‘My husband was not eager to take me back after our divorce’

“My husband wasn’t exactly eager to take me back when I confessed that I had been completely stupid. He is one of the Silent Willem type. Stable, reliable, predictable. Never very present or cheerful, but never in a bad mood. Then you look a little bit next to someone like me: hyperactive, moody, capricious, always busy with a thousand things at the same time.

Same pattern every day

In retrospect, it’s a wonder he put up with me, but instead I put him aside. Maybe it was the grind since we had kids, maybe the ‘is all this’ feeling. Anyway, I was just done with it one day. Every day went according to the same pattern, every night we crawled into bed exhausted. No deep conversations, no sex, no humor.

If I thought of a spontaneous weekend away, he couldn’t, but he could propose a dinner himself. Perhaps for the better, because we had become one of those couples sitting silently opposite each other at a table in a restaurant. Never, I had always intended to do, and so it happened. My husband reacted predictably again: sober, stable, calm. With the help of a mediator, our divorce was arranged in no time.

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‘Regret like hair on my head’

I just never foresaw how drastic a divorce is. For our sons aged eleven, nine and seven, but also for me. Cold in my new home, complete with new bathroom and coveted cast floor, I already had regrets like hair on my head. The days alone, when the children were with their father, I felt lonely instead of free. Caring for the boys was difficult for me without a partner who did a homework test, soccer practice or the groceries.

The children were completely devastated by the new situation, and alternately sad and unmanageable. And in the meantime I barely made ends meet financially. Now and then I went on a date, but I found all those men losers when I compared them to my ex. Sex-hungry roosters, instead of rocks in the surf. Routine is not that crazy, once you know what the other side looks like.

Not a ball

My ex was also a little taken aback. He took good care of the children, but, like me, didn’t like that life without each other. When we chatted over a glass of wine after a session with the mediator, I blurted out: “We just can’t do it, can we?”

For the first time I saw him angry. He accused me of chasing our family on sky-high divorce and relocation costs. And then I suddenly wanted to go back? How did I get it into my head? That fight sparked off the essential conversations I had so missed our marriage. Less than a year after my departure, we burned the unsigned covenant ritual over a bottle of champagne. We decided not to have the dinner to celebrate: we needed that money to pay the mediator. ”

This story has previously appeared in Kek Mama.

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