I've been avoiding blogging as it's hard to talk about my mental health without mentioning the one thing that is currently having a profound impact on my life. And Will's life. And Bea's. The cat not so much. She really is a heartless creature with no respect for the adage 'don't bite the hand that feeds you'.
I'm comfort eating, I'm lethargic, I'm not reading as my concentration is poor. Each morning I struggle to get out of bed, I don't sleep and I'm regularly close to tears. Exactly the way I was feeling 18 months ago. However at least this time there's a specific reason - the end of my marriage*. Even typing the words feels unreal. Will and I have been together for 25 years. Let that sink in for a minute. More than half of my life spent with this man. The uni years. The London years. The newly married years. The first house years. The money pit years. The baby years. The let's move house five times years. The surely she's a teenager already years. All of them the depression years - sorry, Will. It's been an eventful quarter century. Which is what makes this all so very sad.
If we hated each other it might be easier to move on, to accept that it's over, but we don't. For Bea this is both good and bad. It's hard for a 12 year old to understand why her parents are splitting up when they still laugh together and take the piss out of each other. The flip side is that long term this should make it easier for us all. Or not. Who knows? We're totally making this up as we go along. Acing it some days. Crash landing on others - we have expert advice from Chesley Sullenberger but still we're in the Hudson, not at LaGuardia.
Why write now? Well a number of reasons, all of them resulting from the situation we find ourselves in, and when I feel at my worst it really does help me to write.
1. The people we love
We worried about telling our parents, our friends and Bea. When was the right time? Would people feel they need to take sides? How would we explain why this is happening? It was predominantly painless with tears of course but plenty of support from friends and family alike. As my moving out date draws nearer though it's hitting home that life will be, has to be, different. I have to say goodbye not just to my husband but also to his parents. I know we'll still meet up but not in the same way. Those dinners we shared where we all got a little (very) drunk and talked into the small hours - they won't happen again. Over the summer we holidayed together in Spain and it was one of the most perfect weeks I've spent with them. I wish we could have more trips like that.
Then there's our friends. When you've been a couple for as long as we have inevitably many of your friends become joint friends. We holiday with three other families every year. What do we do now? New Year's Eve is always spent with the same couple, including our children. How do we handle that? Step by step I guess but it's hugely overwhelming and we'll definitely need some help**.
2. Christmas
I never planned to move out over Christmas. My new house is exactly that - brand new and typically it happens to be finished this month. We're spending Christmas together, the three of us, moving things into the new house over a period of weeks. Never really one for ripping the plaster off quickly instead we're going for the slow, painful peel away... See what I mean about making it up as we go along - is there even a right way to do this? I felt pretty good about the Christmas decision. Bea doesn't have to split her day (next year she will but we should be in a much better place by then), no turkey for one ready meals and less chance of me having a Bridget Jones moment - all by myself. Neither of us thought about the cards though. Both sending them and receiving them. Do we send them from all 3 of us one last time? Or opt to not send any, completely avoiding the issue? We've had our first cards that no longer say 'Will, Emma & Bea' - ha who am I kidding, it was alway 'Emma, Will & Bea' - but instead 'Will and Bea' or 'Em & Bea'. Sucker punch moments.
3. Bea
Where do I even start? We adore her. She is everything that's good about our relationship. As Will said this week, prompting tears, 'she's our legacy'. I'm crying as I write this. You know that song in the Sound of Music 'Something Good' - it's on a loop in my head because honestly we did. We did something good: Bea. She's seeing a counsellor at school. I'm so proud of her for taking this step and after meeting with her Vice Principal, they think she's coping extremely well. But my guilt kicks in and I worry about the effect this is having on her. She'll split her time between us equally and I know we'll do everything we can to make this as painless as possible but it doesn't change the fact that we're changing her life forever too.
So you might be wondering why we are doing this? Because it's the right thing to do. Not the easy thing but most definitely the right thing. Almost certainly the right thing. The 'right at this moment in time given the circumstances' thing. If we can continue to do this in a way that considers all of our feelings, it might at least be a little easier. That can never be the wrong thing to do.
* Please don't call this a conscious uncoupling. Even if it is. We're not the Martin/Paltrows. It's wanky.
** Unless you have always hated/disliked one of us there's no need to take sides. If you HAVE always hated one of us, fill your boots and pick your team. Either way - everyone can be happy.
