Divorce Hurts

Published: 15/08/2009

Divorce Hurts
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Credible new evidence reveals that divorce or the death of a spouse causes lasting damage to husbands and wives even those, who, like me, have been lucky enough to remake our lives, find bliss with a new spouse in a fulfilling marriage. Academics from the University of Chicago and the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore studied over eight and a half thousand divorced or bereaved men and women and found that they were more likely than those not split asunder to suffer from serious health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, even cancer. There is a ‘lingering, detrimental impact’ says the report. Scary stuff, not what we divorcees need to hear after all we’ve been through.

Death comes along and takes away partners and there is nothing any of us can do about that. But decisions to rip up committed relationships are consciously taken, man made tragedies. Divorce hurts, hurts badly, leaves wounds, vivid scars and debilities. For millions, the injuries are so serious, they almost have to learn to walk and talk again. Yet British divorce rates continue to be among the highest in the world. We do not listen; we do not know how.
Perhaps we’ll listen now.

This study focussed on the adults involved and on the physical effects of marital separation. Step back, look at the bigger picture where there might be children, in-laws, friends, all of whom have to find ways of adjusting to the hard new realities. The emotional cost is incalculable and permanent. 1987-88 was the longest year of my life. Xmas 1987, festive time of goodwill and plenty, and my ex-husband, a university lecturer and like me, a Ugandan Asian, informed us he was leaving us to go live with his former student. Our boy was not yet ten. My husband was loving, the perfect new dad. His family and mine were entwined, both mums best mates. He spoke of his own torment, the force within him he couldn’t control, how hard he had tried not to fall in love etc etc- you know the lyrics.

The shock was indescribable. Writing about it in my recently published memoir The Settler’s Cookbook, I found myself experiencing again the agony of those interminable days and nights when I got seriously ill with bleeding ulcers; was demented with grief and had to take care of my child whose world had collapsed. One night he recorded a tape for his dad begging him to come home. The gift was not accepted by the dear departed who complained we were both being melodramatic:
’ Look around, look how many people get divorced. They don’t act crazy like you’. It was the norm, no big deal. That was the message from my ex and from too many folk I thought knew better.

Even now, there are those who say I should get over this bust up and not be such a bore about divorce. In the salubrious London Review of Books, a reviewer of my book hated all the stuff about the breaking marriage and hoped never to hear of it again. Some hope. One reason people find it so easy to throw away old families for new is that there is no national conversation about the consequences or morality of these choices. If you do remind people of these, you are Victorian ( or in my case a backward Muslim), vengeful, not quite right in the head. The modern way is to cut divorce cakes – what a laugh!!- throw jolly parties, celebrate ‘freedom’ and pretend there has been no lasting damage to anyone.

My parents should never have married- he was sixteen years older and with interests and obsessions she could not share. She had to provide for us when he went through one of his several bohemian phases. They never divorced – for the sake of the children she said. I came to understand what that meant in the years after my divorce even though life since then has been extraordinarily blessed for me. My second husband has been a matchless father to my son; a daughter came along to complete the family, my career took off and I have become bolder, more confident and happier with my looks than I ever was in my first marriage. I still would not have wished for the break-up to happen. For my son and myself lost our innocence then and the trust between parents and children that needs no name or affirmation. There is a shapeless anger in both of us. I live in perpetual fear that we will be abandoned again and so the man who has given me back my life is paying for the one who wrecked it all.

Growing evidence shows the seriously negative effects of divorce on kids. A University of Pennsylvania study ( 2003) concluded that divorce was:’ an intensely stressful experience for all children. [they feel] a ‘ loss of the non-custodial parent, loss of the intact family, feelings of anger and powerlessness.’ These facts are rubbished by those who believe personal liberty should be the only imperative to drive behaviour. All very convenient for us, not for the children we freely brought into the world.

I do believe some marriages must end because of violence and real incompatibility. A programme on Channel4 in early August reveals the lot of Jewish women in some Orthodox communities in Britain who do not have that right- divorce can only be granted by a husband and many imprison the women in legal bondage. One woman has waited 47 years and is still waiting. Wives in Britain until the 20th century were possessions of their husbands and in many countries around the world they still are. I know at least seven Muslim men who married the women chosen for them when they loved others and drift miserably between the two. No one deserves a conjugal life sentence.

However, a large number of men and women who seek divorce do so because they think it is time to get unshackled, or to go on to the next marital adventure often to keep back the march of time. They will tell you ( an some come to believe the justifications) they only left because there was something rotten in the state of their marriages, which is why, you understand, they had to go off to the au pair or personal trainer. One friend whose bloke made his exit last year ( off with a twentysomething TV researcher, to live in Canada) wrote to her a sorrowful letter:’ I hope you can still love me and see why this happened. We both deserve a break, a chance for something new and exciting. I am giving you that freedom. The kids will be happier too- they can come to us for ten days every summer. Canada is great like that and you can have the time to yourself. What good would I be to them as an unhappy dad?’ Someone needs to drive a car over this jerk and others of the species.

The millions of young men and women whose parents casually dumped them have, through suffering, learnt some hard lessons. They could go two ways. Either they will repeat the cycle or this generation will vow not to repeat history and reinstate forbearance and fidelity in marriage. For the sake of my unborn grandchildren I do hope it is the latter.

Published in The Daily Mail