Landslides

It was an odd experience the day that I realised that my second marriage was effectively over. We had celebrated our eldest’ s 18th birthday and by all accounts it had been a success. However on a personal level I had found the day to be extremely stressful.

To understand why we need to go back 4 weeks to the incident that kick started this series of unfortunate events. It was a Sunday a day we would normally spend doing chores and getting ready for the week ahead. We had a guest in the form of the eldest son’s girlfriend and by all accounts it had been a fairly relaxed morning and we were about to get stuck into the days chores that lay ahead.

We were changing a bed when the argument started and by argument I use the word in the most tenuous manner. It was at best a mild disagreement but one of the people involved (me) was a ticking time bomb of unshared feelings, resentment and stress and so things very quickly and disproportionally escalated beyond all reasonable control. I don’t remember the specifics of what was said but given the state of mind I was in and the way I felt at the time I know I wasn’t being the best version of myself (to put it very kindly).

As things escalated we found ourselves in a situation where I gave my wife an ultimatum along the lines of “Well if you aren’t happy then just divorce me”. This was not the first time I had done this (which I am ashamed to admit) but in the past it had the desired affect which was to move us out of the argument stage and into the problem resolution stage.

Only this time things didn’t quite go to plan.

She refused to answer and the more she refused to answer the more I insisted that she answered until finally I had my answer. She wanted to separate.

I was gobsmacked. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Things had gone massively awry. I tried to back track but the mere act of having to say those words out loud had emboldened and solidified my wife’s commitment to seeing them through.

We argued further but made no process. She gathered some things and went to stay at her parents’ house. I was utterly stunned and did not know what to do. My life effectively went on hold.

The next morning I woke up and went into action mode. I called in work sick, got a sick note from the doctor for stress and engaged with my company’s employee support services to get some counselling. This all happened within the day (When stuff needs to happen I like to not drag it out) and then I waited.

Three weeks my wife stayed away. We spoke daily but I dared not ask or push for any sort of answer about the state of our relationship. I was afraid to ask because I didn’t like the 50/50 chance I had of getting an answer I didn’t want.

She came back just before Christmas and the Christmas period was a resounding success. I can genuinely say that it was the best Christmas that I had ever had and the family felt the same. We laughed, we spent time together and we made memories that I will cherish forever.

But underneath the surface was a level of stress that I was unaccustomed to. Because we hadn’t spoken on the status of our relationship I didn’t know how to act around my wife. Do I show affection? Can I have a joke with her and tease her? How would she react if I did either of those things? The answer was I didn’t know and because I didn’t know I didn’t do any of those things despite wanting to deep down inside.

By the time our eldest birthday had came to a close, the guests had left and we were retiring for the evening I couldn’t wait any longer so I asked the question that I dared not before now. The pain of not having an answer, of not knowing what future lay ahead became greater than the pain of getting an answer I didn’t want.

I’m sure you have guessed by now but it wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. I had never felt a pain like it and couldn’t quite grasp the emotions that I was feeling. Those words “I want to separate” just burned themselves into my soul. I have always been inclined to prepare for all eventualities and I had prepared for this one. But the imagined reality and reality itself are two very different things when it comes to affairs of the heart.

When a relationship ends you have to grieve twice. Once for all that has been, the good the bad and the ugly. That happened and is forever written in the story of your life for better or worse and ultimately contributes to who you are as a person. You should never regret the experiences you have had for better or for worse because ultimately they make you who you are and changing just one said variable could completely change who you are as a person.

The second grieving that occurs is for all that might have been. The plans you made, the things you were going to do, the memories you might have made together. Those are gone and will never happen. I found this grief to be the hardest to swallow. Whether it is just me personally I don’t know but this took longer to grieve for which is odd when you think about it. Your grieving for something that never actually happened only what might have been. You were never guaranteed that future in the first place and yet I found myself in pieces that now it will never happen.

As I sat there in my pain not much was said for what seemed like an eternity. I looked at my wife and she was there with me. She felt it too that utter heartbreak. And I hated seeing her like that. Our entire relationship I had gone to great lengths to avoid her having to feel this way. Yet here we were and I knew she felt the same as I did and I felt destroyed.

As I began to process the situation, it surprised me to find that I wasn’t angry. Having been in this scenario before I can tell you that was a very bitter and painful experience. I wanted to share the pain and anguish I felt, I wanted to lash out and watch the world burn. But this time none of that. I felt grateful.

I was grateful firstly because I had an answer. A bad answer is always better than no answer and that’s true in life. When we have no answer we create answers and the answers our brains create are never as pleasant as what the reality turns out to be.

Secondly I was grateful to have had that time, that relationship with my wife. It was, and remains to this day, the greatest chapter of my life to date and I promised myself there and then that I would not dishonour that by allowing negativity to make this separation a bitter, painful and negative experience.

I had done bitter and negative before with my first wife. Negativity is the easy path. We are primed to see the worse in situations and in life as a survival mechanism. Which is great when the threats around you are predators and famine. Not so good when navigating modern life. The other problem with negativity is in many ways it feels good. When we are hurting, it feels good to hurt someone else because we are discharging our pain onto others. Its like saying “I cant deal with this you have it”. We are, fleetingly, free of that pain. But ultimately in the long run its not the best way forward because at some points the negative feelings subside and you have to deal with the fallout from it, and depending on how far you went you’ll have equally as much to fix. So short term its great, long term not so much.

So I opted to choose the opposite. I opted for amicability, trust, respect and honesty. I wanted to make this painful situation as easy for both of us as we possibly could. The odd thing was that this was way harder than I imagined and hurt all the more, at least in the short term.

Relationships don’t end because things are going well. They end because two people reach a point where they cant fix the issues that divide them. Where so much hurt has happened that they don’t have the space or time to work through and fix those issues. Now normally a lot of people choose the negative breakup and that only really serves to reinforce each parties view that the other person is in the wrong.

There are very few situations in life where you can neatly package and assign roles to people such as the “good” person or the “bad” person, “persecutor” or “victim”. Rather in most situations we are fluid in these roles. All parties dip in and out of these roles depending on the scenario and as such neither partly is definitively good or bad. Rather all parties contribute to the situation in some way.

The amicable separation is painful for two reasons. The first is, as outlined above, it forces both parties to look at how they contributed to the situation, during a time when all you want to do is blame and lash out. This is very hard to overcome and feels unnatural to go against our primal urges. It also forces us to look at ourselves and accept that we haven’t always been our best selves and how our behaviour has impacted others and this is painful also.

The second reason is that, generally speaking, during an amicable separation the relationship between two parties improves. Without the relationship roles to fulfil, without the overbearing feeling of having to fix the relationship, the stress for both sides lifts and with it they become better versions of themselves. Communication, empathy and understanding thrive under these circumstances and in many cases couples will have the first honest conversation they have had in a long time.

It is seeing their partner acting positively immediately after the decision to no longer be a couple is made that hurts. It hurts because you can’t help but think “If you were like this before we wouldn’t be separating” or “If only we could have had this conversation sooner”. But you couldn’t and would never have. Because whilst you were in that space of being in a relationship, of carrying those roles and responsibilities, you would never give yourselves that freedom and space to be this new version of yourself, to have these conversations.

So we find ourselves in the paradoxical situation of being nasty feeling good and being nice feeling horrible. The question you must be asking yourselves is why be nice at all? And that has a very simple explanation. Being nasty delays the processing process. You effectively delay ever dealing with the issues that caused your part in the ending of the relationship all the time adding more damage to the narrative that will need to be addressed and fixed in the long term. The nice option means that you deal with the issues that caused the ending of the relationship whilst going through the end of the relationship so when the dust settles and you both are looking to start new separate lives, you do so without the pain and baggage that the nasty breakup brings. You have likely already identified what issues in yourself need to be addressed and are often looking for ways in which to meaningfully address them.

But in that moment of immense pain and sorrow I could only feel gratitude and thankfulness because she did what I could never do. I am stubborn and I don’t know when to quit. Ill spend way too long trying to fix things even when the value in fixing them outweighs the effort it takes to fix them. I would have done the same with the relationship. I would have spent far too long being far too stubborn trying to fix it only to get more and more angry and resentful when it wasn’t getting fixed. I couldn’t see that and I refused to see that but she saw it. And she had the courage for both of us to do the right thing and know when to call it quits. That’s why I am grateful to her and I always will be.

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