Scars of Divorce: ‘The suitcase was empty; I was just teaching you a lesson’

Scars of Divorce is part-memoir, part how-to guide, focused on navigating the tricky waters of separation and divorce within the Irish legal system.

Author Michelle Browne tells the story of her own difficult, but typical, divorce in Ireland. It was a harrowing and upsetting experience, which dealt with the traditional court system using solicitors and barristers. In telling her story, Michelle examines the process in detail and explains the costs, both financial and emotional, of a legal system that is failing so many couples. She then addresses the alternatives available to the traditional legal route, offering a solution to achieving an amicable separation outside of the courtroom.

Read on for a deeply personal story extracted from the newly released title…

Only six weeks earlier, I had brought my tiny premature baby home from the hospital. I was in the home I shared with my husband and three girls when he came downstairs with a small suitcase. He said he was leaving, and although I had heard this many times before, the fear of being alone now terrified me. I panicked. I stood in front of the door and begged him not to go, pleaded for him not to leave me. He turned around and walked down the hallway to the kitchen and left through the back door. I followed him but stopped before going outside. With my tiny baby in my arms, I thought I would die. I was physically and emotionally unwell, having had an emergency caesarean section at thirty weeks gestation only a few months earlier. My middle child was fourteen months old and my eldest was ten years of age.

Two days later, my husband returned home. He told me the suitcase was empty and he was teaching me a lesson. I couldn’t understand what I was doing so wrong. Why was he so unhappy? I promised to try harder. In my heart and soul, I deeply believed that I was unlovable. My self-esteem was at rock bottom; you could have scraped me off the floor. I couldn’t believe I was having to beg this man not to leave me. I truly thought I couldn’t cope on my own with my girls, and that if he left, I would die. That was, without a doubt, the lowest I have ever felt.

…

Life was difficult. I had lots of help from my parents, siblings, and in-laws, and our neighbours were great, but for much of the time, it was me, a double buggy, two small babies, and my beautiful ten-year-old girl. Of course, my little family was precious and I will always be grateful for the privilege of being a mum. Truthfully, however, life was very difficult. When your relationship is broken and you’re pretending to everyone (including yourself) that you’re fine, it’s like carrying a ton weight on your back.

People talk about sleepless nights and describe sleep deprivation as torture. For me, that couldn’t be more accurate: I found it very difficult. My tiny baby had taken to holding her breath and turning blue, and this became something I dealt with regularly. I would hold her up in the air and plead with her to breathe, breathe, breathe… and she did. It was absolutely nuts! For almost a full year, I brought a blow-up mattress into her room to sleep (or lie awake all night beside her cot). I was physically and mentally exhausted all the time.

Marriage was harder than ever. My husband was unhappy and I couldn’t do anything right. When he returned home after leaving with the empty suitcase, I tried so hard to make him happy. I took him to New York on a surprise holiday for his birthday, which took a lot of scrimping and planning. We moved house and I managed to borrow more money from my parents to get a place that he wanted, where I thought we might be happy. All I wanted was a happy family for my three girls, but he was never happy and made it clear that he didn’t want me.

Something came over me when my youngest girl turned two, some kind of inner strength. I told him to go. If he didn’t want me anymore, that was fine, just go. He left that night, and it was the last time we were in the same house.

On reflection, I had been living through a nightmare from the moment I married him. I had persevered and tried hard to please him. I did love him. I kept trying to focus on the things that had brought us together in the first place. It felt like I was dealing with a spoilt child: no matter what I did, it wasn’t enough. His rhetoric was, ‘I’m just not happy.’

By this time, I was a different human being. My heart wasn’t broken; my spirit had been crushed. My hope that things could be beautiful, that our family unit could be happy, was gone. Broken. Completely exhausted. But my strength was returning. I still had a lot to learn and much more was going to be thrown at me. Now I knew for sure: what hadn’t killed me was going to make me stronger.

‘Scars of Divorce: How to avoid them and achieve an amicable divorce in modern Ireland’ by Michelle Browne (€18) is on sale now.