What becoming a walkaway wife did to my children

When women tell me they could never leave their marriage because of the children – I hear that a lot and, yes, it is always from women – my response is, ‘But maybe you should leave for your children.’

That’s what I did.

If that makes it sound like an easy decision, let me be clear – worrying about my children was the absolute hardest part of splitting up. I suspect people don’t really want to hear how awful it is, but I refuse to sugar-coat the tricky bits: I cried more over my kids than anything in my whole life.

But that is still not a reason to stay in an unhappy marriage. As parents, we live by the adage, ‘I must be a great role model’. You want to bring up your kids to be amazing human beings, and part of doing that is by being a decent person yourself. So, don’t drink too much, don’t be rude to the waiter, don’t shoplift, don’t murder anybody… Basically, be good and kind to other people. But I don’t think it occurs to anybody to question: what sort of role model am I for my children’s personal relationships?

Three months before I told my husband I wanted a divorce, we went on a family summer holiday and I remember watching other people – and you know what? They were really laughing, just so clearly enjoying being with each other. It was the loneliest I’ve ever felt because we didn’t have that.

Then came the realisation that my three children had no idea what happy looked like because they never saw it in their parents. Their home life wasn’t hostile or violent, it was just… flat. My marriage was empty. Grey. There was a bleakness that was slightly toxic and by staying together we were normalising that for our daughter and two sons.

Many people have argued that if our children didn’t witness screaming rows, surely it can’t have been that bad. But for kids to see their parents not unhappy, but also not happy, and for people to think that’s acceptable, means we’re perpetuating a myth that you shouldn’t rock the boat.

My children had no idea what happy looked like, as they never saw it in us, writes Kat Farmer (blazer, Never Fully Dressed)

I don’t think it occurs to anybody to question: what sort of role model am I for my children’s personal relationships? writes Kat

It is ingrained in us that the perfect upbringing for our children is in a home with two parents. The negativity is right there in the term ‘broken home’…

I could have stayed on the treadmill, just kept going through the motions, but that would become part of their DNA.

I needed to break the cycle. I want my kids to aspire to be completely in love with somebody. Not put up and shut up because that’s neater for everyone else.

I am a child of divorced parents myself. I found out my dad was having an affair with my best friend’s mum when I was six and I told my mum but he didn’t leave until I was 11. So I went into marriage thinking, ‘Well, that’s not going to happen to me.’ In one respect you try harder, because you don’t want to ‘fail’ but you possibly put up with more, because that’s what you grew up with. But once you make the decision to leave, you realise your children will be fine because you were, too.

My golden rule for protecting your kids is to work towards an amicable split and be a grown-up. Even when that means making really hard decisions. My ex didn’t want to sell the family home and each buy a new property, so that ended up with me moving out – and the judgment was off the scale. People act like you’re a harlot. I may as well have been Myra Hindley in an apron. The assumption is that you must be an awful person if you’ve left your kids.

Ironically, I was actually a horrible person when I was living at home with them. I once cut the plug off the TV when they wouldn’t turn it off and come for dinner. I would shout at them until my throat hurt. That’s not that they weren’t being little s***s sometimes, but I should not have lost my cool so easily and I will always regret that. At the time, though, I simply didn’t make the connection that it was due to me being so unhappy.

Being horrible towards the end of my marriage is the thing I feel most guilty about. It’s hard to be a nice person when you’re miserable, and it’s hard to be a good parent when you feel angry all the time; I was so quick-tempered, everything irritated me. And that feeds into your children. I thought I was hiding it so well, but my children are not stupid.

Roll forward four years and my kids and ex-husband agree that leaving was the best decision I ever made, writes Kat

I’m much nicer now that I’m calmer. I don’t lose my temper because the red mist just doesn’t descend any more. That my frame of mind is so different is down to me being genuinely happy.

Nevertheless, when other women – never men – discover I was the one to leave, they have called me selfish to my face and said things like, ‘I couldn’t ever not be with my kids.’ But one was at university, one at boarding school and one lived at home – yes, with his dad, his other parent! To one particularly insensitive interrogator I replied, ‘Have you ever thought how unselfish it is to cry every single day because you miss your children, but knowing you’re doing the right thing for them?’

I’ve said to men who’ve left, ‘Have you ever been asked why you didn’t stay with the kids?’ And they’re like, ‘Are you joking?’ Nobody ever asks a man.

My other non-negotiable is to never bad-mouth the other parent to your children, because you can’t ever take that back and they will never unhear it. Your kids are 50/50 the two of you and will instinctively feel like you’re criticising them. I accept it was easier for us to be civil because nobody else was involved. With affairs there is an extra level of betrayal.

We discussed how we would tell them together, because there is a huge difference between kids suspecting something is up and it becoming a reality. No matter if one person triggered the split, the children don’t need to know. All they need to know is that there’s going to be a change to their living situation.

We calmly sat them down and said we needed to chat to them about something. We explained that me and their dad were still friends, but we weren’t going to do things together any more. But let’s be frank, when we did things together as a family, it wasn’t that great.

There’s no blueprint for how children will feel about their parents divorcing. Our three reacted differently – one was shaken, the other two were like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ It depends on your child’s personality. Roll forward four years and my kids and ex-husband agree that leaving was the best decision I ever made. I’m a much better mum and, at last, I have the relationship with my children that I always wanted.

My children say, ‘You are so much less stressed. You are so much more relaxed.’ My ex and I are both happily in new relationships and seeing us with our partners, the kids say, ‘What on earth were you doing together?’

My daughter’s 21st party recently could not have been more perfect. There was my ex-husband and his partner, me and mine, my ex-mother-in-law, all our kids, and my daughter’s friends. And it was weirdly normal, better than I ever could have expected.

When you’re in the middle of divorce, it will be the most awful thing you go through. I can’t make that better. I don’t know a single person who has said, ‘Yep, I left and it was totally fine.’ There will always be something so soul-destroying you don’t know how you’ll carry on.

But you keep on running through that wall because eventually you will get to the other side. And nobody on the other side ever says it’s worse.

★ If you have any questions you’d like to ask Kat or topics you want her to cover, write to her at editor@you.co.uk

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Hair: Dayna Vaughan-Teague

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