MY perspective on my parents' divorce is possibly a little unusual:
it's none of my business. I respect my mother and know that she is an intelligent person. If she needed to divorce then she did it for the right reasons and those reasons are hers, not mine.
Divorce is a thing that happened to my parents, not to me.
Next week marks the start of Marriage Week, timed nicely to follow on the heels of marriage and divorce statistics in England and Wales from the Office of National Statistics. They show that the number of divorces in England and Wales increased slightly from 2011 to 2012, by 0.5%.
That doesn't seem particularly alarming a figure but you'd never know it from the headlines, which played with the fact the numbers equal a divorce recorded every five minutes.
We talk about the "epidemic" of divorce, as though it were a societal disease. I'm sure plenty of people would agree that, yes, it is such.
However, I worry that, in these periodic campaigns that start up to "save" marriage (Mend It, Don't End It) and in the notion of a Marriage Week, we risk rebuilding a taboo.
There are two things about divorce: one, it's difficult for the children; two, it's a signal that two people shouldn't have married in the first place.
Of course, when you have children it's hard to admit you shouldn't have married in the first place, because then you wouldn't have the children. That doesn't mean it's an issue that shouldn't be addressed.
The automatic response to news of divorce is: "Oh, such a shame." Is it, still, a shame? Children are damaged when two people are unhappy - whether that's together or apart. It is also in the breakdown of a marriage, not just in bravely battling on, that love and care can be shown.
I've started spotting "Congratulation on Your Divorce" cards in Paperchase, and who can forget the Debenhams divorce gift list? These things are a bridge too far.
But marriages will end and what is needed is a pragmatic approach to this hard fact - how to have a good marriage and a good divorce. Moral scolding is of no use: more important is supporting a process whereby children are the centre of any decisions, and protected.
Divorce is frightening and confusing for children to endure but it is possible to help them grow up, as in my case, without the divorce being the defining event of their lives.
Good might also come from trying to persuade people to choose properly in the first place. With all the choices now available to us in life it is a little eye-goggling that folk still see marriage as an essential progression, like an office promotion.
The marriage myth makes it acceptable to agonise for hours over profiterole stacks or cake pops, rather than whether you're actually doing the right thing with the right person for the right motivations. A survey earlier this week offered up the glum figure that 38% of married women believe an engagement ring's size is a symbol of how much their husband loves them. That's more cause for despair than any divorce stat could be.
There's the old truism about being happy with yourself first. There's something marriage zealots could do with teaching. I bet most divorces began as engagements where the partners' doubts niggled, they had a personal void to fill or were seeking a baby-facilitator. You can be happy that your hunt for a spouse is at an end but don't expect sudden eternal sunshine. You're still you, you've just surrendered control of your possessions, earnings and finances.
Perhaps the only way to cut the divorce rate is to cut the marriage rate. That, or accept that neither marriage nor divorce are easy options; I think that's a message too little shared.
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