in her bravado, that it would happen so fast, so painfully.
I tried to avoid a divorce having been through it once. I never wanted to do it again, even if I was stuck in a nightmare.
Haunted by heart-breaking cries of my then 5 year old son Hugo, begging for me to return home to his father — I never wanted my daughter to endure the same.
I was wrong. She did not endure the same. She had it many times worse.
I didn’t realise the horrors that could be inflicted and how we had no choice but to brace for impact or pick up the pieces when the world came crashing down.
The nightmares of my separation, my divorce was far more devastating then even I could ever imagine.
I closed my mind to all that had passed between the years 2018 and 2021. Each alley of pain I have locked away, only to find again in todays tidy of paperwork.
I had been avoiding this. I did not want to see, to be reminded of a life that I once had. I did not want to miss the security, the companionship, even if there were fears and anxiety — at least my child had a family that was whole. I would have endured anything, to avoid breaking her young heart.
On the ground next to me lays a pile of paper that will increase as my foray continues. I know that it will hurt to remember, I know because tears are falling.
But like each and every journey, there will be and end. All demons and monsters need to be faced, and mine is the closure of what was my marriage.
I know that when it is done, this sorting of documents, the shredding of what no longer serves me, I will feel better. Knowing the outcome of peace gives a little comfort as I solider on through my entire study.
It would be closure. It would also be a lesson as I read each paper that had been so carefully filed away. I will remember what was, I will hold it softly in my heart before I release it peacefully.
I write this because doing this itself is a lesson. I write this because facing what I have tried to avoid for months has come to a point where I can no longer escape. I am doing this because I need to evolve again, into a new improved wiser version of me.
And so with each piece of paper that passes between my hands, selected to be kept or thrown, I would have decided what will be worth keeping and what no longer serves me.
I keep the love that was once there. The memories of happiness, not for me, but for my daughter; so that she can one day look back and not just see two parents separated, but have proof that it was love that brought her into this world and love remains, even if only in memories.
