The AGONY of a miserable marriage when you can’t afford to divorce – or even live apart
As I sat in bed, I had tears washing down my face. I rarely drink and rarely cry but that evening I’d downed two bottles of wine and the alcohol opened the floodgates. silent tears swiftly turned into loud sobs. My husband, Adrian, appeared at the door. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said. I was crying so hard I could barely speak, but I managed to blurt out a few words. ‘I can’t go on like this. I just can’t live like this any more.’ In vino veritas. It was a conversation I had been dreading; one I’d been waiting months to have. I can’t remember when I realised my marriage was over. It wasn’t a bolt- from- the- blue Damascene moment; rather a slow dawning that we were living separate lives.
At some point in our late 30s we had veered off in different directions — we were both writers, but I concentrated on health and wellbeing, while his specialist subject was beer. Now we’d hit our 50s, the split was so wide we would need high-powered binoculars to see one another.
Our relationship wasn’t toxic or abusive. We didn’t yell or bitch or fight. It was just empty. We waltzed around one another, passing the occasional word when we happened to be in the same room at the same time. Adrian lost himself in work, researching and writing about beer, spending most of his time closeted in his study.
When he did clock off, he would vanish to the pub. I numbed myself with meditation, yoga and hardcore exercise. We didn’t even eat together — he liked meat and fish; I was vegetarian. At some point, he started sleeping in the spare room. Our only point of contact was our son James, then 15.
I have never minded being alone. solitude doesn’t bother me. Yet I felt lonely — lonely to the bones. The Russian writer Anton Chekhov said: ‘If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry’ and I’ve read it’s estimated that 60 per cent of married people feel lonely.
Despite that, I smothered myself in self-hate. I reasoned that my marriage was probably no worse, and actually a lot better, than many. Yet it felt as if we were living a lie. This wasn’t a real relationship — it was more like two flatmates cohabiting and bickering over bills.
In fact, money was so tight I often joked that I lived on air. I was using credit cards to buy food and fuel. It was 2014 and the idea of splitting up wasn’t only emotionally distressing, it was financial suicide. We simply didn’t have the money.
Neither of us could afford to move out and rent. We’d remortgaged twice already and our monthly repayments and bills were sky-high. We didn’t have shared savings, but after 25 years of marriage our finances were still entwined. One of us moving out would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
We weren’t — aren’t — alone in this. According to research from Aviva, the cost of separation has soared by 57 per cent since 2006. The average UK couple spend £44,000 when they divorce or separate. In fact, the financial repercussions last a lifetime, meaning a divorcee can expect a retirement income 16 per cent lower than somebody who has never divorced.
Anecdotally, I know many of our friends would dearly love to leave their dead- end marriages. One friend admitted her life was a ‘living hell’, with vitriolic rows. Another said she and her husband were polite strangers. I cringed, knowing how that felt.
Back in the bedroom, Adrian stood glaring at me. ‘Great. That’s just great,’ he hissed. He walked out of the room and slammed the door behind him. It was the first time I’d ever seen him express anger. Then the door to his study crashed shut and the guilt drenched me.
I had married this man; I had made vows to stay with him ‘until death us do part’. I am far from religious, but it still felt like a broken promise. On the other hand, I found myself debating the question of marriage itself.
How could one promise to love someone for ever? It just isn’t possible for most people. Marriage vows felt more like a prison than a benediction. I wasn’t remotely surprised that, according to statistics, 42 per cent of UK marriages end in divorce.
The next months were tense and distressing. Adrian felt hurt and angry. I felt guilty and griefstricken. The only solution was to sell our gorgeous four-bedroom country home on Exmoor and carve up the money to buy two much smaller places. With the house valued at £550,000, we worked out we could afford two small terraced houses in Exeter.
Except the house didn’t sell. We put it on the market and it just wouldn’t budge.
We had no choice but to limp along together. There weren’t any screaming rows — in some ways, those might have been a relief. Instead we were icily polite and kept out of one another’s way as much as possible. We both travel a lot for work, which
was a blessing: there were times when we literally passed one another at the airport.
I cat-sat for a friend in London as well, although I didn’t want to be away too much because of my son. We tried to keep our problems away from James, but he wasn’t daft, he knew things weren’t good. that ramped up the guilt even more.
Apparently ours is a common predicament. Last year a survey by Relate Scotland found that 53 per cent of the couples their counsellors saw were continuing to live together after they had split up because they couldn’t afford to move out.
By late 2015, I felt a desperate need to get away. I went to Scotland, to a week-long psychotherapy retreat. Part of the work involved honest communication and I realised Adrian and I weren’t talking. We whinged and sniped, but we would rather walk over hot coals than have difficult conversations.
So, when I got back, I asked if we could sit down and talk. ‘Of course,’ he said, with a look that shouted just the opposite. We sat at the kitchen table, not quite meeting one another’s eyes. then I took a deep breath and started telling him how I felt. He listened —
really listened — and then, in turn, explained his feelings.
It was tough. We stumbled over our words and there were plenty of tears on both sides. Afterwards we hugged, cried a bit more and resolved to be more open with one another.
It wasn’t an instant fix. He was still closeted in his study and I was still camping out at the gym, but we were free from that dark place of anger and blame.
Adrian admitted he hadn’t been blameless; that he had distanced himself years ago. We also talked to James and explained our plan to buy separate places. It was another conversation I had been dreading but he was totally on board.
‘Bring it on!’ he said. ‘ Now you won’t be bickering all the time.’ Although he insisted he had been fine, I knew that wasn’t true. He had become withdrawn and angry.
Barbara Honey, from Relate Scotland, points out that living together when you’re desperate to be apart inevitably has an impact on children. ‘they will see mum and dad are still living together, but not sleeping in the same room or showing each other affection. this can make them feel insecure and anxious about the future,’ she says.
We had put our house on the market in early 2014 and didn’t manage to sell until the summer of 2016. We spent two years trapped by financial circumstances, but when the day came, leaving our house was a wrench.
I had culled my possessions to the bare minimum and waved them off into storage.
I left the house with just two suitcases, my laptop and a small box of books. It took me six months to find my new home and while I searched, I stayed at Adrian’s.
I am in no hurry to get divorced and I don’t feel the urge to date. Friends are amazed at how well Adrian and I get on these days. ‘Are you sure you’re not going to get back together?’ is a frequent comment.
I shake my head and smile. We weren’t always kind within our marriage yet, outside it, we have found the freedom to be ourselves. We are now the very best of friends.
Our lack of money turned out to be a blessing in disguise. If one of us had moved out straight away, we might have been bickering and sniping for ever. We would have lost not only our marriage but our friendship, too.
We have been together for 25 years. You don’t throw that away in a heartbeat.