The plan, or the lack of one.

Mary, to her credit, is trying to make this as easy as possible. First, she could have just packed up and left while I was at work, but she didn't. She sat down with me and talked about it face-to-face.

What actually made this so difficult to adjust to was that she didn't just leave. She had no immediate plan to leave. In fact she barely had a plan at all. Broken down to it's finest constituent parts, her plan was for us to separate for two years, then consider where we were, and if we were both in agreement, seek an uncontested divorce. That's it; the entire plan. So, yesterday, she moved out. A friend owns a small one-bed semi and she has set up house there. More on this arrangement later.

She had, at least, done a little research (why did I not see this coming?) on the Internet about British divorce law and the options available.

In the UK, the applicant needs to prove one of the following in order for the courts to grant a divorce:

1. Adultery. Now, we have both, technically, been guilty of this one (more on that subject in a later post), but this can generally only be used as grounds for divorce within 6 months of finding out about it, and we have both been faithful for the past ten months or so.
2. Unreasonable behaviour. This could cover all sorts of things, but again you need to refer to incidents within the past 6 months. While I have behaved impeccably (I think) in that time, I have evidence that she has been stealing money from our joint account - money that should have been used to pay the mortgage. Would you class that as unreasonable behaviour?
3. Desertion. The key element here is that one partner has left the other for more than two years without the others agreement. No, I did not agree with this separation, and since she is the one who left, I might have grounds there.
4. Two years separation. This option requires the consent of both parties. Although you can spend some periods living together, those period must not total more than 6 months and you must have lived apart for more than two years in total.
   
5. Five years separation. This does not require the agreement of your partner, and is largely indefensible.
   

Her plan, therefore is option number 4. It is the least expensive, the least complicated and the least acrimonious. In principle.

The clock started ticking yesterday.

The beginning of the end

On Tuesday evening - January 23rd 2007, my wife Mary told me that she wanted a divorce.

It came as a complete shock to me. True, she had been a little... distant over the past few weeks, but I never suspected that she would go so far so quickly. Initially, I just said 'No, no...' and then the tears came. I was powerless to prevent them flooding down my cheeks as the enormity of this hit me.

We had, like a lot of couples, I suspect, had our bad patches, but although there had been rare hints that our marriage was in jeopardy, we always found a way back from the brink.

That night, we lay in bed talking until well after 3 in the morning. Finally, Mary dozed off but I couldn't sleep properly. A barrage of thoughts rattled around in my brain.

How could I not have seen this coming?
How could I have prevented this?
I should have been a better husband.
What were we going to do now?
etc. etc.

I tried to go to work the next morning, but just couldn't face dealing with the complexities of my job. I made a couple of phone calls and went back home.