Nici's story
I grew up in a wonderful loving and secure family environment, where in fact divorce was scorned upon.
I can even remember when I was at school and bringing home a friend from school my parents would ask if the parents were married.
It was such an important factor in life not to mention the fact that it was embellished with fairy tale dreams of marriage that little girls grow up with.
So when I fell pregnant at the tender age of 20 and unmarried I just knew it was the most shameful thing, despite the fact that we had been going out for 2 years and living together for at least a year of those two. Never the less the wedding was hastily planned and I was so determined to make it work and I did love him very much. Although the marriage happened I always in the back of my mind had a niggling feeling that he was still in love with his ex but when we made our vows I truly believed in them and when our beautiful daughter was born I thought that was us forever.
But alas 4 years into the marriage he announced he did not love me and was going back to his ex. It felt like my insides had been ripped out and the anger I felt about the fact that our little girl would not grow up in a “normal” family was undescribable. On top of all this hurt was the shame and feelings of failure. I battled to even go to social events where there were other women as I just kept comparing myself to them and my failures.
At this time I lived in South Africa where there is no social system, you had to pay for everything including medical, school fees and there were no benefits. I had to work and even resorted to doing Miss G String contests to put food on our table and at the same time worrying myself silly that my family would find out. I was very angry at the fact that he and his partner were living a good life and we were living on nothing and he would let her down by not arriving on the weekends he was supposed to take her. I am ashamed to say the anger was consuming me and I was even imagining horrible things happening to them.
Despite my anger I had resolved never to say anything bad about either of them in front of my daughter, as I didn’t want her to suffer anymore by having to make choices. It was hard and I did have some good bitch sessions when she wasn’t around but I knew in my heart of hearts I was doing the right thing.
I cannot pin point the turning point but somewhere about 3 years after we got divorced we started communicating again properly and I have to thank our friends as they had all opted not to take sides and not matter what the occasion invited both of us. It was our decision how we dealt with it.
Gradually we built up a friendship again and we knew we had to do it for our daughter. The realisation came that we had been good friends before, so why not be good friends again.
The end result is that I have gained two very good friends and our daughter has never had to make a choice or feel uncomfortable. Plus she could not play us off against each other because the choices in her life were discussed and we all stuck together on them.
The ultimate realisation for me is that families don’t have to be conventional, it was the day they asked me to be Godmother to their daughter with the logical explanation that we are family through association and I was very honoured with that request.
Our daughter is now 21 and says it is better that we broke up as the relationship was not a healthy one and she has everything she needs and I am proud to say so do I.
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