Merry Christmas, reader, from inside a dying marriage. I know I am not alone. The first Monday of any year is Divorce Day, when people who try to hold it together over Christmas give up, call a lawyer and start dividing what’s left: that’s my cushion, that’s your book…
This is for women who are lonely in a marriage at Christmas, when it seems that everyone is happy and taking joy in the frolics of the season. Call it a hug and a friendly ear. I see you.
Happy families are the same, but unhappy families are all different, as Tolstoy writes in Anna Karenina. (She had a very bad marriage. She threw herself in front of a train.)
I am not going to throw myself under a train: even if I wanted to, I doubt I would find the energy. But being in an unhappy marriage takes a lot of pretending and a lot of fake smiles.
I find it hardest at this time of year, when it seems like the whole country is singing carols by the Christmas tree, drinking mulled wine – I hate mulled wine! – and seeking gifts for the people they love.
Happy times are not happy for unhappy people. They are worse: they are a taunt. Sometimes it’s like screaming in an empty room – and then I pull myself together because heartbreak is one thing, Gotterdammerung another.
Happy or not, we are the luckiest generation of women in history: we have vaccines, careers and washing machines.
I think a lot of people live this story, but they don’t talk about it because British people don’t talk. To remember our greatest calamity – the Great War – we literally have a silence.
I am not like that, though my husband is. He and I, married for 20 years and with one son aged 12, are growing steadily apart, and the gulfs between us sometimes feel so great, we cannot bridge them even when we want to.
They stole up on us over many years and there is a well of sadness between us. Sometimes I think it sits in the room with us, a bad fairy.
As so often when things fall apart, it began slowly and speeded up.
We are very different: this used to enchant us and now it baffles us. We are of different faiths and different politics. I worry about money and he doesn’t. I am a workaholic and he is laconic. He has a sense of humour and I don’t. He is a country mouse and I am a town mouse. He is insomniac: when he sleeps I am awake, and vice versa.
I only wanted one child and he wanted a pile of them – and for us to all live in a converted windmill.
I think he feels this most keenly at this time of year and I feel terrible guilt. Then I feel angry because he made me feel guilty. It’s like table tennis with negative emotions. Or the sea; the tide goes out and, every time it does, it goes farther.
Two years ago, he had a brief affair because he was lonely. Though he told me about it and said he was sorry – he said he loves us both – we have lived on sinking sands since.
Though he is kind to me now – there was a time when he wasn’t – I used to trust in his love and now I don’t. I miss the way he used to look at me as if I was something infinitely precious. I miss him touching me.
We don’t really fight any more, which is a sadness in itself. There’s life in fighting. Though I am glad we can be peaceful – if only for the sake of our son – it still feels like a defeat.
I am in that place where I don’t want to leave but I don’t really want to stay, either. Divorced people are poor. I can’t give up on our shared life yet; I don’t want to hurt our son, though I think he knows. Without consciously knowing, he knows.
For our wedding anniversary last month, he bought us an enormous card with our wedding photograph on it. It cost him all his pocket money. I look at the picture – I am nestling in my husband’s arms, my eyes closed, his chin is in my hair – and I wish we could go back to that day and start again.
When I tell my husband that he looks incredibly sad, as if I am wishing for something I can never have again. But it’s Christmas and we are trying, because not trying is even sadder than trying and we are still here, after all. If I struggle to clean our beautiful house, the setting of our shared fantasy of happiness, I steel myself to.
Why would I clean it for the estate agent – presuming we do leave it – and not for us? I think of my grandmother’s dictum: when in doubt scrub a floor. Any floor. Do it for self-respect, if nothing else.
And always wear perfume. (I stopped when our son was born, but I just bought myself a bottle of Chanel No 5. Is this trying, Nana?)
Kindness, says my therapist, be kind to each other. See what happens, says my sister. He still loves you, says my mother. I have to trust in that.
So I am up for Christmas, at least in my best moments. We got the Christmas tree early this year in a mad, excited dash, and I got the decorations out of the attic. They make me wistful – we collected them together – but I try to find joy in the placing of them and the undeniable beauty of the tree. I think it’s our best yet.
We have listened to Christmas music, religiously, from December 1. My favourite festive song is Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, because Judy Garland, who had a lot of problems of her own, sings it with hope: Hang a shining star upon the highest bough. And I do.
Presents are tricky, partly because I am so anxious about money. He doesn’t buy me clothes because the first time he bought me a dress, shortly into our marriage, it was three sizes too small and I wept with shame.
Even now, I don’t think he realises that I was angry with myself, not him, when I looked at the tiny, pretty dress: I was not worthy of his gift. Perhaps that is why I look so awful: he is too scared to buy me clothes and I’m too scared to buy clothes anywhere but Sainsbury’s where a dress is £25 at most.
He asks me what I want, like an Amazon page, and he buys it for me, like a transaction. I can’t really complain. I get what I wanted, but it’s not really what I wanted.
I buy him clothes, like a mother: good jumpers, trousers, warm pyjamas. (We sleep in separate rooms now. I hate this, though he says sleeping together worsens his insomnia.)
I feel I can’t afford to give him what he really wants, but perhaps I am being too hard on myself. He wants an Aston Martin. Don’t we all? (When we were happy, I bought him a Playmobil one. In my worst moments I am glad he only has a toy Aston Martin.)
Last week I found myself staring at socks in a department store. He asked for socks and detective novels about people who get killed. It’s the British way of siphoning off your pain. (I know he suffers, too.)
That was fine: I read him a list of best-of-the-year and he chose what he wanted. But the socks are a problem. The only pair in his size are boring and red. I hear Nana’s voice again: red socks don’t say love, dear. It seems like our mistrust has passed into our shopping: we don’t trust each other’s surprises and we don’t trust in our ability to enchant each other. Our presents are somehow frightened.
I will look for a surprise gift but even at that I feel afraid. I worry that nothing I have ever bought him made him happy. As you can hear, the places between us are tender and hurt. But I want a happy Christmas or, rather, in my maddest moments I think: perhaps we can be happy while also being unhappy. Does that even make sense?
On food, we compromise like adults: my favourite rib of beef last year, his favourite Beef Wellington this year. I hate Beef Wellington, actually, but it’s not worth a fight. That’s a life plan for the ages, eh?
When you are in an unhappy marriage, you always learn what’s worth a fight. He made Christmas cake with our son and we all made cakes for the local food bank. Remember: there are desperate people out there who can’t afford one family home, let alone two divorced people homes. And they certainly can’t afford a Christmas.
Now our son has broken up from school, we are busy. I have promised something each day: a Christmas market; It’s A Wonderful Life at the cinema; Midnight Mass; mucking about with his friends; football, but not with me. (When he shoots the ball at me, I usually scream ‘medic’! I am a terrible wimp.)
On Christmas Eve we are going to Marks & Spencer before it closes, to see if it is true that all the food is deeply discounted with half an hour to go. Oh joy!
I want to spend time with our enchanting son. I couldn’t wish for a better one and, above everything, I am so sorry this has happened to him.
Only my mother is coming for Christmas this year – I think she is coming for our son’s sake, though she is too tactful to say so – and I’m relieved.
Though I like his family very much – they are kind, restful people – it’s fewer people to pretend for. Sometimes when I am with them, I over-compensate, and insist on holding hands with him, and then I wonder if I am mad. They probably think the same. I can’t ask them. They wouldn’t say.
We will get up early to open the presents because our son can never wait past 7am. His main present is a drum kit so, if we fight, he can drown it out. I want him to make a noise in life.
My husband will sort out lunch – he’s a wonderful cook; I fell in love with him over a shoulder of lamb – and I will clean up.
We will walk the dog while Mum snoozes by the fire. At least the dog will be happy because he will be full of Beef Wellington. But then he’s never been in love.
Then the King’s speech – he’s had a lousy year, too, poor man – and Christmas TV of every kind.
Then it’s Boxing Day, which is supposed to be depressing – a sort of national hangover day – New Year’s Eve and 2025.
I can’t really say I am in a position to advise anyone about how to have a happy-ish Christmas in an unhappy marriage.
I know so many married people who are lonely or heartbroken, and don’t know if they will make it to the next Christmas. But isn’t it worth the trying, particularly with a child? The bet on spring bringing something new? That you might recover what you lost?
I do know that I am happier when I do not allow myself to get angry, and I know it is a choice; when I get on with my own day and my own projects and do not wallow in sentimental self-harm.
Perhaps I will just read a book and listen to carols while wearing Chanel No 5. I just hope Silent Night doesn’t finish me off.
