Sorry, the agony of divorce deserves a better ballad

OH, THE anticipation! Adele’s first single in six years is about divorce. Great, I thought. She knows what it’s like for those of us who have gone through hell. If even a woman who is young, beautiful, rich, funny and talented can fail at marriage, then maybe those of us, like me, who also failed won’t feel quite so bad. We can take comfort in her soaring voice and shared pain.

At midnight on Thursday, women who have been cuckolded, disappointed, had the best years of our lives stolen from us (you can tell I’m still bitter) were going to be able to put on our headphones, or kneel by a speaker, and finally feel understood, heard, hugged.

But I’ve felt more solace, solidarity and sisterhood watching Married At First Sight Australia. Where’s the pain, where’s the insight? Goodness, even in the video there are no tears. She just leaves with a suitcase, when we all know real-life divorce, even her so-called amicable one, is far messier than that.

All we get are cryptic messages when what we want is someone to make sense of what we are feeling — or what we have felt. I was able to glean from the lyrics that she was too young to get married, and that she and her husband were set in their ways. She tried to change, for him and for their son, but she gave up. And, err, that’s it.

There are no embarrassing admissions to strike a chord with fellow divorcees. Me? I kept buying him things, endured the pain of veneers, had spray tans. Adele has attained a revenge body, but won’t admit it. She says she exercises three times a day to get away from her phone. If she were honest, it would be as uplifting as the corset into which Vogue squeezed her for its cover picture.

Because we women do that, don’t we, after a divorce? Put on make-up and a new dress when he comes to pick up the kids. In my case, I got a new face and even bigger success, just to rub his nose in it. Every relationship is different, but divorce is often messy and always difficult. Where’s Adele’s frustration, the hurt?

She says she wrote the song to explain to her son Angelo, eight, why his parents don’t live together, and asks him not to blame her when he’s older — hence the title, Easy On Me. But the problem here lies with her Me, Me, Me attitude. Even as a teenager, wanting to make it in the music industry, which is when I first met her, she was bolshy and self-entitled.

First, she cancelled our interview. When she re-scheduled, she didn’t apologise, just chainsmoked, said she was going to take a few months off to spend time with friends, and sod what her record company bosses might think.

She said in this month’s Vogue that she wasn’t ‘miserable miserable, but I would have been miserable had I not put myself first. But nothing bad happened or anything like that’.

That level of perfection isn’t what marriage is about. You have to bend over backwards sometimes. If I’ve learned nothing else from my failed marriage, it’s that you both must compromise.

TRUTHFULLY, I just don’t see the depths of my divorce — the shame, the shouting — in hers. I wanted the greatest female songwriter of the 21st century to make sense of the break-up of a marriage, to be on my side. I thought this song was going to be the relationship take-down to end all relationship take-downs. Give us the gory details! She is one of us, after all. Or at least she was.

We have to bear in mind she is now one of the most secretive stars on the planet, and I suppose she isn’t angry (or stupid) enough to bare her soul, or her ex-husband’s peccadilloes, on record. Problem is, this doesn’t produce great art.

Adele says that if a couple plays her new, longawaited album, 30, in the car, they will cringe in recognition. The woman will say, ‘I’m done.’

Well, I’m done with this record, even though her voice and the music are beautiful.

Adele, like you, I’ve been through one of life’s most earth-shattering experiences. I need you. So where on earth are you? If you want to obfuscate, write about something trivial, such as whiskers on kittens and warm woollen mittens.

Divorce deserves a better ballad.