Making Divorce Work: In 9 Easy Steps

OK, so far so good, but this is the crucial stage, the turning point in the role-play, the moment at which the relationship could go either way. So how do you respond to Jennifer? What is your reaction? Do you believe her and pledge to start again, putting the past and all the distrust behind you once and for all? Or do you stand firm in your belief that she’s a bit of a hussy and not to be trusted? I’ve set out three possible responses, each taking a different emotional and psychological standpoint; which would you choose? Would you say …

1 What the hell are you talking about? I can’t believe you, I won’t believe you and I don’t believe you! You’re a busty charlatan, a floozy and a tramp! My mother was right, I should never have married you! Get out of the bedroom, get out of the house, get out of my life!

2 We need to talk over our problems in an adult, responsible manner. I’ve made an appointment with a relationship therapist for us both on Thursday night.

3 Have we got any milk?

Which did you choose? What do you think your choice says about you? I would like to be able to help you at this stage but of course it’s impossible for me to know which of the three options you chose. That’s a shame because I think this would be a wonderful opportunity for learning together. I did talk to my publishers about trying to develop an interactive element to the book, a Big Brother phone vote, a Who Wants to be a Millionaire “Press your buttons now!” moment or at the very least the big red and green pepper cards from Ready, Steady, Cook. Alas it wasn’t to be. We did work together for a while on some mini pepper cards but it was felt that they might lend the book a “novelty” feel that could work against us in the long run. We could end up looking like the sort of book you’d find in your stocking at Christmas and not, as I hope, a book that you’d find in the Academic section of the bookshop and one that will in the fullness of time be added to the National Curriculum.

NOW I KNOW

* The Welsh are happier than the Scots.

* You can sometimes judge a book by its cover.

* Uncle Gethyn found happiness in Guildford.

ANSWER TO WEDDING DAY QUIZ: I don’t know! I’ve got absolutely no idea, none whatsoever. I got the pictures off the Internet. It’s a mystery, an absolute mystery but that’s my point! The Mystery of Marriage… there is NO WAY ON EARTH of predicting who will stay together and who will split up.

I should point out that I’m not what you’d call a theatregoer. “What do I mean by that?” I mean that I don’t go to the theatre. I’m not a culture vulture and I would never claim to be one. Apart from Sinderella, one of the last things I saw at the theatre was a wonderful production of Babes in the Wood, the pantomime, in Cardiff. I took my two little smashers Rhys and Alyn along and we had a whale of a time. The show starred Lesley Grantham and Vicki Michelle, a top notch cast, and was in the days before Lesley’s internet pornography shame when the only shadow on his character was the business with the taxi driver. I always remember the show because I was wearing a ski jacket of all things! I’m not a skier, I would never say I was, but I’d bought this one second hand in a Sue Ryder shop. It was what I call a “puffer” style jacket in a very vivid purple, there was a tear on one arm, just below a sewn-on fabric patch that read, “VALMOREL ‘95”. I was never sure whether it had come from a skier who was disillusioned with skiing after an accident (hence the tear) or whether he was just fashion conscious and deemed it to be a bit “last year”. I never got to the bottom of it and to this day am none the wiser. Anyway, the point is I forgot to take the jacket off before the show started and was very hot indeed as basically I was dressed for Alpine conditions. We were sitting in “the Gods”, the highest part of the theatre, and I was sweating cobs; I wish you could have seen it, it was unbelievable. At one point Vicki Michelle came out and started to throw chocolates to the kids, a lovely gesture though not quite as generous as it first seems when you consider that the show was sponsored by Cadburys. Rhys and Alyn were egging me on to try and catch some confectionery so I stood up to get a better chance when I was hit in the eye by an Animal Bar. It was quite painful and gave me what doctors call temporary blindness. Nonetheless I did manage to drive home with no damage to flesh or bone, though we did lose a nearside wing mirror.

Gethyn, an avid Beatles fan, worked for Cardiff City Council and organized a trip to Hamburg, birthplace of The Beatles (but surprisingly, not the hamburger!) on council business. He was thrilled that he would finally walk in the footsteps of his heroes, having already visited Liverpool and had his photograph taken by the “Penny Lane” road sign and walked past the Dakota Building in New York during a Fly Drive in America. The trip itself was a great success and Gethyn received all the plaudits; we’d never seen him happier. Three months later he was charged and found guilty of misappropriation of council funds and sentenced to eighteen months in prison, although he only served nine of those on account of his good behaviour. (He is credited with implementing the Dewey Decimal System in the Prison Library and introducing the Governor to Gilbert and Sullivan.) On his release his marriage crumbled and he lost his job. Five years later he has remarried, lives in Guildford, and drives an Audi. It never rains …

Step 2 It’s a Family Affair And We’re All Family Now (#ulink_beaf216b-fb2c-5f44-b582-359d22203ab0)

“We are family”

SISTER SLEDGE – WE ARE FAMILY

“Don’t cry Daddy”

ELVIS PRESLEY – DON’T CRY DADDY

“He’s the greatest dancer”

SISTER SLEDGE – HE’S THE GREATEST DANCER

Divorce has never been so popular! The statistics prove a remarkable fact – that children of divorced parents are more likely to then go on to experience divorce themselves.

In that sense divorce can be like an heirloom – a vase, a painting or in my case a rifle, handed down from generation to generation.

Proud Mary

Approaching the subject from this viewpoint we can see divorce as something to be very proud of, particularly for the already divorced parent of the divorcing child as they see their offspring carrying on the family tradition. In a society that moves faster and faster and seems so impersonal, parents are searching for something to pass on to their children. In the past, one of the most significant things would have been their trade and this would have been reflected in their name.

For example we would know that Tommy Cooper’s ancestors were barrel makers, and this skill would have been passed down from father to son. In the television series Porridge, Norman Stanley Fletcher’s ancestors would have made arrows, and the man who played him, Ronnie Barker, would have come from a long line of dog handlers. We Barrets have prided ourselves in the manufacture of low-cost, high-quality starter homes. Not really.

It’s a bit of fun!

The point is that the name was a source of pride to the family because it told the world so much about them. Nowadays it is the same but different. We can still learn a lot about a person from their name, e.g. we know when a person has four or five children with different surnames then it’s highly likely that family has experienced divorce, or at the very least, separation. This is not the whole of the story though. A person can choose to buck the trend and change the course of the family tradition; it is with no small amount of pride that I, Keith Barret, am the first in my family to sip from the golden goblet of divorce! (Immediate family I’m not including Gethyn.) Just because your parents are happy contented and facing their twilight years bathed in the rosy glow of companionship, that’s no reason for you not to embark on the safari of separation that is divorce.

That Pioneer Spirit

There are some who see my situation (and others like me, people like you) as a failure. Fine, as Bobby Brown would say “that’s their prerogative”,

I prefer to see us as pioneers, charting a brave new world of happiness and opportunity. Particularly in my case as I come from parents who didn’t divorce, they stayed devoted to each other right to the end. It was much harder for me therefore to make that break with tradition and begin walking down a different path. How much easier it would have been if I’d come from a broken home, to then go and break one myself. If this is ringing bells with you, then take heart. Just because divorce was beyond your parents doesn’t mean that it’s beyond you. It won’t be easy; you’ll have to dig deep inside your heart for inspiration as you take your family tree in a new direction.

Speaking of family trees, divorcing can be a wonderful way of adding colour and variety to the tree, as it struggles to cope with the new sprouting offshoots that point outwards with new names and faces. Keen gardeners will get a kick out of this and a sense of genetic topiary as they prune and trim their own trees, letting their creative instincts run riot amongst the heartbreak and emotional chaos.

Why Not Me?

In an age when so many marriages end in divorce, we find ourselves with the odd situation of the normal becoming the unusual and what once was the unusual now becoming the normal. What I mean by that is that whereas it was once normal for couples to stay together it is now more likely that they won’t and so it is the families of the couple that stay together that can feel the stigma of being different. It is far easier nowadays to divorce and to live your life as a divorced person or as the friend or immediate family of a divorced person.

This can lead to great problems for the friends and families of those couples who have chosen not to divorce and can lead to the syndrome known as Why Not Me?, or The Why Not Me? Syndrome, or WNMS. This is a feeling of exclusion, a feeling of not fitting in, a sense of not belonging, and can prove quite debilitating. For our purposes in this step we are concerned primarily with the WNMS experienced when our parents didn’t divorce but stayed together. Typically the child of this sort of marriage will have experienced a set of conditions similar or identical to those detailed below:

Happy, contented well-matched parents.

A feeling of security and emotional well-being.

Rosy glow childhood memories.

A lack of psychological intricacies or hang-ups.

Joyous family get-togethers/meals/reunions.

Wise advice.

Frequent telephone conversations with parents.

These conditions will be more than familiar to sufferers of Happy Parent, Why Not Me? Syndrome, or HPWNMS.

HPWNMS

(Happy Parent, Why Not Me? Syndrome)

Case Study

For the purposes of this case study I have reprinted a letter I received from Angela Coulthard, a twenty-eight-year-old lady, living in Kent. She has a good job, a loving husband, two daughters that she dotes on and a top-of-the-range Chrysler car with power steering and tinted windows. Yet she feels unhappy. She mentions her parents in her letter and their plans for another trip to Egypt, even after a pair of hip replacement operations! There’s also an offer for Angela and her family to go with them on the trip. Here’s Angela to tell us more…

Dear Keith,

I am a 28-year-old lady, living in Kent. I have a good job, a loving husband, two beautiful daughters on whom I dote and a Chrysler Grand Voyager with power steering and tinted windows. On the surface I seem to have everything. So why am I so unhappy? It’s not as if I come from a broken home. My parents recently celebrated forty happy years together and even after joint hip replacement operations are currently planning their second trip to Egypt; they’ve even offered to take us along!

Why am I not happy?

Please help …

Yours,