FEATURE

BY MELINDA YEOH

HIS

ARTICLE IS FOR MARRIED couples at different stages of their marriage – rocky or otherwise. It’ s not for those who are in an abusive marriage or where the spouse is a serial gambler or cheater, etc. It’ s also for those who are thinking of getting married.

Let me begin with the lamest statement: Divorce is not pretty.

Of course, it’ s not pretty! Breaking up is painful, and it’ s messy. But after the divorce, the future should be better, right?

Well, for some of us who have not experienced being married to a divorcee, let me shed some light.

First up, I am not divorced. My husband is and he has the sole custody of his beloved daughter.

Secondly, this is a reflection of my personal experience. If you are living a happily-ever-after unscarred life after divorce, I’ m truly happy for you. Now, let’ s dive into the most important message of this article:

The consequences of a broken marriage can last a lifetime. Let me repeat: L-i-f-e-t-i-m-e. If you don’ t read on, just remember the above statement.

Here’ re the side-effects of divorce that I’ m still dealing with after almost 10 years on.

In no particular order: 1. Trying to reduce the pain of the divorce for my step-daughter with more love, but … 2. Daughter is tired of going back and forth two houses.

3. Daughter is coping with having no say in bio-mum and dad’ s plans in moving her around. 4. Daughter misses bio-mum and misses dad, but they are not together. Torn. 5. Me trying hard not to feel rejected, but... 6. Handling the backlash that surfaced from years of the daughter being shuttled back and forth by her dad and bio-mum. 7. Getting angry at bio-mum for regularly not keeping to her words of sending daughter back on days that she said she would but … 8. Feeling helpless when biomum insists on her plans and we can’ t confront her because we don’ t want daughter to be caught in our conflict. 9. Learning to suppress disappointment when we have made plans with daughter but bio-mum decides on a whim not to send her back.( See now how complicated it is to arrange for your kids to be shuttled over the weekends, or holidays to see the other parent.) 10. Me feeling like an idiot when husband talks with daughter and when the word‘ mummy’ comes up, the word is obviously not referring to me. 11. Daughter at the tender age of seven came home from seeing bio-mum and cried her heart out because she missed her. And there’ s NOTHING I could do to take that pain away. 12. People making statements to me like“ Oh, she’ s not your daughter, is it?” and“ Why don’ t you have one of your OWN? It’ s different, you know.” 13. People asking“ Does she like you?” 14. People‘ advising’ me as a stepmum to leave the raising and disciplining of the child to the father. 15. Mother-in-law said a few years back“ When daughter grows up, she will go back to her mother.” 16. I’ m scarred – still not able to rub those statements off my mind. 17. Me feeling that because there was no umbilical cord between us, we may not have that mother-child bond.

18. Whenever I choose to believe otherwise, statements 12-15 will come back to haunt me. 19. Rinse and repeat.

My ultimate pet peeve is the naivety of parents who have been divorced thinking( hoping?) that their kids will be fine eventually. Yes, they cope. But no, they are affected and will be for the rest of their lives. And so will your life. Please give your marriage a fighting chance.

Invest in your marriage. Find out more about The Marriage Course at malaysia. alpha. org / tmc

Melinda Yeoh – wife, mother, communicator, blogger. Loves great copywriting, good coffee and watching Frasier, in that order. Blogs regularly at melindayeoh. com.