“Hi Maggie, we came for a newborn session with you a while back. Me and my husband are currently getting divorced. Is there any way you could photoshop him out of our family photo?”
This blog post was on my mind for ages, but I never felt quite qualified to write it. I am a photographer. I am not a councillor or a shrink. As a divorcee, I am probably not the best person to go all high almighty on how a good relationship should work, but here’s the thing..
Every day I see the same thing happen to more and more of my friends. They go through hell, they want to leave then they justify staying with someone that no longer fulfils them, makes them happy and most of all, someone who no longer respects them. They do this “for the kids”, assuming this is the thing that should be done for the greater good. Time could not have been better from a personal perspective to throw my two pence.
I see around 200 happy couples each year. We want to believe it’s forever. We may or may not have had a big, white wedding to put a stamp on our relationship, but there is no stronger, permanent glue for a relationship than having a child / children together. It’s above and beyond any paper we can sign. It’s always “forever”. For good and for bad, in sickness and in health, we are responsible for another life together, whether both parties pull through on this or not. No one sane gets into a relationship even remotely considering the possibility of getting divorced a few years down the line. “It’s not going to happen to us!” We build the story of how our life is going to look and splitting possessions and arranging custody for our kids is not something that crosses our mind.
Every moment in our life and every situation is a new experience. We didn’t get a manual at birth covering possible situations and how to handle those. So what happens when you find yourself at the relationship crossroads?
Maybe it’s a clear cut situation, if those even exist. You caught your partner cheating, they agree they may be involved with another person and you go separate ways. Maybe they simply fell out of love and had the guts to tell you. There is no one else involved. Your heart breaks either way, but with the decision being solely in someone else’s hands, it’s that much easier to compartmentalise it. We cut our loses, lash out and get the anger out and the sea settles and you both try and dab the blood gashing from this wound to avoid splattering it all over your family more than it already had. This is the grown up way of dealing with things but since it happens as often as unicorns flying over the Northern Lights, let’s talk about the not-so-black-and-white scenario.
We feel unappreciated. We feel misunderstood. We feel like the whole pressure of raising the family is on our shoulders. If we are working and raising the family, we are feeling cheated of both. We don’t feel good enough as parents, as there’s a social pressure for us to nail the parenting as though we don’t have a job at all. We don’t feel good enough at work, because we cannot fully submerge ourselves into the issue at hand, when there is million and one football matches / baby parties / homework school projects aimed at parents with more spare time than you. We are expected to nail every aspect of our life in a way three people with three PAs would struggle with. We would be lucky if there’s an extended family to fall back on, this would probably buy us another few years before the inevitable split. If we haven’t got that support though, the pressure can pile on faster than an avalanche in Alps and just like that, we are dragged down with all it’s force and no resistance can fix it.
Maybe the pressure was piling on but there was never a trigger to push us over the edge. We are unhappy for a while but how can we end the relationship with something that feels so intangible? When is bad “BAD” enough? We are not getting beaten up physically but the relationship is not what it used to be.
Maybe you grew apart. Everyone is different and if we got together early on in life, met young and one of you grew up faster than the other and realise what you want out of life is not what you currently have. Social media reminds us of all the things we could have had and the environment is not helping. We got into it not knowing what it is we want from life. Then we see that what we want from it and it’s not in line with what our partner wants. It may be the way we bring up kids, establishing who would take on the majority of house work and what career goals we have. This grinds over time. Water hollows out stone. The situation could have been resolved if we talked and listened to each other but it’s really hard to be reasonable when we are full of anger and resentment.
Maybe we discovered there is someone else but somehow between raising three kids and trying to stay sane, we are willing to overlook this as our financial situation is not strong enough to leave. Maybe we are scared staying on our own. Maybe our self esteem was suffocated to the point we no longer believe we could be worthy of anyone else. We justify it in our head, make sense of it all and carry on believing this is the best outcome we will ever get.
Maybe our parents went through a break up and we promised ourselves we would never do this to our kids, no matter what it takes. Even if it kills us on the inside, and means we would suffer in silence for the rest of our life.
Maybe we stay in the same, unhappy relationship, because “our family doesn’t do divorces”.
Maybe our partner doesn’t give us any attention. They are busy making sure the bills are paid, and we realise it but we want more. We want to be appreciated, loved and treated as a partner, but somewhere between making ends meet, new baby, work, both of us may feel ignored. If we don’t open up about it and talk about the situation before the situation is beyond repair.
Maybe our financial situation causes arguments and we’re starting to think we would be better off alone. The divorce rates are considerably higher for low income families, than for collage educated, middle class couples.
Even if we both earn our fair share or if our household income is healthy, it quite often means we live to the edge of our wallet. We can struggle financially earning double the country average and be solvent on a minimum salary. Money management is a skill in itself, and often doesn’t go hand in hand with our earning powers.
Intimacy issues, addictions, selfishness.. There are million and one reasons why relationships run their course. We need help but feel too scared to ask for it. We got to the point of no return. We are not happy. It affects our family life. It takes its tall on our kids. We tell our closest friends that it’s over. Post 101 cryptic Facebook status updates.
Couple of weeks later, the emotions subsided again and we let our partner talk us around to giving them another chance. We realise a break up is a huge decision to make. We use our kids as a reason why we won’t be pursuing this. Again. It’s not that bad after all.
We book holidays / have another baby. Blame it on tiredness.
Fifty percent of marriages end up in divorce, we won’t be one of those. We post a few happy family photos on line to make everyone forget every word we said. This almost works. Except deep inside this decision never quite sits well with us. “Maybe after kids move out, we will go separate ways”. We burn another 5-10 years of our life. Then kids are out, it’s just the two of us. Loneliness seems more scary than the lack of love, which we got used to by now anyway.
So where does it leave us?
Where is this blogpost going?
Of course as much as we’d love to think it’s always someone else’s fault, we may just be the person at fault. We may be impossible to live with. Maybe because of our past, maybe because we are shaped that way, defensive, argumentative. There is always a reason for our behaviour, and as long as we understand it, we can fix it. We need to make an effort to try and understand it if this could save our family. Otherwise the chances are, the problem will reappear again, with a new partner, a few years later.
We should always try and resolve the situation, give ourselves the best chance at working things out, but there comes a time when we need to pull that plaster from the would and let it heal on its own.
The Office for National Statistics puts UK life expectancy at 79.2 years for men and 82.9 years for women. To make our estimates easier, let’s say we have a good chance of making it to 80.
The first years of our life are the testing years for all sorts of relationships, but with school filling our time, we won’t focus on those. That’s 20 years out of that 80 stretch. From 20 till 30 we tend to look for a partner / finish university / find our first job. Thirty is currently the average UK age for women to have their first child. Age related illnesses usually kick in around 50.
Of course there are tons of people who won’t fit this criteria, but we are talking about a box standard example that will be relatable to most.
30-50. Twenty years when on average we are physically fit, conscious of our decisions, smart enough to know better, with enough life experiences to make good decisions and suffer the fall out from the bad ones. Kids are living with us, we are professionally active. We still have enough energy to go find a partner and start over. It’s never too late to start over but the twenty years between 30 and 50 are the best time for that. You have abundance of knowledge about the world, but more importantly about yourself as a person. You know what you will never allow to happen, you know how you deserve to be treated. You know your place in the pack, your strengths and weaknesses. You know your family happiness starts from you. If the core of your family is ill, and unhappiness could be treated as that, this spreads.
The definition of formative years is quite clear on that. Early childhood, which spans the period up to 8 years of age, is critical for cognitive, social, emotional and physical development. This doesn’t stop at school, but more than anything, it extends to children’s understanding of what they want to accept in life and what they should not settle for.
Two adults being unhappy, staying together, sends a message to our children, that no matter how they feel, they should be the martyrs and suffer in silence, or quite the opposite: listen to daily blame game ping pong, watching two people not respecting each other. Maybe moving in and out of the house to make a point, but from your children’s perspective all it looks like is one party not having the guts to make a clean break, believe in themselves. We become the poster example of “you’re not good enough to be happy”. If you knew all this, would you stick around, brewing your anger and letting this time affect the most important time in your children’s development, or would you get hold of all the bits of shattered guts you have left and give your family a chance for a fresh start and happier days? Your kids deserve this chance and so do you.
If this is still a hard pill to swallow, how about this: imagine your child at 35, in a relationship, two kids, a dog and a house with a pretty garden. They come over, bring your grandchildren for dinner and tell you things are not great at home. They are fighting, the love is gone, the respect is gone. They are suffering but find every reason under the Sun to keep it together. It’s heading in one direction, you are trying not to give advice, not to get involved. This happens again and again. You see your own child at a breaking point, going backwards and forward in a relationship that no longer serves them and their family. You promised yourself years ago, you would always protect your baby and you don’t feel like you can anymore. they saw you sticking around for years, suffering in silence and they accept that as a constant. That’s all they every knew. Submission. Acceptance. They have no fight in them, because they never seen any fight in you.
The thing you know that they may not quite realise yet, is that the one thing you will never get back is the time you wasted wishing all the problems would go away on their own. We all make mistakes and sometimes even the smartest ones marry the wrong people. even the best people can change over time. Life shapes us and the shape we mould into over the years doesn’t always end up pleasant and positive. We can always get another house, we can always build a new home, but the longer we leave for the “new”, the less of it we’ll get. The more bitter we’ll get. You can never recycle lost time.
Put yourself in a situation, when you don’t resolve to Photoshop to cut someone toxic out of your life. Do it yourself.
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