Until death us do part.. or lawyers
Cordell and Cordell / Divorce – scrabble / Flickr
I come from a family where divorce was something faintly unpleasant but a rather normal outcome to most marriages, as not only have all my siblings divorced, my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all grandparents and two sets of great grandparents also join the list. On my father’s side, his aunts and uncles remarried so many times, he ended up with 49 first cousins. My father not being a slouch in this direction, also managed to clock up four marriages. I was brought up knowing all the intricacies of who you can mention to whom and who you should not mention to whom. Walls and fortresses were nothing compared to the diplomacy of handling family connections. As divorce was such a popular activity in the family, you would think that as a child watching one’s own parents’ marriage break down, I would be able to shrug it off and get plenty of support. Alas, that was not the case and my sister and I endured five years of what started as a separation and ended in divorce, our mother having three nervous breakdowns, traumatic changes of schools and homes and no contact with our father for over ten years. One family member later said that it was surprising that my sister and I came out so normal.
I am now delighted to see a mood change in how society and individuals are handling divorces; whilst any divorce is by its nature painful, heart-breaking and tortuous, how children are handled and money issues resolved can often turn an ‘amicable’ divorce into one that descends into hell. Help though is now at hand with financial agreements that can be agreed away from lawyers, no fault divorces and even pre-nuptial agreements where each party knows where they stand prior to any marriage. There is no stigma now of being divorced and marriage is no longer regarded as the only way to commit yourself to a life long partnership. When my parents divorced, no divorced person was accepted within the Royal Family circle (this was of course prior to Princess Margaret’s own divorce). That social stigma mattered and made its way through all manners of different social strata.
There are many examples of friends and family members divorcing but coming out the other end and restarting a friendship, whether it’s initially for the children’s sake or just that they know each other so well and realise that whilst they can’t be married to each other, they can actually be friends. This can only be good news for everyone concerned and particularly any children. When the next generation comes to their turn to divorce, maybe they too can make things even easier for themselves and those around them. As for my part, I have confounded the entire family by still being married to number one and the only one in generations not (yet) to have divorced……