In with the new

Each New Year's Eve I do a small Kabbalah ritual passed on by my counsellor. Best done with a friend or loved one, or even in a group, it involves writing down all the things from the past year that you well and truly want to farewell on one piece of paper, then writing all the things you want to welcome into your life in the New Year on another piece of paper. 

Be clear and focused, and take your time... You want every word to count. 

Now, set fire to the 'Farewell' page and say the following prayer:

May Micha-el be on my right [water];

And on my left Garriel [fire];

Uri-el before me [air];

Behind me Rafa-el [earth].

And over my head, surrounding me, Shekhinate-el.

Keep the 'Welcome' page somewhere safe so you can refer to it during the year. It's always interesting to read over this page at the end of the year and to see what has come to pass.

Have a happy start to 2015 and may your wildest dreams come true. x

A funny thing happened...

On Friday I drove in to the city, did the handover at X’s place and headed a couple of suburbs away to have dinner with some of the team members from FLOW International (the Australian-based aid agency that delivers education and clean water into remote areas of Pakistan, which I'm a part of).

For no particular reason I was sitting at the head of the table, facing the street. At one point I looked out of the window and, at that exact moment, Y – the Other Woman in my life – walked past.

If you haven’t read the majority of my blog posts, you may not know that Y is the woman my ex-husband left me for, going on nine years ago. You may also have missed the fact that Y and I have had NO CONTACT in that time, aside from a couple of emails (the last one dating back to 2009).

Even though I have been dropping my boys to X every second Friday for all these years, I haven’t sighted her – NEVER. NOT EVEN ONCE. And there she was, casually strolling by.

I watched her wander out of view, commented to RC (my great friend and confidant) that I’d just seen Y for the first time since 2006, laughed at how unspectacular it was and immediately returned to discussing the important stuff – where FLOW should consider installing the next water-filtration plant and how long it would take for the food to arrive at our table.

The only remarkable thing about the scenario was that I felt ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. NADA. ZIP.

It was no coincidence. I've been saying to X for the past few months how ridiculous it is that Y has continued to avoid me for so long, and that it will have to change at some point in the near future. The great and mystical Universe clearly agrees.

It’s very obviously time for us all to take a giant leap forward.

So, let's do this. 

Image via www.quotesfrenzy.com

Oh, The Divorces!

Tracey Thorn sums things up perfectly...

And, oh, oh, oh
The honeymoon, the wedding ring
Oh, oh, oh
The afternoon handovers by the swings

                               © 2010 Strange Feeling Records.

That's my boy!

One afternoon last week I was collecting my youngest son (YS) from school when one of his teachers came running up to tell me there had been an “incident” that day.

Allegedly one of the little girls in Year 3 had said to YS’s Best Buddy: “I bet YS’s parents got divorced because of him!” And, thinking he was doing the right thing, Best Buddy passed that message right along.

Apparently there were tears, followed by anger and a significant dose of humiliation, to the point where my boy declared to all of his classmates that he didn’t want anyone knowing his “private business”, so could they please all refrain from EVER talking about his family to anyone.

Once we were in the car and heading home, YS and I did what we always do when stuff happens – we talked it through. What struck me most by that conversation was how kind and insightful that boy is. He’s just turned 10 but is always willing to see things from the other side, even when he’s been hurt.

The first thing he pointed out was that it was “absolutely ridiculous” to think the divorce could ever be his fault:
“I was only 16 months old… And does she know how much you and Dad love me!” he stated with the utmost confidence.

Too right, I confirmed, adding that divorce could only ever be the fault of the adults, not the kids.

He was still feeling embarrassed and reiterated his belief that his family life should be kept private at all times
(I had to choke a little on that – he has no idea I blog and I’m not looking forward to that conversation when it comes).

He also said the divorce was the “worst thing that’s ever happened to me”, so wondered why someone would deliberately say something horrible about “my worst thing”.

Then, after raging for a while, he did what he typically does and turned it all around by saying: “It’s just really sad and awful that she would think something like that at her age!”

His solution, he decided, was to talk to her about it. He wanted to let her know that it was hurtful and humiliating, and he planned to advise her that she had to think before she spoke and not just say silly things that weren’t true – ESPECIALLY to someone’s best friend.

“Hopefully she learns a big lesson,” he added. “She might cry and feel embarrassed, but then she will know exactly how I feel.”

                                                                                  © 2011 What a Music Ltd.

The shock factor

Someone asked me a while back: What was the thing that shocked you most when your husband left you? I’ve been putting my response off for a while, to the point where days of avoidance have turned into weeks. I think I was a little fearful that raising old memories might hurt my heart all over again, but I’m actually sitting here laughing at how ridiculously horrible we can be when we’re parting ways with our partners. If I could give one piece of advice to anyone about to end a relationship and break a heart, it is simply this: Be kind.

That said, here is my answer… 

As any jilted wife will tell you, having your husband leave you for another woman is unbearably painful. There’s the heartbreak and the humiliation to contend with, but there is also plenty of shock value. It really is an experience that just keeps on giving.

There were many things that shocked me when X walked out the door… Firstly there was the initial horror of realising that he had been fully engaged in another relationship for quite some time, to the point where he had obviously been mapping out a whole new life for himself.

Then there was the realisation that our 17-year relationship really was completely over and there would never ever be any going back – X had absolutely no intention of returning and I was officially separated and a single parent.

But the thing that shocked me the most was how he suddenly started treating me as a complete hindrance to his happiness. I was no longer his loving and loyal wife or someone that he cared deeply about; instead I was an insufferable pain who he now had to endure on a regular basis as we began the process of shared parenting and headed down a one-way street toward divorce.

From one day to the next I was quite literally discarded and told by X that he had “transferred” his affections. Apparently I was no longer attractive to him, we had little in common, I was too old for him (there’s a six-year age gap), I was an imperfect mother and I just wasn’t needy enough.

I had been lied to, cheated on and dumped, but it was entirely my fault.

My personal favourite parting comment, however, was that he had NEVER BEEN IN LOVE WITH ME! Obviously those magical feelings he had developed for the girl from work were so overwhelming that the previous 17 years of our lives no longer held any meaning or currency.

He seemed to forget that he had relocated from London to live with me, that we travelled the world together, made lifelong plans, celebrated our marriage on two continents, bought our first home together and were both completely ecstatic when our first son was born. He had also clearly forgotten about the love letters he penned every week when he was overseas studying, and the beautiful things he would make for me when we were apart for long periods.

 

Made on a UK beach by the man who had never been in love with me.

There were times when the situation was just laughable, like when X would arrange for me and our boys to have some “family time” with him, but he’d spend the whole time texting his new love. Needless to say, I put an abrupt end to these pseudo family outings – they were untenable on so many levels and I just didn’t want to spend any more unneccesary time with this man I no longer seemed to know.

My diagnosis was that X had a bad case of being in love with love… A fatal disease that kills good and honest relationships, builds new relationships on sandy foundations and leaves behind a trail of heartbreak and destruction.

All I could wonder at the time was: At which precise moment were his affections transferred? And exactly how long had our relationship been a farce? I remember yelling at him on more than one occasion: "You watched me give birth to your children!"... Not that it made an ounce of difference.

Initially it was excruciating to think I had become nothing more to X than the woman he had children with. This man I had been so devoted to was treating me with absolute contempt and did everything possible to exclude me from his life. But as time passed and the sessions I spent with my counsellor became more focused on me and less on him, the pain subsided. Unexpectedly meeting another man just a year after X left me also went a long way toward piecing my broken heart back together.

Even though my heartbreak had been cured, for a long time it would still hurt whenever X said anything remotely nasty to me – sometimes it still surprises me that he has been quite cruel but seems to live without remorse. I’m of the opinion that he still needs to apologise to me for the way our relationship ended, but am not holding my breath. And as my counsellor so reassuringly said: “The Universe will apologise to you on his behalf.”

Nearly nine years on, my skin has thickened and the impact of X’s words is pretty minimal these days, and nothing about his behaviour really shocks me any more. I’m actually extremely thankful he left me and was so utterly awful in those early days – he made it pretty easy to fall out of love with him and his actions led me directly into the arms of a man more worthy of my heart. The Universe seems to have said sorry in the most perfect way, and I'm willing to accept that.

Love will tear us apart

A moody song (and one of my all-time favourites) on this rainy, windy, crazy day...

                                                                 © Cleopatra Records, taken from YouTube

Enduring love

I've seen this clip a couple of times before and you may have too, but I thought I'd share it anyway. To me it's a beautiful reminder of how deep the river of love runs... Even when you have long moved on.

The background story is that performance artists Marina Abramovic and Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen) had an intense artistic/romantic relationship in the 1970s and '80s. Their 12-year union ended in 1988 with a dramatic gesture – they met in the middle of the Great Wall of China, said goodbye then walked in opposite directions.

After rarely seeing Ulay in the years since, Marina held an exhibition at MoMA (New York) in 2010. As part of her show she sat in silence while members of the public sat opposite her.

This is what happened when Ulay showed up unexpectedly...

Long live love. x

Oh, the pain

Recently I’ve been asked a lot of questions about my divorce and the affair that led us there. So, I'm going to answer those questions one by one…  

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST PART? 
Ask anyone who’s been through a divorce and they will tell you that it’s hard, whether it was a mutual decision or came about as the result of an affair (my scenario). There are lots of difficult things about divorce – the emotional pain, the great sense of failure, the logistical aspects of separating two entwined lives, the general letting go and trying to move forth with your pride and dignity intact. 

I found all of these things just as horrible and gut-wrenching as everyone else who has walked the same path, but for me nothing was harder than having to hand my children over to X knowing they would be spending the weekend with THE OTHER WOMAN. 

I swear that the first few times I had to send my sweet angels off to be in the company of my archenemy, I actually vomited. It felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart a thousand times and I was throwing up chunks of my severely damaged organ. It’s the most violent physical reaction I’ve ever had to anything. 

My counsellor attempted to console me by reminding me that I survived my own parents’ divorce, and that X and Y wouldn’t exactly be playing happy families. But I was utterly inconsolable. I felt like screaming out my own version of Ellen Ripley’s classic line in Alien… “GET AWAY FROM THEM, YOU BITCH.” 

It just didn’t feel at all natural to be handing over my baby, who was only 16 months at the time. The thought of Y holding him or kissing him or trying to mother him in any way was just too excruciating for words.

And knowing that my eldest son (then aged 7) was putting on his bravest face each time he left me was devastating. Every single night for 10 entire months his big blue eyes would pool up as he tried to make sense of why his Dad would want to leave us to go and live with another woman.

I kept reiterating the point that Daddy had left me, not him and his brother. He simply didn't understand and it was so agonising to watch him go through his first experience of heartbreak. He took to painting pictures of his fractured family, where the four of us would typically be standing outside of a house. It was quite literally the house with no heart, and just looking at those paintings still makes me cry.

One of our eldest son's 'divorce' paintings.

It took a very, very long time for me to get to a point where I didn’t feel any pain or fury or despair every time my boys headed off to be with X and Y. It was extremely difficult to accept that I had absolutely zero control over the situation – X had the right to see whoever he wanted when our boys were with him, and I had no choice but to get used to it. 

Counselling was key to delivering me to a place of peace. And I guess I realised after a while that even though X had deemed me replaceable, my boys would only ever have one Mother – and that great privilege is all mine. 

Once I had gotten through the grief of our relationship breakdown and my world started opening up again, I began to treat my child-free weekends like a magical gift. I even started to feel a little sorry for Y – she had no children of her own but had to work hard all week then spend most of her weekends helping to care for mine. I definitely don’t think she got the best deal.

Now I can honestly say that I don’t give it another thought when Friday comes around. In fact, sometimes I’m so completely exhausted from working and managing the whole school week single-handedly that I can’t wait for the weekends to arrive. I know my boys are in good hands and I want them to both have a healthy and happy relationship with their Dad, and I truly appreciate his ongoing devotion to them. 

While I don’t like the fact that Y continues to ignore my requests to meet up and move forth (after all, it’s been over eight years and I'm happily in love again), it doesn't pain me to know she's a part of my boys' lives – and I have to give her some credit for hanging in there. On the whole, despite the challenges I think X and I have done a pretty fantastic job of ensuring that our boys feel secure and well-loved and normal.

Our eldest son (who is now 15) says he loves having two homes in two completely different locations (X lives in the city and I live in the country) – he's well-adjusted and confident and at ease with the fact that his parents are divorced. Our youngest son (almost 10) is completely enamoured of his Dad at the moment, so is always thrilled at the thought of seeing him and goes off without a care in the world. 

As for me, I’m happy knowing my boys are content. Really, what more can a parent ask for!

How are you today?

Here in Australia it's the annual R U OK Day... a fabulous initiative that reminds us to reach out to anyone we know who is struggling in any way at all – whether it's a result of depression, anxiety, illness, alcoholism, addiction, grief, solo parenting or a recently broken heart. Let your loved ones know how much you care. And if you're the one struggling, please don't shy away from asking for help.

 Let's all help brighten someone's day.

Dear X, this one's for you...

It’s Father’s Day, so naturally my thoughts turn to my own dear Dad and to you – the much-loved father of our two sweet boys.

Since the day you walked out the door I have been privy to countless stories about hideous ex-husbands who don’t take the concept of shared parenting seriously. And when I look around at the endless sea of amazing single mums I know who are doing it really tough – and often completely solo – I feel extremely grateful that I chose you to have children with.

While we’ve had some pretty memorable ex moments over the years and don’t always see eye to eye, I completely trust you when it comes to parenting our boys, and I appreciate the fact that you have never ever shied away from fathering them. So far you've done a pretty great job of it.

They both adore you and – because we are eternally linked by them – there will always be a piece of my heart reserved just for you.

Our lovely boys, way back when...

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

Lx

And so it goes

I recently went to see my good friend Jess sing at a local choir festival, and before she came on stage another choir sang Billy Joel's And So It Goes... It's a sad and beautiful song that I hadn't heard for a thousand years, and I loved the thought of there being a room in every heart... 

A sanctuary safe and strong

To heal the wounds from lovers past

Until a new one comes along.

That's the most magical thing about having your heart broken – someone new does eventually come along and life starts moving in unexpected directions, reminding you that not everything lasts forever and sometimes the worst thing that ever happened to you was actually the best thing. 

Ode to a single father

There’s a new book out called Single Father, Better Dad (by Mark Tucker), and it got me thinking back to my childhood and reflecting on the great wonder of my own Single Father – a larger-than-life character with an amazing passion for life. 

Dad wasn’t an exemplary husband – he was wild and irresponsible, and he liked the good times to roll on and on (just some of the reasons Mum left him when my sister and I were little). But he was a fabulous father. 

Way back when divorced parents were a rarity among my peers and ‘single dad’ wasn’t yet common terminology, my sweet Dad was leading the way. He cared little for worldly possessions and money was scarce, but he gave my sister and I the greatest gift of all – every single ounce of his spare time. 

Each Saturday without fail he would swing by and collect us in his work van, and we would help him deliver ice-creams and spread his good cheer to all the shops dotted around our outback town. 

Sunday afternoons Dad would pick us up again for our regular family roast with our Croatian grandparents and cousins, after which we’d do the rounds of the neighbourhood, stopping in at countless houses for a chat – to the point where we knew pretty much every living soul in the south part of town.

He’d take us to his favourite football club or to watch the Croatian community gather for a game of bocce or a celebration of some kind. Then, as we got older and occasionally stayed with Dad overnight, he would think up all sorts of mischief for the three of us to get up to… Like scaling the fence of the local pool for a midnight swim, or breaking into a mate’s backyard to give his prize birds a taste of freedom. He'd even let us cut his hair – something I definitely had no talent for.

There were no curfews if we wanted to go to a party, he had no problem with us going to nightclubs way before we should have been and we could tell him absolutely anything, knowing there would be no judgement and little consequence. It was pretty much like hanging out with an oversized kid – one with an extremely sharp wit, an endless thirst for fun, a car and all the friends you could ever want.

Whenever we parted Dad would throw his arms around us and openly declare his great love – it was a beautiful thing that came so completely naturally to him.

... It's all kids need.

I still have the countless letters he sent when I was all grown up and travelling the world. They’re handwritten in his signature upper-case style and signed off with a giant hand-drawn heart emblazoned with the words ‘I LOVE YOU’, and they will be forever treasured. 

It’s been almost 13 years since that big-hearted man made his grand departure, packing the local cathedral to the rafters with just about everyone he had ever met, and I can still hear his bellowing laugh and feel that boundless love. If X and I have made our sons feel even half as loved as me and my sister, then I would argue that a large part of our job is done. 

Dad certainly had his flaws, and I can’t say whether or not it was being a single father that made him a better dad. But having so much time with him sure made his finest qualities shine as bright as a million stars, and my sister and I can never talk about him without laughing out loud.

LOVE YOU, DAD. MISS YOU. xxx

A small message of hope

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming. – Pablo Neruda

He loved me not

“Why do you want to be with a man who’s telling you he’s not in love with you?”

Posed by my counsellor after my first few sessions with her, this was the question that completely woke me from my post-separation stupor.

                                                                             Image: Source unknown.

I had never had any counselling before, and I felt awkward and self-indulgent and vulnerable at first, but my counsellor was so gentle and kind and knowing that her bright and sunny room soon became a beautiful sanctuary. Being able to talk so freely about myself was a revelation in itself, and – after being in a relationship for so long – I was pretty keen to make some sense of my unwanted new reality. 

On the first few visits she listened intently as my heart was bleeding out, and now it was obviously time to shake things up and give the conversation a whole new direction. Her question seemed so obvious, yet I hadn't considered it at any point.

Apart from the fact that I desperately didn’t want our sons to follow in my footsteps and hail from a broken home filled with fractured hearts, I didn’t really have a worthy answer. But even when the session ended, I couldn’t get that question out of my head and it marked a turning point as far as my heartbreak was concerned. 

Really, why would anyone want to be with someone whose actions have stated loudly and clearly that love has left the building? And, more specifically, why would I want to be with someone that was prepared to completely betray my trust and tear our lovely little family apart? 

That single question made such an impact that it stays with me still, and I think it’s something we should all ask the young men and women in our lives to ponder as they start entering into relationships. Hopefully it will go some way to teaching them the importance of loving themselves over and above all others.

Five things

When X and I were in the initial stages of separating and all communication had broken down, my counsellor made a suggestion:

  

Whenever we had an argument or couldn’t find anything kind or respectful to say, WRITE FIVE THINGS about each other that we genuinely love and appreciate.

  

It’s simple and effective, and can sometimes help to turn the tide.

 

My mantra

When I was going through the darkest hours of my separation, my wonderful counsellor would say: 'After winter comes the spring'... It's become my mantra. Feel free to share it.

The Punch

A bit of background: I grew up in the outback and my sister and I were tomboys who regularly engaged in rock fights and good-natured bike ramming with the neighbourhood boys. I was sporty and feisty, and my Dad taught me how to punch properly when I was young – just in case I ever needed to. 

So, this leads me to a confession… When I discovered Y (the Other Woman) at X’s new living-the-single-life digs one morning, not long after he left me, I gave her my finest left hook and knocked her to the ground.

Time seemed to stand still for a few seconds, as I distinctly remember thinking that I had to avoid hitting her glasses before I gave her an upper cut to the cheek. And just to give to the whole ugly scenario an authentic white-trash vibe, my baby was sitting on my right hip.

I’m not going to lie – it felt profoundly satisfying at the time, and it was somewhat of a relief to literally come face to face with the truth after enduring months of X’s deception. But over the years that punch hasn’t served me well, and it still keeps coming back to haunt me – proving that no good can come of a violent act.

Aside from the obvious – I could have caused injury and been facing an assault charge – it gave X and Y all the fuel they needed to regularly play the “crazy” card. I was instantly labelled “profoundly violent” and this has resulted in me having zero contact with Y for the past eight years (apart from a couple of emails, the last sent in 2009).

In all this time I haven’t even as much as glimpsed her. Whenever I’m dropping my sons to spend the weekend with X, I have to send him a text in advance of our arrival, presumably so Y can make a hasty exit. She never answers the phone and we have never communicated regarding the boys, except for the time she gave my eldest son a haircut (oh yes she did!).

It's a pretty ludicrous situation. Over the years I've attempted to change it by suggesting to X that we all meet and put our ancient history behind us, but the mere suggestion seems to send us all spinning out of control and generate unnecessary drama that we're all forced to feed off for a few days.

                                                                                                                                                        Source unknown.

I’m typically told that my attempts to extend the proverbial olive branch are not genuine and – being my hot-headed self – I react negatively (I’ve penned some pretty heated missives that have probably enhanced my crazy-woman status). And so the avoidance goes on and we never get any closer to resolution or peace, or anything remotely healthy or grown-up. 

I’m left feeling frustrated and defeated, and I’m sure X must feel exactly the same. We just can't seem to get beyond this point. Even our sons think it’s pretty ridiculous after all this time – us so-called adults are hardly setting a good example of how to make amends and move forth with dignity.

Regrettably, I really think a large portion of the whole mess can be traced directly back to THE PUNCH. And while I can’t take it back, I can say that it hasn’t been worth the trouble. I can also take responsibility and make one last (and cross-my-heart genuine) attempt to make the situation more tenable for everyone.

In the meantime, all good advice is welcome.

The Humiliation Factor

The one thing you can do is to do nothing. Wait… You will find that you survive humiliation and that’s an experience of incalculable value. – T.S. Eliot

When it finally dawned on me that X and Y had been having their affair, probably for quite some time, I felt utterly humiliated. It wasn’t horrible enough that the man I loved had been lying and making future plans that didn’t include me, but the woman who had posed as his “friend” and had the audacity to come to our home and sit at our dinner table while I was pregnant was clearly laughing in my face.

I felt like THE BIGGEST IDIOT ON THE PLANET. And when I received an anonymous phone call from someone at X’s work – who, in some kind of sisterly show of solidarity, literally called to say: “Your husband is having an affair with Y” – my humiliation was complete. 

It was hard having to share the news with my family and friends, but the realisation that all of X’s colleagues seemed to know all about my (unconscious) uncoupling well in advance of me was mortifying.

It wasn’t just that I had been fully duped; it was that I had obviously failed as a wife. And the idea of being divorced and a single parent was scary.

Looking back, I think feeling like a fool was a fairly natural reaction. No-one ever wants to be the last to know their relationship has become a farce.

Fortunately for me, I could compare my own to level of humiliation to Jennifer Aniston’s (her marriage breakup happened not long before mine). On a scale of 1 to 10, she was definitely experiencing a humiliation rating of 50. In my darkest hours I would be comforted by the thought that the other woman in my life wasn’t Angelina Jolie, and that the whole entire world wasn’t weighing in on the tragic state of my marriage.

I was definitely feeling Jen’s pain but suspected she would be just fine – some handsome leading man would surely come her way, the movie offers would keep flowing in and she could always talk things through with Oprah or Ellen. And because there were no children involved, Jen didn’t have to see her Ex’s smug little Angelina-Jolie-is-in-love-with-me face in the flesh on a regular basis. 

I, on the other hand, didn’t think I’d ever be able to get off the floor for long enough to work again. I was pretty certain no dreamy guy would be wanting me and my considerable baggage. I definitely wouldn’t be left with a fabulous mansion and healthy bank account post property settlement, and I had no choice but to see X’s I-have-left-you-for-another-woman-and-am-feeling-so-loved-up-and-you-are-now-insignificant-to-me face on a daily basis. It was definitely a low point.

Thankfully I had two lovely and demanding little boys to care for, otherwise I might have just curled up in a corner and sobbed myself completely into oblivion. 



© 2014 Inertia Recordings

Eventually – with the help of an amazing counsellor, my sweet family and exceptional friends – I realised nobody was laughing at me. My humiliation soon subsided and made way for the next stage of relationship grief. 

In the process I discovered that surviving humiliation genuinely is an experience of incalculable value – it opens your eyes, expands your ability to empathise and gives you the chance to have a good laugh at your sorry self. And the truly great thing about humiliation is that it shines a spotlight on the people who absolutely love you and really will be there for you through thick and thin.

I’m not suggesting that you seek humiliation out… If you can avoid it that's a good thing. But if it happens to come your way unexpectedly, then consider it a lesson in resilience, and know that it will pass.

Not so fast, Missus!

Last week I was at Coles having a chat to a lovely (married) woman I’ve met a few times about small-town living, local schools and single parenting. It was pretty general stuff, but after a while she looked right at me and declared: “I could never be a single mother!”

It clearly wasn’t said out of malice and I didn’t feel the need react on the spot, but it stuck with me. 

I guess the obvious thing to have pointed out would be that no young girl in the history of the world has ever looked to the sky, fixed her gaze on the brightest star and shouted out into the cosmos: ‘WHEN I GROW UP, I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY WANT TO BE A SINGLE MOTHER!” 

Given a second chance to respond, I might just be compelled to do something completely out of character, like put on my finest David-Duchovny-as-Hank-Moody-in-Californication voice and say something along the lines of: “Hey, Sister, don’t be so ignorant – my terrible affliction could befall you, too.” 

After all, becoming a single parent wasn’t my choice – following a very long, stable, productive and mostly happy relationship, my ex-husband had a complete change of heart and left me in order to pursue another woman. From one day to the next my safe and fairly predictable home life was turned on its head.

Despite the heartbreak and chaos that ensued, I discovered quite quickly that I could definitely and unequivocally BE A SINGLE MOTHER. In fact, one of the greatest benefits of X’s actions was the very comforting realisation that I had the ability to fend for myself and my boys. 

Among other talents, I can generate income, pay my bills and single-handedly maintain a happy and well-fed household. I've got a fantastic support network, have developed excellent negotiation skills, know exactly what I can rely on X for when it comes to our children and – as a welcome aside – I have very little fear around abandonment or relationships not working out.

So, in the interest of bestowing greater consciousness on all the married-with-children women who are as uneducated as I once was about the delicate art of single parenting, I’m going to ask that you put yourself in my well-worn, single-mother shoes for a moment and ask yourself what your life would look like if your husband suddenly departed.

For instance:

• Could you financially support yourself and your children?

• Do you have your own bank account and/or shared control over the family finances?

• Could you afford to live where you’re living now?

• Do you now what your legal rights are regarding shared parenting and property settlement?

• Do you know who you can absolutely call on in times of crisis?

• Is your relationship with your parents-in-law solid enough to survive divorce?

• Do you have some idea of how your husband would treat you and your children if he were to fall in love with someone else?

• How would you feel about another woman co-parenting your children?
• How would you cope with any gossip and innuendo?
• Does the mere thought of online dating make you break out in a cold sweat? 
• Do you have the name of a good counsellor handy?

It really is worth giving these things some thought, because ignorance is not always blissful. 

And please don’t ever say to me that you could never be a single mother. If I can do it, you most certainly can.

My heartfelt thanks

In 2009 my sweet friend DS was curating an art exhibition in Sydney around the theme of identity, and he asked me to contribute. Not being an artist, I politely declined. He was insistent, however, and called me one day to say my name was included on the invite and I therefore HAD to produce something.

I decided to take up the challenge and create a written piece, which I would then embroider (something I can actually do). The above image is the result. It provides an overview of the breakdown of my marriage and what it took to get me through my grief. It was extremely personal and served to make me question the things that ‘identified’ me at that point. I entitled it: ‘I WANT TO SAY THANK YOU’.

Working on the actual embroidery was labour-intensive and, consequently, cathartic – it made me stop and take stock, and every now and then I would break down and cry as I was sewing furiously to meet my deadline. Somehow DS knew I needed to do this (he’s a little spooky like that).

I thought it would be fitting for my discarded wedding ring to sit at the centre of the piece. It sits there still, and the embroidery is folded neatly and tucked away in a cupboard, along with the box of love letters and a few trinkets and gifts that seemed to lose all meaning once X had broken his vows.

On the evening of the exhibition opening, I was touched to see my words evoke a few tears from friends and people I didn’t know. I did send a photo of the embroidery to X, but all he had to say was that he hoped this would be “the last muddy public outing” of our personal lives.

And here we are… It’s been over eight years since X walked out the door and five years since the muddy public outing. Adhering to the ‘one day at a time’ approach to recovery, I have survived and forged a new life, and I’m happy to say that Thoreau’s theory has held fast.

So, on the occasion of my very first blog post, I want to say THANK YOU to all the amazing people in my life that have helped me to get here. Let this new journey begin.