Divorce

Divorce. The final frontier. It is a strange paradox that Divorce, is the only time in your life as an adult, when you can legitimately hate someone, with as much passion as you once loved them.
I do not believe there is such a thing as an "easy" divorce? Unless of course, in a moment of tequila-blinded madness, you became betrothed in the Chapel of Love in Vegas. Even then I suspect that you will have to endure the toe -curling embarrassment of trying to extricate yourself from the arrangement, beneath the disapproving frown of friends and relations (refer to Ross and Rachel, or look under Spears, Britney!).
So there should be a ban on the two words being linked together, as Divorce can only really be referred to with one or more of the following adjectives; awkward, painful, excruciating, financially emasculating or perhaps earth shattering?
Presenting your entire personal life for scrutiny by a previously unknown third party ,is akin to a gynaecological examination in front of a bunch of medical students. Divorce Lawyers come in all flavours: competent and clinical, brusque and practical, sympathetic and doggedly determined, or, in the case of my first Lawyer; disillusioned and drunk!
Sitting clutching a box of tissues in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, whilst discussing your ex- lover, best friend, father of your children, breadwinner, confident and muse is completely surreal. You wonder, as the Lawyer reads back to you the sordid details of marital demise, what on earth you saw in your spouse in the first place.?Your Beloved ,viewed objectively by a third party, rarely stands up to close scrutiny. Things you accepted about them, tolerated and sighed about in exasperation, suddenly become just cause for legal annihilation.
Even with the best will in the world, they don't have a leg to stand on and then the glass is held close to you, to see in all your glory, what a complete, total and utter mug you've been!
The most outstanding thing about divorce is how real it is. Without the buoyant euphoria which carries you through the chaos of organising a wedding; preparing to NOT spend the rest of your life with someone is like a smack in the face with a very wet, cold fish.
And that of course is the point... failure is meant to hurt ,so we don't do it again? What would an easy Divorce teach us? The whole process has to drag you kicking screaming and scrabbling out of the snugness of your comfort zone to front up to the reality that, it is your fault ,that you are in this bloody mess! It takes two to marry and the same two to divorce even though you may not have started the snowball effect yourself. You have to face the fact that despite what was drummed into you at school and beyond, that you really can't have it all?
Despite feeling like you have just descended to the bottom of a very deep ,emotional abyss; the actual process of "Doing" something to end a marriage, is oddly cathartic! The ridiculous cost of divorce snapping at your heels is an excellent motivator and pushes the process onward to it's inglorious conclusion. Whilst the vast majority would agree they wished their marriages had not ended, I have found that the old saying "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" has a new resonance. I have learned a great deal about myself in this process and shaken off the numbness of an unhappy marriage to properly feel again. There is a strange peacefulness after the feelings of self-loathing and injustice have subsided and you are left to examine what is left of yourself, once the divide has been made. You are not a broken half, but a battered whole. Fragile;Wiser with the scars to prove it, but nevertheless, still alive and whole.