Leaving a long marriage is never easy, but sometimes it’s the best way to find happiness and reclaim your identity. Photo / 123rf
I suspect many midlife women feel as trapped as I did, but with three children I didn’t think I could break free. I’m so glad I did.
I am sitting with my husband Viktor* in our fifth and final couple’s counselling session. “I think you should consider separating,” says the therapist. There’s silence – this may have been the answer I wanted, but I wasn’t expecting it. She continues: “There’s too much baggage between you and it doesn’t look like either of you are willing to let go.”
The fact we’re paying for her professional opinion clearly means our marriage – which brought us three beautiful children then aged 12, 10 and four – is not exactly in great shape. But I’d assumed that if a split was coming, one of us would have to ask for it.
Viktor, perhaps, had seen counselling as a last-ditch attempt to patch things up. I on the other hand hoped it would lead to a more amicable parting. I needed a third person to hear me and tell me I wasn’t crazy, I’d wanted to say things that I daren’t just to him. And I was also very scared of doing the wrong thing, of ruining the kids’ lives, and yes…of being alone aged 45.
When I look back to that frightened woman now, full of self-doubt and wracked with guilt, I want to hug her. Tell her this will be the hardest decision she’ll ever make – but it’s still the right one.
I suspect many midlife women feel as trapped as I did, yet walking away from a relationship spanning two decades is complicated. That night, even after a neutral, third party had advised us to split, we still drove home and shared a bed together. Months went by before we discussed what was said, let alone acted on it. You are so entrenched in your daily life that leaving seems unimaginable.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where it went wrong, and all too easy to throw out blame. In the beginning, we probably seemed to be the perfect couple. I was 24 when we met in 1995 and Viktor was handsome, suave and cosmopolitan. As two Europeans studying at an American graduate school together, we found each other’s ambitions exciting and married in 1998. We lived in Paris, then LA, but cracks began appearing when I felt he was prioritising his consulting career in the corporate world over my own PhD. Then he wanted to move to Austria, his home country, while I did not. I resented the expectation that as the dutiful wife, I’d fall into line with him.
But that’s what I did. For years. I ignored the niggle that I was losing myself with him, doggedly reasoned that I couldn’t “fail” at marriage after just three years. My parents had stuck it out, my mother simply turned a blind eye to my father’s infidelities, that’s how it works in cultures that put family before everything. By then I was 30, so I had the added societal expectation that I should be having babies. To be single again, just as I entered the time when my fertility was supposedly about to fall off a cliff, seemed unwise.
I fell pregnant easily with our eldest son, and I found motherhood so fulfilling that it distracted me from the reality that my marriage was not. Our daughter followed three years later, and I decided that although I loved working as a military analyst, I needed to be at home with the children and support Viktor’s career. It felt to me like my work was always secondary to his. Neither of us would have claimed our marriage was particularly happy, but he’d always wanted a large family. And when I craved one last baby myself when I hit 39, we were both delighted when our second son arrived. But while children are wonderful, I doubt they successfully keep unhappy couples together.
And by then the cracks in our marriage ran deep. To the outside world, I was a deferential corporate wife hosting dinners and making conversation, but inside I was screaming. No one ever asked about my opinions or my achievements, such as working for US think tanks and the Ministry of Defence. I went through the spousal motions thinking “I don’t belong here”. One evening I felt frustrated that I was to be “vetted” by Viktor’s bosses for his potential new job. I played along dressed in a conservative black dress and heels, but instead of the standard pairing of pearls, or tasteful jewellery I chose a statement big dragon stone ring – more fitting for a heavy metal concert than a corporate event. Viktor raised his eyebrows at that. I didn’t care. And while the other wives went to the gym, I joined pole dancing classes. These small acts of rebellion were the “real me,” fighting to be seen.
We still had sex, but it was hardly wild or passionate. How could I have genuine intimacy when feeling so trapped, angry and resentful? This wasn’t so much my husband’s fault I now realise, but mine. I’d allowed myself to become caged in my own life, as I imagine many women do.
The nail in the coffin of our marriage wasn’t a blazing row or an infidelity like it would be in a drama. Instead, it happened on a humdrum, grey November evening in 2015 as I made spaghetti bolognese. The teens were in their rooms while our youngest watched cartoons. Viktor came home and remarked, “should the little guy be watching so much TV?” I gritted my teeth. Parenting had long been a point of contention for us; I was either overprotective (like my mother) or too soft. Allowing too much screen time was a classic example of my subpar parenting.
Then Viktor announced that his two nieces would be staying with us for three months and I was expected to host them on top of the usual meal planning, shopping, laundry, homework and everything else. I had a crystal clear realisation that I no longer had even the pretence of agency in my own life.
There was a heated discussion and accusations of “selfishness” flew, while the onions for our dinner sizzled and burned. As I scraped the blackened tatters into the dustbin – a fitting metaphor for my marriage – my body was shaking.
I knew the time had finally come to act on the therapist’s advice: we needed to separate. We had one last family holiday in Greece – awkwardly sharing a bedroom – before we sat the children down and explained Daddy was moving out. “I’m so sorry,” I told three pairs of wide eyes. “We’re not making each other happy and it’s better this way.”
We’d waited until the end of term. The reactions were mixed, the eldest very maturely said he “understood”, whereas our daughter cried and was angry. Our youngest was too little to understand. His grief for our family unit of five came only the following year. This can be normal with young children I later learnt. Because we’d rarely rowed in front of them, they hadn’t grasped how bad our situation was.
Viktor rented a place locally and we evenly divided the children’s time. Divorce can be cripplingly expensive so I know we were lucky we had some financial means. The children adjusted relatively easily, they’re more resilient than we think, but those first weekends without them were agony for me. All my socialising had been with other families and couples so I had to carve out different looking time – divorce is lonely as well as emotionally and physically exhausting.
The guilt was overwhelming at times and I needed more therapy to help with that. There were sleepless nights, lawyers’ appointments and paperwork, and the divorce was finalised in 2017. After years of being the good daughter, the good student, the good wife, and the good mother, it was time to be me. I just needed to find out who that was.
Leaving my husband is the hardest thing I’ve done by a million miles. It pushed me to the brink of a breakdown, but today, aged 53, I know it was worth the stress. I’ve since retrained as a life coach, written two books, and found love again with Michael, a man I’d known for 30 years. We married in 2018 and I’m still an ex-pat; home now is Zurich. Michael, a father of three himself, had always seen me and accepted me for who I really am. For any women who are reading this and wondering if they are strong enough to make that leap into the unknown – I promise you, you are.
*Name changed to protect privacy
As told to Susanna Galton
Guilt about your children can be paralysing. Try and see it through the lens of: “What do I want my children to learn about what a happy marriage and committed relationship looks like?” Would you want them to stay and be unhappy in a marriage in later life? No. Set that example.
Also note – guilt may never leave you. Get help if necessary to live with that.
Read up on how to tell the kids and make the smoothest transition to the new normal, the book I used was Putting Children First by JoAnne Pedro-Carroll which has great strategies and example scripts I used.
Children have more strength and resilience than you imagine – they will be OK because they have you.
Those first weekends without the kids will be devastating. You will feel lonely, and not sure what to do with yourself. But you will learn to love your alone time, even as you look forward to having them back.
Co-parenting can be frustrating, learn to let go of trying to control everything and if your ex fails to remember a sports kit, relax, it’s not the end of the world and they will all learn.
On the other side of struggle and grief is a beautiful new life – with the power of making your own decisions, writing your own new chapter; and the chance to find love again.
Uncaged: A Good Girl’s Journey to Reinvention by Katia Vlachos is out now
Telegraph: Major dry spells are common, but there are ways to get the spark back.