He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong

                (from Funeral Blues by W.H Auden)

Ours was a marriage that was meant to last.  We had everything that it took: we were educated people; both in helping professions. We knew that we had to talk about problems when they came along – that was the way to deal with them.  But we hadn’t reckoned on the pressures of careers and family. We began to live past one another ...

We were taking a weekend away – at a campsite where a friend let us use his mobile home. On the way, we were chatting about our marriage. I was under the blissful misconception that nothing could go wrong.

“I refuse to be a statistic!” I responded when he spoke about the increasing number of divorces in South Africa.  Nothing could happen to us, I believed. We loved one another. We were both educated people. We did not suffer from the malaise of our parents’ generation - that of keeping quiet when things went wrong. At the first sign of trouble, we would seek help and get our barque of love back on course.

But I did not reckon with the increasing pressures of careers that took their toll on our union. Also, our children were growing up. Catering to their varied and busy lives meant that we sometimes only spoke to one another for a few minutes as we fell exhausted into bed at night.

We both had demanding professions, which meant spending a lot of our time dealing with the problems of others. I remember his coming home late one night after having counselled a prostitute. We laughed about the bizarre situation. It became an example which we related to our friends of how strong and trusting our marriage was.

We thought we were invincible and that our marriage was an inviolable fortress.  But I was not able to see this one coming. My compassionate husband felt the need to care for a bereaved friend and her family - more than he did for me.  So the first cracks began to show.  I did not know how to fight back. I did not know how to restore the equilibrium to our relationship. All I could do was ask myself - how could this be happening to us?  

For me, the issue was one of broken trust. Before, I had trusted him implicitly. But then I suddenly began to suspect his lateness and doubt his reasons for being unable to make appointments.  In our early days together, we would be able to know what the other was thinking. But slowly, great gaping holes in our communication grew.  The cracks were growing wider and as I gazed into the abyss that loomed before me, I could only see darkness.

I kept pretending that it would be fine; that we were just going through a phase. After all, I still loved him; he was the father of my sons. But it did not get better. When I think back on those four or five years of what I can now only describe as a growing estrangement, accompanied by my helplessness, I am puzzled at what kept me sane. In retrospect, I wonder at the damage we did to our children with our pretense. I shall never really know.

When he finally called an end to it three years ago, I was devastated. The mills of the law can grind exceedingly fast when they are pushed. A mere six weeks after the announcement, I was divorced.

I found myself pondering over the words of the Auden poem. If he had died, the whole world would have rallied around me in support. I could have carried on wearing my wedding ring, secure always in the knowledge that, however imperfect it had been, I had remained married.

Instead I carried the stigma of divorce. He moved away to begin a new life. I remained in our home; still worked at the same place; worshiped among the same congregation of people. I was aware of the whispered comments and averted eyes.  I wished that I could become invisible – or that I could run away and hide. But I also knew that wherever I went, I would take my damaged self with me.

I have always been an innately positive, goal-driven person who did not give much credence to the concept of ‘depression’. Someone once described this term as the opposite of ‘expression’ – and it was then that I discovered just how true it was. I found myself unable to ‘express’. I went through the motions at work. On returning home, I would find myself sitting, sometimes for hours, and having no recollection afterwards of my thoughts. I had given up on life.

I was not taking care of myself; I was not eating or sleeping properly. Soon, my health began to suffer.  I knew I needed help: anti-depressants. They did help, but at some level it was foolish. The medication cushioned me. I felt disconnected from my emotions. Intellectually I was sad, but the raw pain had gone. I began to feel that I was coping with life again.

It was two years before I realised I had to stop the medication. I had lost a dear friend tragically and unexpectedly. It was at his funeral that it hit me: while I was really sad that he was gone, my lack of appropriate affect had me worried. Slowly, I began the weaning process.

It was as though the years on medication had merely been a hiatus. All the pain of the divorce came back and threatened to overwhelm me. What was I to do?

That was a year ago: I found a counsellor. Many years older than I am, with the wisdom that only life can give one, she was able to put things in perspective for me. Aided by her patient observations and brutal honesty, I began to acknowledge the folly of trying to hold on to something that was irreparably broken. This has led me to a place of peace. It has not been easy. In the process, I underwent a period of extreme physical dis-ease, which left me examining my mortality, but finally I emerged with gratitude for the life I have.

I can’t say that it was a quick-fix, but every day I now get up in the mornings with a stronger sense of light dawning. There are days when I succumb to the negative and wonder whether I will be able to sustain the forward momentum. But there are also days when I recognise a bounce in my step and I can smile at the face which returns my glance in the mirror.

Those are the days when I can say with some degree of confidence, “There is life after divorce”