Going our own ways
It’s a year now since I relocated to York from London. But leaving my home city and starting a big new job have not been the biggest stories of the last 12 months for me. My relationship of 13 years has come to an end; without question our separation has been the hardest, saddest and most challenging experience I’ve had as an adult.
As the anniversary of moving here looms into view this week, I’ve inevitably been thinking a lot about how much has changed from this time a year ago. Learning to live in separately, in two homes, and helping the children to make sense of this change, has provoked some pretty elemental feelings of grief and guilt in me which I’ll write more about another time. But for now, with Will’s agreement, I wanted to share three reflections on my experience of separation.
There isn’t always someone to blame
So much is written about marital break-ups from the perspective of the ‘wronged woman’. That wasn’t what happened with Will and I. There wasn’t anyone else; he didn’t leave me and I didn’t leave him. There was no big bang. None of the catharsis of anger, or the righteousness of hurt. More, it’s been a gradual unravelling. Though that word feels too gentle for the loss of a relationship that’s shaped our lives for over a decade.
And yet a fear of being judged has left me feeling ambivalent about sharing my single status. Our story confuses people: who’s the victim? Who’s to blame? Without these things I have found myself feeling ashamed, embarrassed about why we are no longer together. I find myself worrying — will people assume it’s my fault? Or will they think I am selfish (‘if there isn’t someone else, can’t you try to make it work?’… as if we haven’t done that…)
We’ve worked really hard to try and stay kind throughout this rupture. It’s not been easy; of course there have been jagged edges of anger and occasional jolts of red-hot fury alongside the sadness of our situation. We’ve both had to bite our tongues and occasionally scream into pillows. I’ve learnt so much about communication, and the art of staying ‘relational’ even in conflict.
All that work has been made harder because people around us have been unsure how to traverse the territory of a non-acrimonious break up. Friends and family wonder, do they stay friends with both of us? Do they criticise the other partner? Do we both still need picking up off the floor and comforting? (the answers are yes, no, and very much so, in case you’re wondering). Let’s face it, they’ve not got much to go on here. The idea of blame is hardwired into our collective psyche about what it means to separate: it was only in April that UK divorce laws made it possible to file for a ‘no-blame’ divorce.
Toxic labels and a lack of language
I find myself struggling for labels. Now that I technically belong to the category, I feel the weight of prejudice that comes with the words ‘single parent’ much more keenly. I also feel it isn’t an accurate reflection of our situation. I’m not a ‘single’ parent: my kids have two of us still, both of us active and involved, just not with each other.
All the same, for much of the time I am not at work, it is me and three young children, with no one to share that parenting load with. I am alone. It is intense. I stumble towards words like ‘separated’ and ‘co-parenting’ but none of it feels satisfactory.
Ultimately all these labels make me feel like my ‘single parent’ status is defined as ‘lacking’ or ‘less’, when measured against the Global North’s heteronormative ideals of family life, and that I might be failing my children somehow for that reason. We’ve collectively fallen for a story that our families are these tiny, intense units, ‘usually’ made up of mums, dads and children. It’s no longer the village that raises that child. Instead, public health and government programmes ascribe scary amounts of power to the role of primary carers.
I think this account of what constitutes a family puts these little units under unsustainable pressure, all the more so for single parents. It makes me long to find a different pattern of living. One where it’s easier to share the load of raising kids together; where the children themselves are freed from overly-anxious parents helicoptering over their every move. One of the joys of a recent camping trip I took the kids on was the freedom it afforded the children while we adults collectively kept an eye on them.
It’s not divorce that hurts kids, it’s unhappy parents
When I am feeling awful about the choice we’ve made, I remind myself what the alternative was: to keep going, ‘for the sake of the children’. But really — what would that teach any of us? I want to know and believe that I’m showing our kids what it means to live fully, joyfully, fulfilled by loving relationships in many guises, and inhabiting my own power. Being our best selves: I feel like that’s all we as parents really owe our children. Through doing it myself, I want to show them that this is what to aim for and what they deserve.
“Nothing exerts a stronger psychic effect upon the human environment, and especially upon children, than the life which the parents have not lived.” — Carl Jung
I also want to show the children that we can be two loving, engaged parents, even if we’re not together any more. I have a tattoo of our initials on my wrist — mine, Will’s, and each of the children’s. Someone asked me the other day whether I was going to change it. I found it such an odd question. Our separation hasn’t erased our family, or the entanglement of our five initials. Yes, it has changed everything, but I am not trying to eliminate the relationship, or pretend it never happened.
The Franciscan monk Richard Rohr talks about there being three parts in all transformations: first order, then disorder, and finally reorder. As we emerge, slowly, carefully, from the disorder, we are trying our best to reorder our family with tenderness and care. We want to forge a new path, full of respect for each other and love for the kids; a path where we wish the best for the other, and honour the care and hope we shared for more than a decade. A path where the children continue to feel deeply adored by us both, even if we’re not together. The world around us doesn’t make that easy, but we’re doing our best.
