Divorce: I had to start my life at 50…

After staying married for a long time, how easy or difficult is it to move on after a divorce? I talk to a woman who divorced her husband of 30 years. She talks about the challenges she encountered while in marriage and about her life after divorce.

“After 30 years with him, I just had to call it quits. I was thinking of my own happiness. It was a decision that I had made after many thoughtful years. When the day came, I had no choice but to move out,” says a 58-year-old woman who insists that she remains anonymous.

She is a Blantyre-based retired administrative assistant who is currently operating a cross-border trade business. She says she got married at the age of 25 to a man who she describes as a father and a friend to her children.

She says starting life again after a divorce is as messy as the divorce itself. She says it’s never easy when a marriage or significant relationship ends and the fact that hers was a late divorce made things even worse.

Her story echoes that of many women who have endured ‘difficult’ marriages for the sake of the children. After being out of the marriage for eight years, she classifies all divorces as the same.

“If a marriage is good, it will bring the best in most women. But if the marriage is not, the woman will rot. This makes the children to grow up in an environment that is not good for them,” she says.

She, however, says that a late divorce is a worst experience as she got hers when she was 50 years old. She claims she has not only endured ridicule from society but also from members of her own family.

“Whatever the reason for the split and whether you wanted it or not the breakup of a relationship can turn your whole world upside down and trigger all sorts of painful and unsettling feelings. But I told myself to never regret the decision that I had made. I got out of the marriage because my husband loved to use charms.

“At the beginning, I never saw anything wrong until our first born got mad as a result of these charms. I pretended that everything was normal. He would even sleep with other women and do all kinds of weird things,” she says.

For 20 years, she says, she kept this to herself but it haunted her.

“When my first born daughter who was12 at that time got mad, it dawned on me that this pursuit of wealth was not right. I became like a cursed person. My husband would shun my bed and sleep with other women in the name of getting riches,” she says.

She further says while her first years of marriage were good, she regrets too many things, but believes she got out of the marriage in time.

She says she was not late or early, but that everything happens for a reason.

“I lost my first daughter just a year ago, but life has been better. Of course once in a while, I get that look from people who know me, but what can I do? Most people feel I should not have gotten out, saying I am too old to stay on my own. But I am happy. If I am dying anytime soon, I want peace of mind with my God,” she says.